Bryan McMahon, former judge of the High Court, received his BCL and LLB degrees from University College Dublin before accepting a fellowship to Harvard Law School, where he was awarded the LLM in 1965. Mr Justice McMahon was subsequently Professor of Law and Head of the Department of Law in University College Cork for 20 years. In 1987, he went into private legal practice, while holding a part-time professorship at University College Galway. In 1999 he was appointed to the Bench as a Judge of the Circuit Court and in 2007 to the High Court, from which he retired in April 2011. Mr Justice McMahon has co-authored many legal texts, including Law of Torts, Casebook on Irish Law of Torts, European Community law in Ireland, etc. Mr Justice McMahon has chaired, at the request of the government, The National Crime Forum, the National Archives Advisory Council, and Referendums for the Amendment of the Constitution. He has lectured extensively in Europe and USA on a variety of legal topics. He is currently Chair of the Governing Body of University College Cork, and a former Chairman of the Abbey Theatre, Ireland's national theatre.

He was awarded an LL.D ( honoris causa ) by University College, Dublin in 2012. William Binchy is a practising barrister. He was Special Legal Advisor to the Irish Department of Justice (1974-1976), Research Counsellor to the Law Reform Commission (1976-1992), Regius Professor of Laws, Trinity College Dublin (1992-2012), Commissioner, Irish Human Rights Commission (2001-2011), Visiting Fellow, Corpus Christi College Cambridge (Michaelmas term, 2002) and Visiting Fellow, Institute of European and Comparative Law, Oxford (June, 2011).