Former Melbourne lawyer Norman O’Bryan will not spend a day in jail after being found guilty of trying to swindle a group of pensioners he was representing out of millions of dollars.
The former Queen’s Counsel, from one of Victoria’s most respected legal families, was sentenced to a four-year community corrections order in the County Court on Thursday after being caught overcharging members of the court. Banksia Security class actionmany of them had already lost their life savings.
O’Bryan had faced up to five years in prison. He pleaded guilty to attempted fraud last month.
The four-year community corrections order is equivalent to 600 hours of community work which O’Bryan must complete.
It marks the end of a legal saga which the barrister’s own solicitor, Neil Clelland, KC, had described as “a massive public fall from grace”.
The court heard O’Bryan, who was the attorney for the Banksia class action claimants and the sponsor of the action, used false invoices to significantly inflate the legal fees charged to members and cut any settlement.
Banksia’s 16,000 investors took the plunge after the property lender collapsed in 2012, wiping out $660 million in retirement savings.
The action was settled for $64 million in 2017, with creditors questioning the nearly $20 million in fees that attorneys handling the case, including O’Bryan, tried to charge investors.
The Supreme Court of Victoria launched an inquiry which found that O’Bryan and others involved in prosecuting and funding the case had added unnecessary fees to the legal bill of class action claimants.
O’Bryan, a Rhodes Scholar and attorney often used by the watchdog to handle the most difficult cases, was cleared the legal practice list in 2020.
That same year he returned 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 careers and good reputations before his extra charges were discovered.
Clelland told the court his client had been headmaster of the 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 throughout his legal career – but he turned that attitude on Banksia’s creditors when they tried 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 just for raising concerns that the court later found to be well-founded,” victim Wendy Botsman told the court during O’Bryan’s plea hearing.
“It remains that people who raise legitimate concerns, especially elderly people with normal conditions, should be able to do so without facing 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 a court inquiry into the fees charged by the legal team.
No criminal action has been taken against the other two lawyers involved in the Banksia case, but both were struck off the list of practicing law.
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Sarah Danckert is a leading journalist specializing in corporate investigations and wrongdoing. He is a two-time Walkley Award winner, and has won six Quill Awards and two Kennedy Awards.Connect through X or email address.
