Síofra O'Leary

O’Leary was born in Dublin where she completed a Bachelor of Civil Law degree at University College Dublin in 1989. She went on to study at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, where she defended her PhD in European law, titled The evolving concept of Community citizenship : from the free movement of persons to union citizenship, in 1993.^[1]

O'Leary then worked in research at the Universities of Cadiz and London before going on to become assistant director in the Centre for European Law Studies at the University of Cambridge in 1996. O'Leary went on to become a Fellow at Emmanuel College there .^[2][3][4] Starting in 1996 for three years, O'Leary held the position of Référendaire (consultant) at the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg. She then became the "Chef de cabinet" from 2000 to 2004. During her time at the Court of Justice, O'Leary also was a visiting fellow at University College Dublin's faculty of law from 1999 to 2004.^[2] Since 2003, she has been a visiting professor at the College of Europe in Bruges. Her lectures address practitioners, government agencies and academics on fundamental rights, EU law and European Court of Justice practice and procedure. She writes articles on fundamental rights, EU employment law, the free movement of persons and services and EU citizenship.