Who Protects the Public When Regulators Break the Law?
- Odtojan Bryl Lawyers
- 2 days ago
- 14 min read
Updated: 14 minutes ago
There is no greater injustice than being punished for doing the right thing, reporting misconduct to the very regulatory body created by statute to uphold the law, promote justice, protect the public, and ensure integrity within the legal profession.
I never set out to be a whistleblower. I was doing what any reasonable, law-abiding solicitor would do: I reported serious improprieties by legal practitioners, court officers, and even unqualified persons who were impersonating lawyers in court who were charging lawyers rates, tampering with court documents, misleading the court, and fabricating account statements.
Since 2016, I’ve submitted detailed reports to the Office of the Legal Services Commissioner ("OLSC") and the Law Society of NSW Professional Standards Department ("PSD") which all relate to Piper Alderman (approx. 180 year old law firm) and Credit Corp Group / Credit CorpServices Pty Limited.
Instead of investigating, they concealed the reports and evidence, then turned against me, using my status as a solicitor to punish me.
I became the target. I became the whistleblower.
What followed was full retaliation, unlawful and vindictive action taken against me, my partner, Artem Bryl, and our firm, Odtojan Bryl Lawyers. In an instant, clients were left unrepresented. We have unblemished records and had never faced disciplinary proceedings before NCAT.
The regulator fabricated unfounded allegations of misconduct and non-disclosure of our renewal application with the clear intent to prevent us from continuing to practise law, stripping us of our livelihood and dismantling my legal practice that had served the community for 12 years with integrity.
In doing so, the Law Society of NSW deliberately bypassed Chapter 5 of the Legal Profession Uniform Law (NSW) ("Uniform Law"), the statutory framework designed to protect practising solicitors from regulatory abuse and ensure allegations are brought before an independent and designated tribunal, NCAT. This process exists to guarantee procedural fairness, the right to be heard, and the right to defend oneself before impartial adjudicators.
From the moment we received the first letter from Ms Griswold of the Law Society’s PSD, our fate was sealed. There was clear intent to remove us as solicitors. Unlawful actions had already been taken against our practising certificates and renewal applications.
Soon after, we were silently erased from the Law Society's database, any trace of us as legal practitioners vanished. Our membership fees were banked, but we received nothing in return. These actions were carried out by ambush. Every notice we sent, every request for clarification or particulars, was ignored. We were treated like ghosts, erased without due process, left without a voice.
We are witnessing systemic lawlessness committed by those entrusted to uphold and enforce the law. Officers of the Law Society of NSW, tasked with protecting the public and the legal profession, have instead weaponised their powers to target, erase, and silence two innocent solicitors. This is not regulation. This is corruption in plain sight.
Instead, the Law Society acted as accuser, judge, and jury, issuing punitive decisions without any lawful determination by NCAT. This conduct demonstrates contempt for the rule of law, due process, and natural justice.
No amount of law, evidence, or formal notice could deter them. Their actions were not regulatory errors, they were personal, vindictive, and deliberate. The refusal to renew our practising certificates was not based on findings or lawful process, but on subjective and unfounded allegations fabricated to justify retaliation. We had no disciplinary history, no findings of unsatisfactory professional conduct or professional misconduct, and had never been before NCAT.
This was not merely about us. It was about self-preservation. The Law Society PSD and the OLSC had long been covering up serious reports of misconduct and criminality, including matters we raised involving false documents, impersonation of lawyers, breaches of credit laws, and systemic failures in legal regulation.
By retaliating against us, they shielded those implicated, including powerful organisations (Piper Alderman, Certus Partners, Credit Corp Group, St George Bank and Westpac), and officers of the court.
They misled Parliament in their annual reporting by omitting these disclosures and failed their statutory obligations under s 465 of the Uniform Law, which requires them refer suspected offences to authorities/Police. By concealing those reports, and retaliating against the whistleblowers, who are also victims and witnesses, the Law Society of NSW Law Council and PSD became accessories to serious wrongdoing.
Their conduct potentially obstructed justice and interfered with proper Commonwealth enforcement of federal credit laws, offences that, if adjudicated properly, could have attracted penalties payable to the Commonwealth.
What took place was not regulation. It was corruption under colour of law, a systemic abuse of statutory power to silence whistleblowers, protect vested interests, and conceal institutional misconduct.
In 2022, we turned to the courts to seek justice and remedy serious wrongdoing by my former legal representatives, Mr Nicolas Ford (Coram Chambers), Mr Thomas Glynn (Glynns Lawyers), and Mr Miles Condon SC (New Chambers). All three were introduced into my case at Mr Ford’s insistence. I later discovered they had been retained not to advance my case, but to protect Mr Ford’s own misconduct and fraud against me.
