Once-revered Melbourne barrister Norman O’Bryan will not spend a day in jail after being convicted of attempting to defraud a group of retirees he was representing out of millions of dollars.
The former Queen’s Counsel, from one of Victoria’s most esteemed legal families, was sentenced to a community corrections order of four years in the County Court on Thursday after he was caught overcharging members of the Banksia Securities class action, many of whom had already lost their life savings.
O’Bryan had faced up to five years in jail. He pleaded guilty to attempted fraud last month.
The four-year community correction order equates to 600 hours in community work that O’Bryan must complete.
It marks the end of a legal saga that the lawyer’s own barrister, Neil Clelland, KC, had described as “a most public fall from grace”.
The court heard O’Bryan, who was the barrister for the Banksia class-action claimants and funder of the action, used fake invoices to drastically inflate the legal fees charged to members and the cut of any settlement.
Banksia’s 16,000 investors lodged the class action after the property lender collapsed in 2012, wiping out $660 million in retirement savings.
The class action was settled for $64 million in 2017, with claimants questioning the nearly $20 million in fees that lawyers running the case, including O’Bryan, attempted to charge investors.
The Supreme Court of Victoria launched an investigation which found that O’Bryan and others involved in litigating and funding the case had added unwarranted fees to the class action claimants’ legal bill.
O’Bryan, a Rhodes Scholar and lawyer often used by the corporate watchdog to run its most complicated cases, was struck off the legal practice roll in 2020.
The same year he handed back his Order of Australia for services to charities and declared himself bankrupt. His sprawling home in Canterbury was later sold.
The son and grandson of Supreme Court judges had enjoyed a glittering career and reputation before his excess fee charges were discovered.
Clelland told the court his client had been a director of prestigious private school Carey Baptist Grammar for nearly a decade and a board director of the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute.
O’Bryan was known as a fierce advocate for his clients across his legal career – but he turned that attitude onto the Banksia claimants when they attempted to challenge his fees.
“Being involved in the Banksia case was one of the most difficult experiences of my life. I was made to feel like a target simply for raising a concern that the court later confirmed was well-founded,” victim Wendy Botsman told the court during O’Bryan’s plea hearing.
“It remains that people who raise legitimate concerns, particularly elderly people with modest means, must be able to do so without being subjected to the kind of tactics that were directed at me.”
Another lawyer involved in the alleged fraud, solicitor Mark Elliott, died by suicide in February 2020 amid the court’s investigation into the fees charged by the legal team.
No criminal action has been taken against two other lawyers involved in the Banksia case, but both were struck off the legal practice roll.
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Sarah Danckert is a senior reporter who specialises in investigations and corporate wrongdoing. She is a two-time Walkley Award winner, and has won six Quill Awards and two Kennedy Awards.Connect via X or email.
