Darragh O'Sullivan

As Private Counsel, I work with international families and entrepreneurs who need calm, senior-level support without unnecessary complexity. My role is to help clients deal with matters that are urgent, important, high-value and/or sensitive, often acting as a trusted sounding board and taking responsibility for seeing things through properly.

I am based in London and work across Western Europe. I am typically engaged where judgement, discretion and follow-through matter more than a letterhead or a big team. Clients tend to come to me when they want someone who understands and thrives in the detail, but who is also comfortable stepping back and seeing the wider picture.

I trained as a barrister at Lincoln’s Inn and began my career in private practice before moving into an embedded role within a private family office. Working closely with the principal over a long period absolutely shaped how I operate today, which is less as an external adviser brought in ad-hoc for a single issue, and more as a trusted ongoing right-hand presence.

That experience still underpins my approach. My legal training gives structure and rigour. Time spent inside family offices has given me a practical understanding of what genuinely helps day to day, and what simply adds friction.

In practice, I support clients across legal, commercial and operational matters, particularly where those strands overlap. This can include governance and structuring, significant physical assets, projects, or situations that require careful handling and good judgement.

I do not seek to replace specialist advisors. Instead, I work alongside them, helping clients interpret advice, prioritise decisions and ensure that things actually happen. Much of my role involves maintaining momentum, with white gloves. For many clients, this avoids the need to maintain a large internal team “just in case”, while still having access to senior judgement when it is needed.

I established DOS & Co. as a way of delivering this approach through a properly governed, independent platform. It has been built carefully, over time, to support trusted advisory and escrow services without unnecessary complication.

Through the firm, I continue to set strategic direction, develop new structures and services and remain closely involved in delivery. The intention is not to create dependence on any one individual, but to offer continuity, judgement and responsiveness through an institution designed to endure.

Alongside client work, I hold a small number of trustee, board and advisory roles that reflect my interest in governance, stewardship and public responsibility. I have also contributed practitioner insight to selected UK Government consultations relating to construction payments and the protection of retentions in construction.

My arbitration and adjudication practice sits alongside this as an extension of trusted decision-making; my experience sitting as an arbitrator adds significant rigour to the execution of my day-to-day work.

Charitable and philanthropic activity forms part of my wider view of stewardship. In 2016, I founded HQR Ski, an industry-supported initiative that has raised over £100,000 for charitable causes to date. I also sit as the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Commercial Education Trust, a charity in the City of London that exists to help pursue an agenda of instilling "Commercial Ability" in our school leavers and to promote the concept as a benchmark in the evaluation of a successful education - recognising that one of the core purposes of our education system must be to help its participants survive and thrive in the workplace.

As wealth, assets and obligations become more complex, many families and entrepreneurs are rethinking how they access support. My focus remains on providing calm, independent and practical help through structures and in ways that can evolve, adapt and react as those needs change.