2016 Local Court
In 2016, Mr Ford and Mr Glynn had hijacked my case, like a trojan, on the day of the final hearing, they placed me at the back of the courtroom, always representing to me that they would argue my case, disputing the existence of a credit contract as pleaded by Credit Corp/Piper Alderman in its Statement of Claim (SOC), their non production of the credit contract which they admitted at all times they would produce under the notices to produce (x3), court orders (x3), but they never produced such contract including insurance contract and other particulars and documents under the said notices to produce and orders which were all made by consent by Credit Corp and its lawyers (Piper Alderman). Such issues were still outstanding and were to be put to the court attention at the final hearing.
But, instead of disputing the existence of a credit card and presenting Credit Corp's failures to produce their material contract they relied upon, being the central real issue of the proceedings where the cause of action to be proven is a breach of contract.
Mr Ford and Mr Glynn instead, gave evidence at the bar table, representing that a contract had been received by his client on 12 January 2015. Such statement eliminated the dispute of the existence of the contract and its non-production by Credit Corp and its lawyers.
Mr Ford and Mr Glynn used their positions as lawyers to override and silence their client, effectively denying their client from presenting their case and to have a fair hearing. Despite years of raising key issues, such as the non-production of the alleged contract, insurance documents, pre-contractual documents, authorities for Credit Corp to engage with third parties and contraventions of credit laws, Mr Ford and Mr Glynn presented an entirely different case at the final hearing.
With a single statement at the bar table, Mr Ford conceded the existence of a contract, erasing the core dispute and abandoning the case their client had pursued since 2014 when the proceedings were commenced by Credit Corp.
Mr Ford’s statement that a contract was received was unsupported by any evidence, there was no evidence produced by Credit Corp, no evidence from me, and no terms of contract in dispute. It was a bare assertion made at the bar table.
Despite this, and without asking Mr Ford or opposing counsel Mr Hartford Davis to identify the documents relied upon, Magistrate Sharon Freund referred to the existence of a “contract” approximately 75 times in her judgment. These references were made without any evidentiary foundation, as no such contract was ever before the court.
Mr Sebastian Hartford Davis, counsel for Credit Corp/Piper Alderman, was a former employee of Piper Alderman and a colleague and friend of Mr Ford, having trained at the Bar together. At the final hearing, Mr Hartford Davis failed to produce or prove the existence of the alleged contract that Credit Corp had pleaded and materially relied upon since 2014.
Throughout the two-day hearing, Mr Sebastian Hartford Davis sat at the bar table with Ms Natalie Miller, a paralegal and JP from Piper Alderman. At all material times, Mr Hartford Davis knowingly misled the court by referring to Ms Miller as a solicitor and his "instructing solicitor," despite knowing she was not a solicitor.
In open court, Magistrate Freund allowed Ms Miller to physically handle and tamper with evidence at the bar table. Ms Miller altered the exhibit by circling signatures previously identified by me at the witness box and then added approximately three new pages containing additional signatures, which were handed up and tendered as evidence. This occurred under Magistrate Freund, without objection from Mr Ford or Mr Glynn. The conduct breached the administration of justice and contravened the Evidence Act.
At the time, I was stunned and confused. I had never witnessed anything like it, yet no objections were raised. I did not yet grasp the extent of what was unfolding in court, nor how it would shatter my perception of the legal system in NSW, Australia. It was only much later, after the proceedings had concluded and the damage was done, that I discovered the extent of the actions taken, through my inspection of the court file.
Mr Ford insisted that I retain Mr Glynn for the hearing and later retained Mr Miles Condon SC for appeal advice. He delayed organising a conference until the last two days of the 28-day appeal period, 12 September 2016. At the conference, Mr Condon asked me, “What are your appeal points?” He had no documents or case file before him apart from the judgment of Magistrate Freund. I had waited nearly a month since August for appeal advice, as Mr Ford maintained it was necessary to engage Senior Counsel. A Senior Counsel rate is approximately $6,000 per day.
One of the first statement from Mr Condon SC was:
'"Tell me please, what was the point or points, the critical ones, which she fucked up, excuse the French, that will get a judge in common law interest, What will it be?'.
He further asked:
"I can’t point to the magistrate misusing her position, Nick hasn’t told me, I can’t see, you haven’t told me of anything which is a real fuck up in terms of the factual findings made by the magistrate."
When Mr Bryl and I questioned Magistrate Freund’s repeated reference to a “contract” in her judgment, despite no such evidence being produced, Mr Condon SC sought confirmation from Mr Ford, who admitted that in court “no contract, no pre-contractual documents were produced at the hearing.”
At the conference, neither Mr Ford nor Mr Condon presented any contract to me and Mr Bryl. This was confusing, given that the central issue in my case was the non-existence of a contract.
