A high-flying city lawyer and former Paul Hastings partner has been disbarred after he lied about his credentials.
Denis Thomas O’Riordan claimed he had a first class degree from Oxford and a Masters degree from Harvard and was a member of the New York and Irish Bars. Instead he studied law at the University of East Anglia and qualified as a barrister in London. 

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The deception was discovered when he was at Paul Hastings and applied to join a barristers’ chambers which triggered suspicion and saw him reported to the Bar Standards Board. He was originally suspended him for three years but the harsher penalty was imposed after an appeal by the Bar Standards Board. According to The Telegraph newspaper, the popular lawyer was previously group counsel for Nomura, general counsel for Sumitomo Finance and head of legal for the Republic National Bank of New York. He launched the financial regulatory group for the London office of Cadwalader Wickersham  & Taft.