Echoes of Kafka: Why Helena Wolińska-Brus’ Stalinist Show Trials Resonate With My Story
- odtojanbryllawyers
- Sep 4
- 9 min read
The Parallel
Helena Wolińska-Brus became infamous in post-war Poland for her role as a prosecutor in Stalinist show trials, where no matter what evidence you brought, the machinery of power had already decided the outcome. Justice was never the goal; silencing and destroying people was.
The Stalinist show trials resonate with me because the structure of injustice is eerily similar. In my story, it is even more sinister because it is covert, unsuspecting, and happening in a democratic country, Australia, within the civil courts of New South Wales under the guise of the Rule of Law.
The Fraud and Corruption
I faced covert institutional corruption: well-organised, orchestrated, and designed to put a victim of fraud through further fraud disguised as legal processes. False records were created in legal instruments by judicial and regulatory officers. The court system was weaponised to perpetuate fraud, systematically concealed by the very institutions sworn, by oath and statute, to uphold the rule of law and administer justice.
Fraud and corruption are not static. It is like cancer: it spreads until it devours everything or is pulled out.
The Retaliation
Since 2016, I have reported misconduct, fraud in court, impersonation of lawyers by unqualified persons, judicial fraud, corruption, and unlawful acts by those in power, including the legal regulators, the NSW Office of the Legal Services Commissioner, and the Law Society Professional Standards Department.
Instead of investigating the reports and notices and providing the safeguards and protections under the law, I was met with severe retaliation. They went after me, my partner, our livelihood, our business, our law firm, and our family, and by extension, our clients, whose matters and access to justice were directly affected.
Even after stripping our practising rights without due process and without any lawful determination, they continued to retaliate. They targeted our means of survival, our access to court, our Odtojan Bryl Justice Project, and our public disclosure and advocacy initiatives. They have even threatened collateral attacks on our Supreme Court summonses.
The very Law Society officers who conducted the undisclosed internal process, Ms Valerie Griswold (Director of Professional Standards) and Ms Nadya Haddad (Deputy Director), are now making threats that include demands for payment. These are the same officers who shifted the narrative from “misconduct” to “no misconduct,” only to then record in their “view” decisions that we were “unfit.”
In 2022, I brought a tort claim against Mr Nicolas Ford, Mr Thomas Glynn, and Mr Miles Condon SC. These lawyers had made false representations in court and in written advice, referring to a contract that did not exist, and then ignored their client for six years. The claim was filed before the statute of limitations expired.
When I pursued my claim and accessed justice, the courts, I faced further retaliation. In the District Court and later in the Court of Appeal (at a leave-to-appeal stage, not a final hearing). Instead of addressing the evidence and law, the presiding judges redirected the focus to personal and professional attacks on me and Artem Bryl, who advocated for me in the limited procedural interlocutory hearings.
Even Judicial Registrar James Howard attempted to obstruct my access to the court from the outset. He sought to dismiss my case before my claims were even served and before the first court mention date. By email, he notified the defendants of my claim prior to service. He undermined all three of my claims, referring to them as “drafts” when they had been filed with the court. He even directed the defendants to file applications to strike them out.
Throughout his management of my case, he advocated for the defendants: making unilateral orders for their benefit, including directing all three to file objection letters to accompany their strike-out motions. He shielded their lawyers from having to answer issues put to the court. The defendants never appeared in court, nor did they give evidence.
In the NSW Court of Appeal (NSWCA), Justices Mark Leeming and Jeremy Kirk (in the Condon SC matter), and Justices Richard White and John Basten (in the Ford & Glynn matter), falsely recorded that my claim had “no basis”, even though every representation Artem and I made pointed directly to evidence, statute, or case authority. They went further, creating records on behalf of defendants who never appeared in court and never gave evidence.
These distortions were then channelled to the NSW legal regulators.
Once the NSWCA leave-to-appeal determinations were published, Lawyers Weekly amplified the falsehoods contained in the judgments. The justices’ published reasons misled all who read them, including the public at large. Despite being given prompt notice, Lawyers Weekly failed to disclose our correction of false records, a duty that rested with the outlet and its journalist, Naomi Neilson.
Lawyers Weekly also failed to disclose its commercial relationship with DLA Piper and Piper Alderman. Piper Alderman was involved in the 2016 Local Court case, and their improprieties are recorded in my three Statements of Claim. DLA Piper, acting for Mr. Condon SC, tampered with court documents, including my affidavit exhibits, and misled the court. Both firms are directly implicated in my civil proceedings.
After the NSWCA determinations were handed down, my three substantive proceedings in the District Court disappeared, silently removed, without any orders or notices to the parties. The matters were case-managed by Judicial Registrar James Howard.
NSW Legal Regulators
Despite being notified of false records made by NSW Court of Appeal justices, the regulators ignored it. They never investigated, nor did they refer the matter to the proper authorities, even though it concerned offences against the administration of justice. There was no outcome of the NSWCA referral.
How is it possible that a referral from the NSW Court of Appeal, recorded in court orders, can simply disappear without an outcome or notification of whether those matters would be investigated or not?
They never intended to address, investigate, or even assess the court’s referral of possible breaches. Instead, it was clear from the start that they intended only to rely on adverse commentary that cast aspersions on our character. That’s all that found its way into the Section 45 document, just opinions that painted us in a bad light, as if that defined who we were.