However, later that evening, I received an email from Mr Glynn, who had been absent since the final hearing but was still representing me, attaching a written appeal advice signed by Mr Ford and Mr Condon SC. Contrary to their earlier statements in conference, they now claimed that an unsigned written contract existed, and directed me to file a NSW Supreme Court summons on that basis.
Seeking clarification, I wrote to Mr Ford, Mr Glynn, and Mr Condon SC, as their appeal advice referred to an alleged contract without providing particulars or evidence. I requested production of the document they claimed existed. None of them responded. By the time I commenced a damages claim against them in the District Court in 2022, they remained silent and failed to answer or produce the contract for nearly six years. To this day, the issue remain unresolved.
Sep 2022 - 2023: NSW District Court Court & NSW Court of Appeal
In 2022, I exercised my legal right to access the courts by filing a claim against my former legal representatives, Mr Ford, Mr Glynn, and Mr Condon SC. However, the very system entrusted to administer justice was perverted and used against me and Mr Bryl.
A leave to appeal hearing is typically a short procedural matter, often decided on the papers in chambers. If a hearing was afforded, the parties were limited to 20 minutes to present their arguments. I specifically requested for an oral hearing due to serious issues that needed to be ventilated, including misleading statements made at the bar table by Mr Anthony McInerney SC of New Chambers at the interlocutory hearing in the District Court.
Mr McInereny SC asserted, without any supporting evidence, that the contract in question was based on secondary evidence. This directly contradicted his own client’s written appeal advice given in 2016, signed by Mr Condon SC and Mr Ford, which explicitly stated their reliance on a contract, specifically that of an unsigned written contract which they had also directed me to record in a summons to the Supreme Court of NSW.
Rather than addressing these contradictions, the Court of Appeal Justices Leeming and Kirk (in the Condon 2023 leave to appeal case), and by Justices Basten and White (in the Ford and Glynn 2023 leave to appeal cases) disregarded the law, excluded evidence and facts that supported my case, and failed to question the shifting positions of the defendants. Worse still, they used our own appeal grounds against us. They created new factual narratives and invented evidentiary content in favour of the respondents, Mr Ford, Mr Glynn, and Mr Condon SC, who were not present at the hearing and gave no evidence.
In their written reasons, the judges presented the respondents as innocent and portrayed me and Mr Bryl as vexatious litigants making unfounded allegations, despite substantial documentary evidence to the contrary being on the record before them.
All three defendants filed Notices of Motion under Rule 13.4 of the UCPR in the District Court, seeking to strike out my claim as vexatious, frivolous, and lacking foundation. Each application was dismissed, and the matter was allowed to proceed. However, under a separate Rule 14.28 application, Judge Norton, without clear legal reasoning, struck out my pleaded causes of action, reducing my case to the issue of appeal advice alone, a claim which I had not pleaded. Although Judge Norton acknowledged on the record that the matters involved criminality, she simultaneously removed the very pleadings that raised those issues, which supported my causes. of action: fraud, intentional negligence, and civil conspiracy.
In the NSW Court of Appeal, the judges disregarded the District Court’s actual ruling and improperly and covertly revived the 13.4 narrative, despite it no longer being a live issue. This misrepresented the procedural history and was used to discredit the merits of my case, while ignoring both the pleadings and evidence on the court file.
The justices defamed us. They made adverse and disparaging remarks about our character, and then referred both of us, two innocent solicitors with unblemished records, to the Office of the Legal Services Commissioner (OLSC) for investigation. At the same time, they concealed serious, indictable offences such as the tampering of court documents. In doing so, the justices effectively engaged in acts that constitute offences against the administration of justice.
They knew what they were doing.
The said judges were given notice, via affidavit and email, of the errors and falsehoods in their records. Instead of correcting the record, they disregarded it and further crafted false narratives designed to publicly humiliate us and destroy our reputations.
They used the weight of their judicial office to protect misconduct and retaliate against whistleblowers, victims and witnesses believing that the public would never dare question their honesty or integrity.
Lawyers Weekly, which maintains a commercial relationship with Piper Alderman and DLA Piper, both of which have lawyers implicated in the related proceedings, published a sensationalised article that reproduced false records from the Court of Appeal judgments with apparent intent to cause reputational harm.
The article included personal details such as marital status, firm name, and LinkedIn profile photographs, further compounding the damage. Despite being promptly contacted and notified by us regarding serious factual inaccuracies in the judgments, Lawyers Weekly chose not to disclose this to the public. This omission shows a wilful disregard for fair reporting and demonstrates a lack of journalistic integrity.
Rather than acting in the public interest, Lawyers Weekly promoted the interests of parties with whom it has commercial affiliations, at the expense of truth, fairness, and the right to a fair hearing.
These acts by the said Justices did more than deny us justice, they struck at the heart of the rule of law.
Judicial authority was weaponised to shield wrongdoers, silence and discredit victims, witnesses and whistleblowers, and punish those who lawfully exercised their right to access the courts.
