In one of the most offensive emails sent in February 2018, O’Brien said the gatekeepers controlling entry into the legal profession “have failed to keep out the trash and they should, each and every one, be shot, ideally with a small calibre pistol to the back of the head”.

“If this should become legal, you might let me know, because I will happily cooperate with and perform the necessaries,” he said.

In that same email, O’Brien claimed this was the “preferred method” of violent dictator Joseph Stalin and that it was “very effective”.

O’Brien also threatened to throw the cremated remains of his elderly client, her late husband, and her late brother into the garbage,

He attached a photograph of the containers on his desk and invited the commissioner to take them, noted when his next garbage collection was, and said it was “where all three will be going”.

It was O’Brien’s conduct in his elderly client’s estate that led to the complaint and his dealings with the commissioner in the first place.

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) found him guilty of eight counts of professional misconduct, eight counts of unsatisfactory professional conduct, and six counts of misconduct at common law for this conduct and his offensive communications.

It also concerned concerning communications to the State Trustee Limited between 2017 and 2018, including one that described the VCAT member who presided over a guardianship hearing into the elderly client’s estate as a “b---h” he was going to “destroy”.

In another email, he said: “If you think I sound angry … or that I am making threats, you are absolutely right on both counts”.

During the proceedings, O’Brien said he “really regretted” the communications and regarded them to be “out of character”.

The tribunal heard O’Brien and the client had been friends for several years until her hospitalisation in May 2017, and O’Brien had assisted her with her husband’s estate and an inheritance from her brother.

While O’Brien “regularly raised” making a will and enduring power of attorney, the client either outright refused or put it off.

Shortly after he became aware the client was in hospital, O’Brien made a guardianship application to VCAT in his capacity as a solicitor and chose “dementia” as the disability. However, he did not request a medical report as evidence before or after the application.

Without instructions, he drafted a will that appointed himself the executor and trustee and had the client sign it at the hospital.

He then appeared at the guardianship hearing. By then, a neuropsychological assessment found that while the client was able to express her wishes, she had a cognitive impairment that negatively affected her ability to make decisions and manage finances.

The tribunal member, the subject of O’Brien’s nasty email, appointed the State Trustee Limited as administrator and directed the Office of the Public Advocate to ascertain the client’s wishes, who reportedly criticised O’Brien for the “damned cheek” in making the application.

In August 2017, without instructions, O’Brien drafted a codicil to the will to have the client name beneficiaries and their portions. She wrote his name and her nephew’s and designated 20 per cent.

This meant he was likely to receive $250,000.

However, the tribunal heard it was signed at O’Brien’s urging and after hospital staff had called for security.

When it was put to him that he should not have witnessed the codicil, O’Brien told the tribunal: “Well, no one else was going to.”

“I observe here that he is right about that, to this extent – no fit and proper lawyer would have witnessed that codicil in those circumstances,” senior member Elisabeth Wentworth said.

Wentworth was satisfied that O’Brien pressured the client to sign.

In the two years that followed the client’s death, O’Brien commenced a failed probate application and placed inappropriate pressure on the client’s family members – in particular, her niece – into a deed of family arrangement he executed without instructions.

In his defence, O’Brien said he was acting in his client’s interests and was adamant that, as her friend and solicitor, he was the “best judge” of whether she had testamentary capacity. In doing so, he ignored the medical evidence and obvious warning signs.

“Whether or not O’Brien believed he was compelled to the actions he took by an altruistic desire to carry out [the client’s] wishes, his views of what was appropriate conduct and his actions, were inconsistent with being a fit and proper person,” Wentworth said.

O’Brien repeatedly objected to the commissioner’s characterisation of the conduct as “dishonest” and claimed he would not have opposed the application had it not been for that allegation.

The tribunal said he made reference to the oath he took when he was admitted in 1973 and claimed that his integrity was “more important to him than anything, other than his children”.

“Whether or not O’Brien recognised that he was being dishonest when he made statements that he knew to be untrue (and therefore false), and whether or not he believed that the correct information would become known to VCAT later, he made statements that he knew to be untrue,” Wentworth said.

“I am satisfied that in making the dales statements, which he knew to be false, O’Brien failed to be honest.”