John Riordan

Profile

John appears regularly in criminal law, family law, migration law, and public law matters. He is currently a lecturer of public law at the University of Melbourne. He is an experienced advocate, with in depth experience advising on various public law issues, including parliamentary inquiries, and royal commissions. He also appears and advises in guardianship and property disputes.

John also accepts briefs in all areas of criminal law and quasi-criminal law, including regulatory matters, inquests, and council matters. He currently holds an Indictable Crime Certificate.

Before coming to the Bar, John practiced as a criminal lawyer in Victoria for over 10 years. John was a senior lawyer at Victoria Legal Aid and previously worked as solicitor advocate at the Office of Public Prosecutions.

In these roles, John appeared in summary and indictable proceedings in the Magistrates’ Court, County Court, Supreme Court and Court of Appeal. These hearings included pleas, appeals, contested committals and bail applications. John worked on complex and high-profile criminal cases including homicides, drug importation, sexual offences, and fraud.

John also worked as a Manager of Law Reform and Policy at the County Court of Victoria. In this role, John was responsible for briefing and advising the judges of the Court on issues of law reform, as well as preparing the Court’s responses to consultations. John prepared and instructed in all judicial reviews in which the County Court was the respondent.

John was a co-founder of the Mercy Campaign, a movement to support the clemency applications made by Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. John is currently serving as a director on the board of the Capital Punishment Justice Project (CPJP), and was a committee member of Reprieve Australia (now CPJP) from 2010 to 2014.

In 2015 he completed a Master's of Public International Law at Leiden University, and worked at both the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.

John read with Michael Stanton, with Chris Carr SC as senior mentor.