The justices involved have a positive legal and ethical duty to self-report under their judicial oath. Their continued presence on the bench risks further harm to those who appear before them and erodes public trust in the integrity of the justice system.
OLSC/Law Society of NSW PSD and Law Council
Following the referral from the NSW Court of Appeal, we were directed to the OLSC and the Law Society PSD, where a new layer of unlawful acts unfolded. Fabricated allegations of ‘misconduct’, 'prior misconduct' and 'findings of misconduct' were manufactured against us, despite no formal disciplinary history and no NCAT proceedings.
All three civil proceedings I filed in the District Court in 2022 against our former legal representatives simply disappeared after the leave to appeal hearings before the NSW Court to Appeal, as foreshadowed by Registrar Howard, who had initially attempted to dismiss the cases before service. To this day, no explanation has been provided as to how or why these matters were silently and unlawfully dismissed, without proper process or judicial oversight.
We then faced further unlawful action by the Law Society PSD. Our practising certificates were refused renewal, without a single NCAT hearing, without lawful process under Chapter 5 of Uniform Law, and without any finding of unsatisfactory professional conduct or professional misconduct.
The Law Society fabricated allegations of misconduct and non-disclosure regarding our practising certificate renewal applications, yet failed to initiate any formal disciplinary process before NCAT, as required under the Uniform Law.
Notably, in the very authorities the Law Society relies upon, practitioners accused of non-disclosure and/or misconduct were afforded proper process and brought before NCAT, even in cases where findings of professional misconduct were ultimately made. In one such case, a solicitor who failed to disclose issues regarding her immigration licence was still allowed to continue practising law.
In stark contrast, in our case, there were no disciplinary records, no findings of misconduct, and no proceedings before any tribunal. We were not given any opportunity to be heard or to defend ourselves before an independent body. Instead, the Law Society acted as accuser, judge, and jury, bypassing due process entirely and rendering us unfit to practise based solely on their untested, subjective opinion not grounded in fact or law.
The Law Society knew we were innocent and that they could not succeed against us lawfully, so they proceeded unlawfully.
Despite being on notice and in possession of evidence of judicial misconduct by Justices of the NSW Court of Appeal, specifically, the creation of false records and the referral of two innocent solicitors for investigation without cause, conduct capable of constituting indictable offences, the Law Society failed to refer the matters to the appropriate authorities, as required under section 465 of the Legal Profession Uniform Law.
They also failed to investigate potential breaches of Rules 5 and 32 of the Legal Profession Uniform Law Australian Solicitors’ Conduct Rules. Instead, they concealed the judicial wrongdoing and retaliated against us the victims. witnesses and whistleblowers.
This was a direct and unlawful use of institutional power, resulting in the destruction of our legal careers and the forced closure of a law firm that operated for over 12 years with full compliance, good standing, and an unblemished professional record.
The Law Society of NSW Law Council and PSD weaponised their authority and compromised the Law Society itself, engaging in the very acts of misconduct they are duty-bound to investigate and prosecute.
What you have read and witnessed is lawlessness, within the courts and the legal profession, being normalised by those entrusted to promote justice and protect the rule of law. These individuals have brought the legal system and the profession into disrepute.
But we still stand.
We will hold every officer accountable for the unlawful acts they have committed against us. We are pressing charges, because what occurred was criminal. We are victims of fraud, and this case carries great public importance. We will not allow these individuals to remain in office or continue practising law, where they pose a clear danger to the public.
They have been notified. They have been warned. They were told to self-report their misconduct and corruption. They ignored it.
Now, they will be brought to justice.
They tried to erase us. But we speak louder now. We are bringing forward the evidence, nearly a decade of reports they concealed. And we’re doing it for the public, for the profession, and for the rule of law.
Let me be clear: this is not just a breach of statutory duty, it’s criminal.
The Law Society and OLSC have weaponised their authority to silence whistleblowers, victims and witnesses suppress evidence, and protect those engaged in misconduct.
Now we are faced with the task of seeking justice from the very institution that was meant to protect us—from the lawlessness, misconduct, and criminality we reported to them in good faith.
We are calling for your help.
👉 Sign our petitions https://chng.it/PqDTkGkrVB
👉 Share our story
👉 Support us through our GoFundMe https://gofund.me/c47ee649
👉 LinkTree https://linktr.ee/odtojanbryllawyers
We will not back down.
The law, the truth, and the evidence are on our side.
Corruption may have power, but we have purpose, and we are not alone.
Disclaimer: The notice is based on documents, representations relating to the two solicitors' dealings with LSNSW/OLSC and related reports made by Ms Odtojan and cases in the NSW District Court, NSWCA and Local Court proceedings . The information is subject to change where any corrections, amendments or additional information may be required. For queries, please contact: oblawyers.media@gmail.com
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