Buckley, Nathan Andrew
Allegation / charges
Proceedings no. 2023/00140580 (Social Media Application) 1. Made public statements encouraging residents To breach laws by providing false information to the ASIC for the purpose of avoiding the effect of applicable public health orders, in breach of rule 3 of the Legal Profession Uniform Law Australian Solicitors’ Conduct Rules 2015 (“Conduct Rules”) (Ground 1). 2. Made a public statement encouraging aged care workers to breach laws by not complying with the requirement to receive a COVID-19 vaccination, in breach of rule 3 of the Conduct Rules (Ground 3). 3. As part of a public discussion concerning a campaign to raise funds for litigation, published on the Facebook platform comments which contained offensive and/or abusive language, and thereby engaged in conduct in breach of rule 5 of the Conduct Rules (Ground 5). 4. Made public statements regarding or in connection with the judgment of Beech-Jones CJ at CL in Kassam v Hazzard; Henry v Hazzard [2021] NSWSC 1320 (Kassam Judgment), in breach of rule 3 of the Conduct Rules (Grounds 6 and 8). 5. Endorsed public comments on the Facebook platform in breach of rule 3 of the Conduct Rules (Ground 10). 6. As part of raising funds to prosecute proceedings for judicial review of a proposed decision of the Council of the Law Society of NSW, made public statements in connection with the Kassam Judgment and Beech-Jones CJ at CL, in breach of rule 3 of the Conduct Rules (Ground 12). 7. By engaging in the conduct referred to in Grounds 1, 3, 6, 8, 10, and 12 respectively, the Lawyer acted in manner which, contrary to rule 5 of the Conduct Rules, was likely to a material degree to be prejudicial to, or diminish the public confidence in, the administration of justice and/or bring the legal profession into disrepute (Grounds 2, 4, 7, 9, 11, and 13 respectively). Proceeding no. 2023/00458531 (Fundraising Application) Posted, or caused to be posted, material in relation to various fundraising campaigns, as part of which he engaged in marketing or promotion in connection with himself and/or the law practice known as G & B Lawyers (of which he was a partner) which was false or misleading or deceptive or likely to mislead or deceive, contrary to rules 36.1.1 and 36.1.2 of the Conduct Rules (Grounds 1 to 4) — Professional Misconduct Unsatisfactory Professional Conduct
Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision
Two sets of proceedings against a solicitor (partner at G & B Lawyers). In the Social Media Application, grounds concerned public statements encouraging residents to provide false information to ASIC to avoid public health orders, encouraging aged care workers to refuse COVID-19 vaccination, offensive/abusive Facebook comments, and public statements about the Kassam v Hazzard judgment and Beech-Jones CJ at CL, in breach of rules 3 and 5. In the Fundraising Application, grounds concerned false or misleading marketing/promotion in fundraising campaigns in breach of rules 36.1.1 and 36.1.2. The conduct was characterised as professional misconduct and unsatisfactory professional conduct. No express finding of dishonesty appears in the provided text, and the sanction is not stated in the extract.
Duties found breached:
- Uphold public trust in the profession
- Good faith and courtesy to colleagues
- Truthful, non-misleading advertising
⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["extracted_from_register_summary"]
Duties engaged
Other decisions involving this respondent
Matched by respondent name — may include a different person with the same name.
Documents
Source: https://portal.olsc.nsw.gov.au/dasearchbn/daresultdetail?id=638bde7f-d1e6-403e-9ddc-a530b2bcb5fc