The Hon Barry O'Keefe was appointed Chief Judge of the Commercial Division of the Supreme Court and an additional Judge of Appeal in 1993, having practiced as a barrister for 36 years and as a Queens Counsel for 19 years. He was President of the Local Government Association of NSW (1986 – 1988) and represented local government in Italy, Israel, The People’s Republic of China and Norway. He had been President of the NSW Bar (1989 – 1991), an Alderman of a Metropolitan Sydney Council for 23 years and Mayor for 10 years. He was also President of the National Trust for 15 years (1991 – 2006). In 1994, he was appointed Commissioner for the Independent Commission Against Corruption in NSW for the maximum statutory term of five years. At the conclusion of his term, he returned to his judicial duties on the Supreme Court. In 2004, he retired from judicial duties and is currently a consultant at a leading Sydney legal firm, Clayton Utz.

Mr O'Keefe was a member of a Group of Experts on Good Governance and Corruption (Commonwealth Secretariat, London 1998 - 1999) and the Faculty of the International Law Enforcement Academy in Bangkok, and is a member of the International Senior Advisory Board of the International Anti-Corruption Academy in Austria. In 2001, he became Chairman of the Interpol’s International Group of Experts on Corruption and has undertaken anti-corruption assignments for United Nation’s instrumentalities in Armenia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan. He was Chairman of the XI (2003, Seoul, South Korea), XII (2006, Guatemala), XIII (2008, Athens, Greece) and XIV (2010, Thailand), International Anti-Corruption Conferences.

During his career at the Bar, Mr O'Keefe appeared on behalf of the Governments of the Commonwealth of Australia and NSW and for Her Majesty's Crown Agents (UK) in a number of leading cases. He regularly appeared in large matters throughout Australia as well as in Fiji, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. He was Senior Counsel in three major Royal Commissions.

Mr O'Keefe is an honours graduate in Law from the University of Sydney, was invested with the Order of Australia in 1989, appointed as a Freeman of the City of London in 1991, appointed an Adjunct Professor at the University of Notre Dame (Australia) in 1995 and had the Centenary Medal of Australia conferred in 2003.