Bikie barrister put off the road … Memorising every page of the brief … No ticket, no trade … Licence cancelled … Subeta Vimalarajah reports  

The New South Wales Court of Appeal’s judgment comes nearly two years after the NSW Bar Association’s decision in December 2015 not to grant Biscoe a ticket. 

Known for having represented alleged members of various motorcycle gangs, Briscoe was struck off for practising without a current certificate or approved insurance policy and for making dishonest statements about his entitlement to practise. 

The bar also sought declarations that he was guilty of professional misconduct, not a person of good fame and character, and not a fit and proper person to remain on the roll. 

The court agreed, finding that Biscoe’s conduct constituted “flagrant and sustained breaches of [his] legal and ethical obligations”.

Basten, Leeming and Sackville catalogued a series of misrepresentations made by Biscoe to his proposed professional indemnity insurer, the bar council, the Law Society and the Downing Centre Local Court.

Biscoe had, over the course of nine months after he ceased to hold a ticket, represented to these bodies that he had, or was in the process of, obtaining one. 

When he did belatedly submit an application for a practising certificate, he also failed to disclose that he was the subject of an unresolved complaint by a former client called “AA”.

By April 2015 Biscoe had failed to respond to the complaint and there was this conversation with the assistant commissioner at the LSC: 

During the period in which Biscoe had not held a practising certificate, he had submitted invoices to legal aid for work he completed. 

Biscoe also deliberately misled the Director of Public Prosecutions, saying that he had briefed another barrister regarding a matter for which he was still obtaining money on the basis he would, although he could not, represent the client at trial. 

Bank account records demonstrated that Biscoe received three payments amounting to $15,000 over three months from this client. The client made a formal complaint about Biscoe’s conduct, enclosing emails in which Biscoe had said he was “busy memorising every page of the brief” and that he had spent weeks “preparing for [her] trial”.

The court noted that there was a basis “to infer that some of the breaches of the respondent’s obligations may have been associated with psychological and financial pressures he was experiencing at the time”.   

Considering his conduct as a whole, however, the court granted the relief sought by the Bar Association. 

The judges emphasised that any barrister, “let alone one of ten years standing”, ought to know the importance of maintaining a current practising certificate. 

Further, they considered it significant that Biscoe’s conduct involved conscious misrepresentations, including one which had been relevant to the Local Court’s decision to adjourn a matter to a later date. 

The judges stressed that fitness to practise law requires “honesty and integrity” as an essential characteristic. 

In light of this, although Biscoe’s conduct in practising without a certificate or insurance were significant, it was his continued and dishonest engagement in legal practice that founded the “clear case” for the orders made.