Barry Phillips (CEO) BEM founded Legal Island in 1998. Since then, the company has become the leading workplace compliance training company in the island of Ireland. He was awarded a British Empire Medal in the New Year’s Honours List 2020 for services to employment and equality.

Barry is a qualified coach and meditator and a regular speaker both here and abroad.  His Tedx Talk featuring his contrarian view that it’s time to ditch open door policies in the workplace can be accessed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-ryMjGTPj4).

Barry is also an author, releasing his first book titled 'Mastering Small Business Employee Engagement: 30 Quick Wins & HR Hacks from an IIP Platinum Employer' in 2020 alongisde Legal Island MD Jayne Gallagher - you can view the Kindle Version here.

Barry has worked at the European Parliament, the European Court of Human Rights and the International Labour Organisation in Geneva before qualifying as a lawyer in 1993.

He has travelled extensively and lived in a total of eight different countries considering himself to be a global citizen first, a European second and British/Irish citizen last of all.

He lists Russian language and wild camping as his favourite pastimes.

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Jayne joined Legal Island in 2008 and as Managing Director drives the company’s strategic vision. With a passion for people and culture, Jayne is responsible for managing the team and the company towards continued growth and profitability.

Jayne is also an author, releasing her first book titled 'Mastering Small Business Employee Engagement: 30 Quick Wins & HR Hacks from an IIP Platinum Employer' in 2020 alongside Legal Island Chairman Barry Phillips - you can view the Kindle Version here.

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Scott joined Legal Island in 2006 having worked for the Labour Relations Agency in a variety of roles including collective and individual conciliation and enquiry point manager. With over 30 years’ experience in HR and employment law fields, Scott is responsible for the employment law and HR output at Legal Island. Scott designs most of our event programmes and ensures information held on our employment law hub is accurate and up to date. Scott chairs many of our events throughout the island of Ireland and is a regular presenter on employment law matters, as well as an accredited mediator. Scott is a member of the CIPD, a certified member of the Mediators’ Institute of Ireland and a member of the Association for Coaching Ireland.

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As Office Manager Donna's role is large and varied, covering everything from buying the birthday buns to carrying out the risk assessments, staff management, management of the Legal Island Training Centre and the daily running of the office. With Legal Island since 2008, Donna has a passion for helping people and feels her role at Legal Island helps channel this passion, keeping  our employees happy within our office environment. 

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James is a member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, and has been with the company since 2006 heading up the finance function.  Reporting to the Managing Director, James is responsible for providing financial information and analysis to enhance value, communication and trust within Legal Island.

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Kerry joined the company in 2008.  As the Events Director Kerry is accountable for the overall growth, development and management of all Legal Island's events.  She also oversees the Customer Service function, which is the first and last touch point of all our delegates and is a very important part of the overall customer experience.

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We are delighted to welcome Nikki Paterson as our new Events Manager. Nikki was the former Senior Events Planning Manager at Titanic Belfast, where she was responsible for the leadership and management of the 5-Star Events Planning Department. Nikki oversaw and managed all aspects of client communications, planning, logistics, budgeting, and profitability for a wide range of event formats including conferences, awards ceremonies, large scale, and multi-site events for a domestic and international client base. And now she’s bringing those skills to Legal Island events near you from September 2020! 

Nikki will, for obvious reasons, be focusing on online events at Legal Island for the foreseeable future. She’ll be looking forward to welcoming you at all of our events, both online and in-person, this autumn and beyond.

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Peter joined Legal Island in 2010 and heads up the marketing department. Reporting to the managing director, Peter is responsible for managing our day-to-day marketing activities and developing Legal Island's long-term marketing strategy.

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Debbie joined the company in March 2011.  As Legal Island's eLearning Client Executive, Debbie heads up all sales of eLearning and manages the eLearning support team.

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Ali joined the company in May 2021 as Content Writer.  Ali’s day to day role involves writing course content from idea generation to completion, reviewing customer sourced materials, extracting core elements of importance, and developing the written or verbal content for eLearning courses.  Ali is an Associate Member of CIPD.

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Alison joined the team in June 2019 as a Marketing Intern as part of her MSc Marketing degree at Queen's University Belfast before becoming a full time member of staff in September. Alison is responsible for the marketing of Legal Island events in both Northern Ireland and Ireland. Alison's day to day role involves the creation of event pages, designing brochures and marketing on social media.

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Anne-Marie joined Legal Island in 2021, to take up the role of Events Executive. As former Technical Manager for Seamus Heaney HomePlace, Anne-Marie will be bringing those technical skills to deliver Legal Island events.

Anne-Marie's main responsibilities include working with the Events Team to organise and deliver Legal Island’s vast programme of events. Hosting events on the day, Anne-Marie ensures all delegates get the true first class Legal Island experience and looking after all their needs. 

Arnold is responible for the technical side of all Events, the Legal Island App, Webinars and Podcasts.

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Barbara joined the team in 2015 and is responsible for the accounts function of Legal Island. With a background in finance and credit control, Barbara ensures all outstanding monies are received in a timely fashion, keeping the company's credit risk to a minimum.

Christine an employment solicitor with 18 years’ experience in the legal and voluntary sectors, as a solicitor and paralegal, in both London and Northern Ireland. She trained at leading London human rights firm Bindmans LLP and qualified into their employment and discrimination department, before joining the BBC’s in-house employment law team. Christine subsequently worked at LHS Solicitors representing members of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) before taking a career break to run her own small business. Her return to law saw her join the Law Centre (NI) as interim Head of Employment law.

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Glen joined the company in April 2018.  Glen is responsible for marketing within eLearning and deals with all sponsorship and exhibition for Legal Island’s events throughout the year.

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Jenny has been with the team over 6 years and is the face of the Legal Island training centre, supporting customers and events held there.

Julie has worked for Legal Island since 2009. Her responsibilities include ensuring day to day tasks are carried out in the Finance department from processing and paying supplier invoices to reconciling bank accounts and assisting the company accountant in the preparation of monthly accounts.

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Katie joined the company in May 2021 as a Learning and Development Assistant. Katie day to day role involves providing administrative support to the learning and development team, helping to update the Employment Hub and assisting with webinars.

Katie Shaw | LinkedIn

Kellie has been with Legal Island since May 2015.  As eLearning Operations Executive Kellie's day to day role involves the design, development and deployment of the Legal Island suite of eLearning courses.

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Louise joined Legal Island in 2015. As the company's eLearning Support Executive, Louise provides technical support to customers using our eLearning courses, from on boarding right to through to course completion, general upkeep of our Moodle site and dealing with customer queries. 

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Rolanda Markey joined the Learning and Development team at Legal Island in March 2019.  Prior to that she worked for the Labour Relations Agency in Belfast for 17 years as an Employment Relations Officer working in both Advisory (good practice) Services and Dispute Resolution.  Before joining the Labour Relations Agency, she worked in Human Resources in a range of public and private sector organisations.  She is a Chartered Member of the CIPD and has an MSc in Occupational Psychology. 

Vanessa has been with Legal Island for 10 years since moving to NI from London. Her responsibility is all customer service for Legal-Island events - bookings, invoicing and any customer queries.

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