City lawyer exposed as CV fantasist
A TOP City lawyer has been forced to quit after being exposed as a fantasist who made up his glittering CV.
Dennis O’Riordan, 51, enjoyed a high-powered legal career at a string of banks, barristers’ chambers and solicitor firms.
But his CV and professional profiles boasted invented first-class degrees from Oxford University. He also pret ended t o be a Harvard l aw graduate.
The commercial litigator claimed to have attended Radley College before university, and lied that he had taken an undergraduate degree and then a doctorate in philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford.
After being made an Eldon Scholar by the university, he supposedly did a Master’s degree at Harvard and was a member of both the New York and Irish Bars.
He was listed in the Bar Directory as Dr Dennis Thomas Delcaron O’Riordan LLB (Hons) BCL D Phil (Oxon) MA, and his apparently stellar academic background helped him become a partner at two City law firms – Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft and Paul Hastings.
No-one smelled a rat for five years until he used his fabricated CV to apply for a job at an unnamed barristers’ chambers last year. He was reported to the Bar Standards Board, and was recently suspended from practice for three years. It found O’Riordan guilty of ‘conduct which was dishonest or otherwise discredit- able to a barrister’ dating back to March 2007. The five-man panel ruled: ‘He did not attend Oxford University as an undergraduate and was not awarded a BA or BCL or a D Phil or an Eldon Scholarship by that university.
‘He was not awarded a Master’s degree by the Faculty of Law of Harvard University. Further, he is not, and has never been, a member of either the New York or Irish Bars.’
Within 24 hours of Paul Hastings learning of his suspension, O’Riordan was forced to leave the firm. Lawyers who worked wi t h O’Riordan have been swapping stories on legal website RollOnFriday.
One wrote: ‘ Had Gordon Brownstyle eruptions when challenged – now at least we know why. Had plenty to hide.’