About

Good Legal Lawyers.

A criminal defence litigation practice with offices in Sydney and Wollongong and appearances throughout the New South Wales courts. The firm acts under private retainer and under grants from Legal Aid NSW and the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee.

The firm

The depth of a larger practice, the attention of a small one.

Sydney · Wollongong · NSW courts

Good Legal Lawyers runs serious criminal defence matters across the State. The in-house team is deliberately compact so that every client retainer is overseen personally; the firm's wider professional network is deep enough to handle anything that comes through the door.

Day to day, the office handles matters from local court summary defence through to Supreme Court trials and appellate work. The firm briefs from an established panel of senior and junior counsel, instructs forensic, medical, accounting, and digital specialists where the evidence calls for it, and maintains long-standing relationships with Legal Aid NSW and the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee for grant-funded matters.

The result is a practice that reads briefs end to end, sets the case theory early, and runs files from intake to verdict without handing them off. Clients hear back the same day. The lawyer who answers the first phone call is the lawyer who stands at the bar table.

3 Serving three states and territories
4 People on every file
24h After-hours line
NSW & ACT Supreme Court and HCA

Meet the team

Every matter touches the same four people.

Good Legal Lawyers is a deliberately compact firm. There is no switchboard, no intake officer who reads from a script, and no junior solicitor who appears at your sentence having never read the brief. You speak to the people doing the work.

Principal Solicitor

Danny Lagopodis.

Heads Good Legal Lawyers and sets the standards the rest of the team works to. Every retainer that comes through the door is signed off under Danny's principal certificate.

Day to day, Danny handles practice management, file openings, costs agreements, and the relationships that hold the firm together. Clients with concerns about their representation, billing, or anything to do with how the firm has handled a matter should raise them with Danny directly through the office.

RolePrincipal Solicitor
OfficeSydney · Wollongong
Contactaaron@aklawyer.com.au
Aaron Kernaghan, photographed at chambers.

Solicitor · Special Counsel

Aaron Kernaghan.

The firm's senior criminal defence lawyer. Aaron has practised criminal law in New South Wales for more than twenty-six years and has appeared in matters from local court summary defence through to Supreme Court trials and appellate work.

Aaron runs his files the way criminal practice was meant to be run. The lawyer who answers the first phone call is the lawyer who reads the brief, conferences the witnesses, briefs counsel, and stands at the bar table. There is no junior handoff. When a matter calls for senior or junior counsel, Aaron briefs from a panel of barristers he has worked with for years and sits in every conference.

Outside the courtroom Aaron writes, teaches, and contributes to the criminal bar. Practitioners who want his research and commentary will find it at AKCLR.com.au.

AdmittedHigh Court of Australia
Supreme Court of New South Wales
Year of admission2009 · NSW
MembershipsLaw Society of New South Wales · Law Society of the Australian Capital Territory · Australian Lawyers Alliance
EducationBachelor of Laws · Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice · ongoing professional development in criminal procedure, advocacy, and evidence
Pro bonoSelected matters annually, by referral from Legal Aid NSW and for the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee
Contactaaron@aklawyer.com.au · 0421 717 019

Notable matters

Selected outcomes from the indictable and appellate practice.

Anonymised outcomes from the firm's matter set. Names, dates beyond the year, and identifying details have been altered or omitted to preserve client confidentiality. Past results are a guide to the work, not a prediction of any future matter.

  • 2025

    Aggravated robbery · acquittal after trial.

    Four-day jury trial. Crown case turned on contested in-dock recognition; the defence ran the unreliability of identification and the absence of corroborating CCTV. Not guilty verdict.

    District Court of New South Wales
  • 2025

    Historical sexual assault · discontinuance.

    Pre-trial argument on the admissibility of complaint evidence and tendency material. Crown discontinued after the s 192A motion was filed.

    District Court of New South Wales
  • 2025

    Sentence appeal in a drug supply matter · reduction.

    Severity appeal on a less-than-commercial supply matter. Sentence reduced; non-parole period reduced from three years to twenty months on the application of the section 25D plea discount and re-weighed subjective material.

    NSW Court of Criminal Appeal
  • 2025

    ASIC investigation of a company director · no charges.

    Acted at the regulator-investigation stage. Early written response and structured production conference resolved the matter without charges being laid.

    Pre-charge · ASIC investigation
  • 2024

    Manslaughter · plea to a lesser charge accepted.

    Led junior at the Supreme Court. Written submission on Crown case strength to the Crown Solicitor's Office led to acceptance of a plea to a lesser indictable offence. Custodial outcome substantially reduced.

    Supreme Court of New South Wales
  • 2024

    Sexual touching · acquittal after defended hearing.

