Sydney’s best lawyers: Who A-List celebrities have on speed dial
If you’re a big-time celebrity, footballer or bikie and you’re sitting in a police station about to be charged, who are you going to call? These are the lawyers whose numbers are saved in the phones of NRL players and club officials, high-society types and kings of the underworld.
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If you’re a big-time celebrity, footballer or bikie and you’re sitting in a police station about to be charged, who are you going to call?
These are the lawyers whose numbers are saved in the phones of NRL players and club officials, high-society types and kings of the underworld.
NRL PLAYERS
PAUL MCGIRR
Stay busy, don’t stress and don’t speak.
These are some of the golden words of advice Paul McGirr gives his NRL star clients in the moments after they hire him.
Few lawyers have had more success than Mr McGirr in the protection of stricken rugby league players. He is fiercely defensive of their right to a presumption of innocence and to maintain a decent life while the game they love is often taken away from them.
“I try and put them at ease and say ‘look, the reason you’re paying me is to do the worrying for you. If I tell you to start worrying, you can start worrying’,” Mr McGirr said.
“I try and tell them to keep themselves busy, get work with friends, bricklaying if you have to.
“They’re training every day then all of a sudden that’s turned off and that’s when mental health arises because idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”
The list of NSW Origin stars alone he’s represented is impressive - Jarrod Mullen, Michael Jennings and Ben Kennedy to name a few.
DANNY EID
He has shuffled through countless media scrums should-to-shoulder with burley superstars of rugby league over the last 20 years.
Behind the media bluster, solicitor Danny Eid says there is usually a delicate three-way dance occurring between the game’s governing body the NRL, the player’s club and then him, whose lone care is his client’s legal case.
“The politics surrounding the game’s authorities like the NRL and clubs are often a problem for players,” Mr Eid said.
“The clubs are caught in a difficult position. On the one hand they want to be seen as being cooperative with the NRL while also balancing the rights of the individual player.
“I’ve always believed in the presumption of innocence … now it seems to be everyone wants you to prove your own innocence before due process is completed in court.”
He said the NRL can demand a club produce correspondence involving a player, including from the players’ lawyers.
“The lawyer has to be very careful what to include in writing (to the club),” Mr Eid said.
He’s by no means a one-trick pony – Mr Eid has represented accused murderers, frauds, drug traffickers and even police officers.
RAMY QUTAMI
Perhaps the quietest voice with the loudest NRL clients is Parramatta solicitor Ramy Qutami. You’ll rarely see him address reporters outside court but his work has spoken for itself.
Footballers in the most strife in the last few years have called on Qutami, just as Salim Mehajer did numerous times from 2015.
He was former league superstar Jarryd Hayne’s Australian lawyer after an American woman launched a civil lawsuit in which she alleged that Hayne had raped her in his California apartment when he was playing for the San Francisco 49ers in 2015 – a claim eventually settled out of court.
Qutami was drafted into one of the biggest workplace disputes in Australian sporting history last year when Israel Folau hired him when Rugby Australia tried to terminate his $4million contract over a homophobic social media post.
He also represented Manly Sea Eagles player Dylan Walker who was accused of pulling his partner’s hair in a fight over a video game in 2018, then found not guilty at trial.
GANGSTERS AND MURDERERS
OMAR JUWEINAT
For a smooth and compelling advocate with sartorial flare, Omar Juweinat has represented some of the state’s roughest and deadliest accused.
Nicknamed “The Juryrat” for his success in jury trials – and because a judge once mispronounced his name – Mr Juweinat has earned a formidable reputation amongst the profession and the underworld alike. Also considered as the “go to” man for high-end white collar criminals he has taken on some mammoth fraud trials.
He represented John Ibrahim’s cousin Nomads bikie boss Sleiman Tajjour, when he fraudulently obtained a home loan, ex-Labor MP Milton Orkopoulos during his recent parole troubles, axe attacker Evie Amati and Rozelle bomber Adeel Khan.
SIMON JOYNER
What do meth-smuggling Penthouse Pet Simone Farrow, slain terrorist Khaled Sharrouf and contract killer Farhad Qaumi have in common? They all called the same Surry Hills lawyer in their hour of need.
Ex-boxer Simon Joyner, who is in business with firm partner Elias Matouk, has eyeballed some of Sydney’s hardest and most well-known criminals and promised them the sum of his powers to subdue the police evidence against them.
“You’ve got to take (the client) at face value, they’ve got a legal problem and you have to solve it for them, irrespective of what the police or media say about them,” Mr Joyner.
A good lawyer can vanquish seemingly conclusive police evidence, like secretly taped conversations, when the case gets to court.
“I’ve done matters where a police officer will say ‘I’ve got 15 years’ experience and I know they’re talking code about drugs’, then I’ve argued police have no idea what’s being said, and the courts agree with me, it could be something totally unrelated to drugs,” Mr Joyner said.
AHMED DIB
It’s 4am and Ahmed Dib’s phone is buzzing. He answers and tells his client not to speak to police, to exercise their right to silence.
The client starts telling him what happened.
“I cut them off. I tell them there’s what they say happened, what the police say happened and what the evidence says,” Mr Dib said.
“I don’t care what police say, I don’t care what you say, I don’t even want to hear it. All I care about is what the evidence says.”
Mr Dib has some serious criminals who owe their freedom to him. They included convicted fraudster and Comanchero bikie Shane Ross who he helped avoid jail in Campbelltown Local Court in October. Ross was murdered two months later on the Gold Coast in an unrelated incident.
Mr Dib also led the successful case for Osama Hawat – the plumber found not guilty of murder in December over the 2016 shooting of underworld heavyweight Hamad Assad.
CELEBRITIES
BEN ARCHBOLD
Undercover cop, Big Brother TV star and Keli Lane’s lawyer – each of those titles has at one stage or another been true of solicitor Ben Archbold.
Archbold was a detective with Victoria Police at the height of the gangland violence there, then after a flash of reality TV notoriety began a lasting career as a criminal defence lawyer with his own firm.
He has represented men snared in some of the biggest underworld stories of recent years.
Like Moustafa Salami, a tow-truck driver charged in relation to the daylight execution of bikie boss Mick Hawi who he helped get bail. He also represents Steven Elmir, the accused drug runner arrested in the same federal police sting in Dubai which saw the arrest of Fadi and Michael Ibrahim.
“It is like being in the the front seat to the best show on earth. There is never a dull moment,” Mr Archbold said.
“I do not distinguish between the type of clients I represent. Their class, crime or profile do not phase me. And that, along with a great team, I believe, has been the key to my success.”
BRYAN WRENCH
When actor John Jarratt was found not guilty of rape last year he didn’t just walk out of court beside his lawyer Bryan Wrench, he wrapped his arm around Mr Wrench and the pair strode towards the cameras triumphantly.
Mr Wrench’s cunning advocacy, and that of his veteran employer Chris Murphy, has made him immensely popular among celebrities of almost any genre. Socialite, footballer, singer, you name it and he’s guided them through often-terrifying court cases and subsequent press packs.
“It’s certainly a very different catwalk down that runway and nothing can prepare you for it,” Mr Wrench told The Daily Telegraph last year.
Retired Rabbitohs star Sam Burgess has retained him for his current charges that he intimidated his father in law and Shannon Noll used him when he pleaded guilty to drug possession in 2018.
When billionaire Richard Pratt’s socialite ex-mistress Shari-Lea Hitchcock found herself charged with biting a police officer in 2016 she turned to Mr Wrench and beat a conviction on appeal this month.
Originally published as Sydney’s best lawyers: Who A-List celebrities have on speed dial