With the social mores agenda of a rapidly changing nation continuing to excite palpitating indifference in a body politic bent on avoiding criticism, some of the most poignant dilemmas are drifting across the Liffey and into the Four Courts. Nearly always, they come to land on McKechnie's bench. To liberal commentators and to individual litigants who feel their rights have been vindicated in his courtroom, the bespectacled family man with the mellifluous Cork accent is a champion of reason and compassion.

To others, he is the thorn in the side of the status quo.

On Tuesday last, he exposed the legislature's inadequate record once again with his landmark judgment in the case of Mr G, the unmarried father of twin boys taken to England by his partner without prior notice or consent. McKechnie's characteristically long and detailed judgment decreed that Mr G's rights had been violated by her action.

While the lobby of unmarried fathers has now joined the swelling ranks of McKechnie fans, his decision did not, in fact, give carte blanch in law to every man who has ever fathered a child outside wedlock. Like most of his judgments, it was more focused and crystallised than that but it had the seminal effect of exposing the constitution's anachronistic insistence that married couples provide the only recognised family model. There were echoes of the late Supreme Court judge Niall McCarthy's admonishment of politicians for failing to legislate on the abortion issue.

McKechnie was similarly nuanced in the Miss D case, which he began hearing in the first week of last May's general election. The case involved a 17-year-old girl who was pregnant with an anencephalic baby doomed to die within three days after birth. With an abortion bombshell on his hands on the eve of an election, McKechnie conducted a calm, sensitive exploration of the issues and, at the end of it, spent more than an hour-anda-half delivering his judgment that Miss D should travel to England where her pregnancy could be terminated.

Commending her for her maturity and for not pretending that she was suicidal, thereby qualifying for an abortion under the Supreme Court ruling in the X case, he emphasised that the case was not actually about abortion, but about the right to travel. As he droned on in a hot, crowded courtroom, anti-abortion campaigners on the quayside below held aloft placards declaring 'Abortion is Forever' and 'She's a child, not a Choice'.

It was Liam McKechnie, too, who granted leave for a judicial review in November 2004 to Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan in seeking to have their Canadian lesbian marriage recognised by the Irish state. As with Mr G, the judge predicted that "the institution of marriage will be at the core of the case".

In a case taken by an Athy dentist, Lydia Foy, to have her female sex recorded on her birth certificate following gender reassignment surgery, McKechnie concluded in a 130-page judgment which took more than half a day to read into the record that, as Foy had been male at birth, the entry in the births register was correct.

He pointed out that Gender Identity Disorder was an established condition and he expressed the hope that the days of intolerance and sensational reporting of it were long gone.

"He referred to Lydia Foy as 'Miss' throughout the hearing and you could see that he wanted to find a way to rule in her favour but his hands were tied by the law, " recalls someone who sat through the case.

"As it turned out, the European Court changed the law the following week."

Liam McKechnie qualified as a barrister in 1972 and became a senior counsel in 1987. His bar practise was a mixture of commercial and personal injuries law, specialising in medical negligence.

He appeared as the second senior counsel with former High Court president Fred Morris in the famous case of William Dunne, a Co Wicklow child to whom a jury awarded �1m for suffering brain damage at birth in the National Maternity Hospital.

Within the closeknit and some would say elitist profession, he gained a reputation as "a committee man", being twice elected chairman of the Bar Council, beating former attorney general Rory Brady in his first outing. He was elected unopposed despite being described by the Irish Times as "an efficient but lowprofile chairman". He has been a member of the Valuation Tribunal, the board of the Courts Service and the Superior Court Rules Committee.

"Liam's the brightest of the bright. He can see around corners, " says a prominent lawyer. "He never leaves the Four Courts before seven o'clock in the evening. He's in there researching and researching. He's extremely thorough.

He doesn't have party political affiliations. He's ethical, which is something that some of those coming behind him should learn from. 'Waffle' is a word I doubt he'd even know how to spell."

Though he walks with a pronounced limp, colleagues say he never talks about it but some speculate the strength of character he showed dealing with it is evident in his legal career. He swims, plays golf off a handicap of 10 or 12 and is "a real family man with a lot of children".

It is a measure of McKechnie's popularity that the arbitrary pool of sources for this profile only produced one person prepared to say anything slightly negative about him. "I hear he can be a bit dismissive towards people sometimes, " said this source. Someone else who has worked closely with him, however, says: "No, I wouldn't say that at all. He's got a great sense of humour. He's courteous and very charismatic and he doesn't allow himself to be annoyed by counsel, " she adds.

A lawyer involved in a complex planning law hearing in McKechnie's court recalls counsel for the other side making a long and rather convoluted submission, to which the judge replied: "When I was down there, I may have made the same proposition, but I won't have it when I'm up here."

According to a barrister who is friendly with him outside the job, "Liam's very down to earth. I think having children keeps him in touch with reality. His tipstaff calls him 'Liam', not 'Judge', as the others do.

He's got a social conscience. When a new Hybrid Lexus appeared in the car park at the Four Courts and the word went round that it belonged to one of the judges, there were no prizes for guessing straight away that a car designed to be kind to the environment had to belong to McKechnie."

CV

Name: Liam McKechnie
Born: Cork, but living in north Wicklow.
In the news because: He delivered a landmark judgment in the case of Mr G, an unmarried father of twin boys, on Tuesday.
Married: Yes, with "lots of children" who keep him in touch with reality.