Harsh life for struck-off solicitor … A cult member who got onto pills and drugs … Liquor store robberies … A desire to return to prison … Court of Appeal thinks robbery is incompatible with legal practice … Forget rehabilitation, paying the Law Society’s costs is more important … Janek Drevikovsky reports 

To add to his troubles, the ex-solicitor will have to foot the Law Society’s bill on his release from gaol, where he is currently doing three-years of porridge.  

The appeal court, comprising Taco Bell ACJ, Major General Brereton and Reg Barrett, were sympathetic to Michael Hislop’s formative hardships. As a child, he was inducted into the Children of God, where his parents were senior members. 

From an early age, he was forced to have sex with adults, part of a programme of “ritual abuse”. 

As a teenager, Mr Hislop and his mother left the cult, and moved to Sydney. But he adjusted poorly, turning to cannabis and methamphetamine, before being kicked out of home aged 16. 

However after a period of intensive counselling, he graduated from the University of NSW with a law degree and in 2013 was admitted to practice, aged 35.  

“This was a remarkable achievement,” Paul Brereton JA observed. 

Hislop had a series of jobs in small and regional firms, including RMB Legal in Goulburn, and for a time he enjoyed success, marrying and fathering two children. 

It was not to last. After learning his Canadian brother had been reported missing, Hislop fell into chemically-fuelled despair, his wife left him and he lost his job.

In August 2017, armed with a kitchen knife he robbed a Liquorland in Warrawong, making off with $450. A few days later, he hit a BWS in Unanderra, stealing $600 and several cans of Jim Beam. 

The constabulary swung into action, and Hislop was brought before the District Court. He entered a prompt plea of guilty, and was sentenced to two-years, six months.

“The turmoil that had become my life was pervasive and oppressive,” he later said. “In a form of desperation, I resorted to two unplanned robberies, as a way of returning to prison.”

Again, Hislop pleaded guilty, this time landing a term of three years imprisonment. 

In early 2019, the Law Society moved for his removal from the jam roll. Hislop conceded he was no fit and proper person and their honours expatiated on exactly how unfit he was. 

“The commission of such offences, terrifying as they are to their victims, and involving use of force or the threat of force to intimidate for personal gain, is prima facie incompatible with the qualities required of a legal practitioner,” Brereton JA said. 

“And that is nonetheless so where the perpetrator is in the grips of an addiction or affected by a mental illness.”

It was also relevant that Mr Hislop was a double offender, showing dim prospects for rehabilitation. 

By a two-to-one majority, the judges ordered the de-frocked solicitor to pay the Law Society’s bill. 

Brereton dissented, because the Law Society’s court costs were covered by a special public fund and because a costs order would damage whatever chance Hislop had to mend his ways. 

Taco Bell ACJ and Barrett AJA, were less forgiving. They declared that criminal sentencing factors, like rehabilitation, were irrelevant when awarding costs in private law matters.

There were no reasons for departing from the rule in Oshlack v Richmond River Council, namely that the unsuccessful party has to cough up. Reg Barrett said: 

“It is well established that impecuniosity of an unsuccessful party and inability to pay do not, of themselves, provide any sound basis for departing from the general rule.

Neither, in my opinion, does the fact that life has dealt harshly with the unsuccessful party and that he may be thought deserving of an opportunity to attempt to make a fresh start.”

Council of the Law Society of New South Wales v Michael Hislop