Vale Rob O'Connor KC

Long-standing Board member Robert Kenneth O’Connor KC passed peacefully on 12 January 2025.

The Legal Practice Board has paid tribute to former long-standing Board member Robert Kenneth O’Connor KC, who passed peacefully on 12 January 2025 at the age of 81.

Mr O’Connor gave extraordinary service to the Board as a member for more than three decades. He was appointed to the then Barristers Board in 1989 and was a member of the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal, and then the Legal Practice Board. During the course of his membership of the Board, Mr O’Connor was also a member of the Board’s Supreme Court Library Committee and the Board’s nominee for the Theodore & Isabella Wearne Charitable Trust. Mr O’Connor stepped down from the Board on 1 July 2022.

Mr O’Connor was admitted as a barrister and solicitor in Western Australia in 1977, having previously been admitted in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. He worked at Stone James and Co. before becoming a partner there, and then a barrister at Francis Burt Chambers in 1984. He was appointed Queens Counsel in 1989.

Also a Chartered Practising Accountant, Mr O’Connor maintained an expert specialisation in taxation matters, wrote numerous papers and published articles, and was a member of many other boards, committees and charitable institutions, notably the Law Society Ethics Committee, and a committee member and secretary of the WA Bar Association.

“Rob O’Connor was an outstanding contributor to the Legal Practice Board over an unprecedented period of time”, Board Executive Director Libby Fulham said.

“He took a great interest in the specialised nature of the Board’s functions and role in the regulation of the legal profession. He was always supportive and generous with his involvement and time. This is a sincere loss to the profession”.