It was malicious and premeditated. We had three matters referred, each with over 700 pages of court documents. None of these documents was ever examined or referenced. They didn’t even have my affidavits or emails to the justices. Instead, they misrepresented a folder from DLA Piper, one I alleged contained false records, as if it were my own. They deliberately identified it as “the applicant’s folder” while leaving other parties’ documents vague, showing a clear intent to twist the narrative.
They never intended to engage with the truth. Their plan was always to rely on opinion and character attacks rather than evidence. It’s a premeditated abuse of power.
Instead of applying Chapter 5 due process under the Legal Profession Uniform Law, the Law Society of NSW invented shortcuts. They usurped the roles of Parliament and NCAT, creating unlawful internal processes. They stripped us of our practising rights by mere “views” under s 45, without due process, without any breach of law, conduct, or ethics, without any findings of misconduct, without NCAT hearings, and without lawful determination or notice.
They also usurped the roles of the NSW Police and the Australian Federal Police. My notices concerned matters of indictable offences, including the suspected defrauding of the Commonwealth by Credit Corp and its lawyers, Piper Alderman and Certus Partners, who circumvented credit laws and multimillion-dollar penalties by obstructing adjudication in court.
The regulators had a statutory duty to report suspected offences. Instead, they did nothing. In their Section 45 document, they recorded that we claimed to be “victims” and merely listed the misconduct and improprieties we had reported. They did not acknowledge the reports made to them since 2016. Even in our correspondence, when we pointed out that reports had been made, they ignored it entirely.
We are not only lawyers capable of identifying unlawful acts; we are also witnesses and victims of the regulators’ unlawful conduct, as well as of the very conduct we reported. Hence, we pose a threat to them.
The real danger lies with the regulators and those we reported, who remain in positions of power and authority. They pose a threat to society. As shown in our case, they engaged in shifting narratives, recorded false records, interfered with solicitors’ records, took payments without acknowledgement, and framed innocent people as guilty or “unfit”, all without due process or any lawful determination.
NSW Supreme Court Hearing – 26 & 27 November 2025
The Law Society’s Section 45 “view” of unfitness decision is being challenged for legality under twelve grounds. The matter is listed for hearing in the Supreme Court on:
26 November 2025 (Bryl) and
27 November 2025 (Odtojan).
Through Hicksons Hunt & Hunt, the Law Society filed a vague response, asserting that all grounds are “not made out.” They rely solely on the raw power of s 45 and Rule 13 considerations, claiming they adhered to lawful due process, without citing a section or chapter of the Uniform Law.
They admitted that Chapter 5 was bypassed, claiming there was “no requirement” for it. They also admitted that no findings of professional misconduct or unsatisfactory professional conduct were necessary. Yet under the Uniform Law, the only breaches that can render a lawyer unfit are those determined under Chapter 5.
The question is unavoidable:
How can a legal regulator render two solicitors “unfit” when neither had any prior adverse records, and when no findings of breaches of law, conduct, or ethics have ever been made against them?
No Breaches, Yet Rendered “Unfit”
To render someone “unfit” is not a trivial measure. It is one of the most severe actions a regulator can take, stripping a lawyer not only of their livelihood but of their entire career. Section 45 means immediate cessation of practice: clients are left without representation, and a lawyer is effectively erased from their profession.
In our case, this was done without findings, without breaches, and without due process. This is the ultimate act of institutional overreach, a regulator usurping the role of the courts and Parliament, in a democratic country, to silence those who speak up and report misconduct and improprieties.
And so the question arises, a question many are concerned with, given everything I have endured from the Local Court to the Court of Appeal, and through regulators stripping our rights, silencing us, and subjecting us to undisclosed ambush processes:
Will I ever get a fair hearing?
Will Artem and I ever get a fair hearing?
Exposing the Corrupt, Unlawful Acts
Our case is about more than us. It demonstrates that institutional corruption can and does happen, even in New South Wales, Australia.
Our case shows how corruption and fraud erode the integrity of the legal system and the rule of law when left unchecked and when perpetrators are not held accountable.
What you have just read is not fiction. These are real events. You have witnessed lawlessness and the erosion of the rule of law in NSW.
Why is our case important? Because it records organised fraud and institutionalised corruption carried out by officers of the court and regulators. They have used the court system and misused regulatory powers to conduct an orchestrated retaliation against two lawyers, parties to proceedings, witnesses, and victims, to silence and destroy them.
They know how important this case is, so they discredit the witnesses and victims.
They rely on the assumption that no one will challenge their power and authority. Perhaps this has been their standard practice for years, hidden under the guise of lawful conduct and protected by their positions in office.
But we have never been silent. We have made records and issued notices, records that they have worked hard to bury and conceal. Yet history shows that truth always resurfaces.
We will keep speaking up, recording, and shining light on these matters. Because silence only feeds corruption, and history has shown us the cost of staying silent in the face of machinery designed to erase truth.
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Disclaimer: A public interest disclosure, shared for public awareness and education. Based on the lived experience of lawyers Marie Odtojan and Artem Bryl, witnesses, victims, and whistleblowers who acted lawfully. The matters described are documented true events that transpired in the NSW Local Court, District Court, and Court of Appeal proceedings, as well as within the undisclosed internal process conducted by Ms Valerie Griswold (Director of PSD) and Ms Nadya Haddad (Deputy Director) of the Law Society of NSW and the OLSC. The information is based on court transcripts, court documents, defendants’ representations, written documents, advice, lived experience, and/or honest opinion.
This post is subject to change, where corrections, amendments, or additional information may be required. For queries, please contact: oblawyers.media@gmail.com
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