Rossa Fanning

Fanning was appointed Attorney General of Ireland on 17 December 2022, succeeding Paul Gallagher.

Fanning was a lecturer in law at UCD, lecturing in company law and constitutional law, and has written on these topics for the Irish Jurist. The growth of his practice led to him leaving behind teaching. He took part in a panel discussion at the Constitutional Convention in 2014 on the topic of economic, social and cultural rights.

He was called to the Bar in 1999 and appointed Senior Counsel in 2016. He devilled for David Barniville. He specialises in commercial litigation and insolvency. He has been involved in cases involving commercial lettings, defamation, debt recovery, company law, injunctions, repossessions and professional negligence. He has represented Facebook, Google, and Twitter in disputes. He was Rory McIlroy's barrister in a High Court dispute over agreements with his former management company and MCD Productions's barrister when it sought to enforce a judgment against Prince. In his insolvency and corporate recovery practice, Fanning has acted in cases involving CityJet, USIT, Monsoon Accessorize, the Business Post, Debenhams, and Norwegian Air, and was senior counsel for the receivers of Apollo House. He was successful in obtaining a €8.2 million judgment against Bill Cullen for his client Danske Bank in 2012. Fanning was barrister for Michael Fingleton in a debt recovery case taken by former employer Irish Nationwide Building Society. He was a member of the legal team for Seán Quinn and two of his sons in action taken by Anglo Irish Bank but resigned while the case was ongoing. He was defence counsel for the Congregation of the Holy Spirit in a civil action for damages. In 2022, he represented Dany Boon in the High Court in an action to recover money he claimed was fraudulently taken from him.

Rossa A. Fanning (born 1976) is an Irish barrister and legal academic who has served as the Attorney General of Ireland since December 2022. His practice at the Bar has been primarily focused on commercial litigation and insolvency.

Fanning was born in 1976 and is from Leopardstown, Dublin. He attended secondary school at Blackrock College. He studied for a BCL law degree from University College Dublin and obtained a master's degree from UCD where he wrote a thesis on civil procedure. While at UCD, he was returning officer for the University College Dublin Students' Union and was auditor of the University College Dublin Law Society. He studied for an LLM degree at the University of Michigan Law School as a scholar of the Fulbright Program. He attended the King's Inns and was the individual winner of the Irish Times Debate while studying there.