Visiting Professor, School of Law
Sheena Grattan
Visiting Professor, School of Law
Sheena Grattan has almost 40 years’ experience of succession law, trusts, charity law and land law as an academic and a practising barrister, being called to both the Bar of Northern Ireland and to King’s Inns, Dublin.
During her years in academia, Sheena taught a wide range of commercial and property law subjects, with her main teaching interests being Equity, Succession Law and Taxation. She was a council member of both the Irish Association of Law Teachers (also serving as Treasurer) and the Irish Legal History Society (also serving as Northern Secretary). She was also a member of the Law Reform Advisory Committee for Northern Ireland, a member of the Council of Legal Education and the SLS (Servicing the Legal System) Committee.
At the Bar Sheena developed a speciality in wills, trusts and estates and charity law with associated tax. Throughout her years of full-time practice, Sheena retained an interest in both teaching and publishing. She has over 80 publications ranging from articles in peer-reviewed international journals to user friendly guides aimed at lay audiences and including the main succession law and trusts law practitioner texts in Northern Ireland.
With other private client colleagues from the legal and accountancy professions, Sheena was a founding member of the Northern Ireland branch of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) in 2007. She was responsible for the Branch’s acclaimed Education and CPD programme from 2008 until 2018 and served as Chair from 2018 – 2022. She was instrumental in establishing a specific STEP Diploma programme for Northern Ireland, and delivered and examined the legal components since the inception of the programme in 2009 until 2025. She is a recipient of the STEP Founder’s Award.
She was on the steering committee and Editorial Board of the Journal of Elder Law Capacity from 2016 to 2024 and is currently co-editor of the Northern Ireland Conveyancing and Land Law Journal.
Sheena is regularly invited to give lectures and CPD sessions to both branches of the legal profession, to the accountancy and tax professions, to the medical profession and to public bodies and to charities and other voluntary organisations. She was one of only two members of the Bar of Northern Ireland invited to join the Chancery Bar Association (England and Wales) as an overseas member.