Mayo native named Law Student of the Year 2022
A student from south Mayo has won one of the top accolades for Irish law students.
Luke Gibbons, who hails from Carrowkilleen, Claremorris, was crowned Irish Law Student of the Year at an awards ceremony last week at the Aviva Stadium, Dublin.
The 26-year-old first attended Meelickmore National School until 2009 and then St. Colman's College, Claremorris until 2015.
In 2019, Luke graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a First Class Honours LL.B. and an exceptionally rare Gold Medal in Law. The Gold Medal is Trinity College Dublin's highest academic honour and is only awarded when a student demonstrates absolute excellence.
During his LL.B Luke travelled to Emory University Law School in Atlanta Georgia as an exchange student where he excelled by receiving the only ever A+ that has ever been awarded in the Negotiation and Alternative Dispute Resolution module. This places Luke as the top student out of 800, over the 18 years and 36 semesters that the course has been provided. Professor Michael Athans described Luke's final paper that analysed the negotiations of the Good Friday Agreement as "quite frankly the best final paper we ever received".
In 2021, Luke graduated from the masters BCL in Law Degree from the University of Oxford with Distinction and as the sole Honoré Scholar in Law. The BCL has been a pivotal feature of Oxford’s law provision since the sixteenth century and only admits the very best legal scholars from around the world. By any measure, it is the "most highly regarded taught masters-level qualification in the common law world". (Associate Dean for Graduate Studies (Taught Courses)).
Moreover, Luke commenced his current studies of a PhD in Law at Trinity College Dublin last year under the supervision of Professor Deirdre Ahern. Luke's research follows an investigation of the adequacy of company directors' duties in the face of climatic risks and is very timely.
This year, Luke was awarded an exceptionally prestigious Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postgraduate Research Scholarship to the value of €82,500 to fund the next 36-months of this PhD.
Luke has recently taken up a lecturing position in the School of Law and Criminology at Maynooth University where he is currently lecturing company law.
Next May, Luke will travel to the University of Edinburgh for a two-month research stay as a League of European Research Universities Visiting Research Fellow.