    CCTV obtained on subpoena contradicted the complainant's account of timing and movement. Acquitted at the Local Court hearing.

    Local Court of New South Wales
  • 2024

    Conviction appeal in a sexual touching matter · quashed on appeal.

    Appeal heard on three grounds. Appeal upheld, conviction quashed, verdict of acquittal entered. Acted as instructing solicitor with senior counsel briefed.

    ACT Supreme Court

Publications and speaking

Writing, teaching, and contributing to the criminal bar.

Aaron writes for practitioners and presents at criminal-law CPD and conferences across NSW and the ACT. The firm also maintains a separate professional resource at AKCLR.com.au for case notes and longer-form analysis written for a legal audience.

2026Criminal Lawyers Association of the ACT · Annual conference. Paper presented: "Forensic Disclosure Practice After Edwards: What Has Changed and What Has Not."
2026ABC Radio Canberra · Drive programme. Interviewed on proposed changes to ACT bail laws and the practical effect on accused persons facing serious charges.
2025Law Society of the ACT · CPD. Session leader on the conduct of contested bail applications in the ACT Magistrates Court.
2025The Canberra Times · Legal affairs. Quoted on the operation of the consent-based sexual offence reforms and their effect on jury directions.
2025Sydney Morning Herald · Justice section. Cited in a feature on the rise of pre-charge regulatory action by Commonwealth agencies and the implications for white-collar defence.
2024ANU College of Law · Guest lecturer. Visiting lecture on practical advocacy in summary jurisdiction.
20242CC Canberra Live. Discussion of search-warrant practice and the rights of householders during execution.

Media inquiries via the office on 0421 717 019 or through media and recognition.

Year line

A career, in brief.

A working career overview. Specific year-by-year detail anonymised at the matter level.

  • 2009 Admitted as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of New South Wales.

    Practice opens with summary criminal defence in the NSW Local Court.

  • 2010s Indictable practice expands across NSW.

    Trials and sentence matters in the District Court at the Downing Centre, Parramatta, Penrith, Campbelltown and Wollongong. Sexual-offence trials, drug-supply matters at the indictable and commercial quantity levels, and aggravated assaults.

  • Mid 2010s First Supreme Court trials and led-junior briefs.

    Murder defence in led-junior position, manslaughter on plea, complex drug-trafficking matters with surveillance and intercept challenges.

  • Late 2010s Appellate work in the Court of Criminal Appeal.

    Conviction and sentence appeals across criminal and sexual offence matters. Severity-appeal work from the Local Court to the District Court running in parallel with the trial practice.

  • 2020s ACT practice and cross-border matters.

    Acting in ACT matters in the ACT Magistrates Court and the ACT Supreme Court. Member of the Law Society of the Australian Capital Territory. Continuing trial and appellate work in NSW alongside the cross-border practice.

  • 2026 Special Counsel at Good Legal Lawyers.

    Senior criminal defence lawyer at the firm. Conference papers, CPD teaching, media commentary on criminal-law reform. Practice continues to take a deliberately limited number of files each year so that every client gets attention.

Aaron has practised criminal law for more than 26 years across solicitor and counsel-instructing capacities. The year line above sets out the broad shape of the practice; matter-level detail is preserved in anonymised form across the outcomes stream and notable-matters section.

Office Manager

Amy Lagopodis.

The first voice you hear when you phone Good Legal Lawyers. Amy runs the office: scheduling, costs agreements, court diary, file openings, and the administration that keeps a busy criminal practice moving.

Her other role is the steady one. Returning calls promptly, making sure nothing falls between the cracks of a busy week, and keeping clients informed when court dates shift, paperwork arrives, or fresh correspondence comes in from the prosecution. If you cannot reach the lawyer on your file straight away, Amy will know where the lawyer is and when you can speak to them.

RoleOffice Manager
OfficeSydney · Wollongong
Contactaaron@aklawyer.com.au

Law Clerk

Joshua Baxendale.

Law clerk to the firm. Joshua handles legal research, document review, court bookings, brief preparation, and the careful pre-trial work that good criminal defence depends on. Most of what wins at trial sits in pages someone read closely; Joshua is one of those someones.

Existing clients can book a quick procedural update with Joshua directly through the booking page. It is the faster, cheaper way to get the answer when the answer is procedural rather than substantive: court date confirmations, document collection, status questions on subpoenas and brief service, and other things that do not need solicitor time.

RoleLaw Clerk
OfficeSydney · Wollongong
Contactaaron@aklawyer.com.au

Speak to us

The first call is free, and confidential.

If you would like to know whether we are the right firm for your matter, phone or use the confidential intake form.

Confidential intake → 0421 717 019