NCAT recommends Sydney solicitor Nathan Buckley be struck off over offensive comments

A Sydney solicitor seems to have blown up his career in spectacular fashion after a series of outrageous comments he posted on social media during the Covid-19 pandemic came back to bite him.

Lawyer Nathan Buckley is facing the prospect of being struck off the Supreme Court’s roll of lawyers over a series of controversial social media posts. Picture: Supplied

A controversial Sydney solicitor appears to have blown up his 19-year legal career after likening the Law Society of NSW to a “wet dildo” in a series of shocking social media posts.

The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal this week recommended G&B Lawyers principal Nathan Buckley be permanently stripped of his licence to practice law in NSW after finding he had repeatedly breached the profession’s conduct rules while publicly criticising government mandated Covid-19 vaccinations.

The tribunal heard Buckley, an outspoken critic of various public health orders, launched a Supreme Court challenge to the state’s vaccination mandates in 2021 but was unsuccessful, prompting him to take to social media to decry the decision.

After heavily criticising the presiding judge and saying he hoped his career was short, Buckley took aim at what he saw as the constraints of the legal profession - and its peak body.

Buckley was an outspoken critic of various public health orders during the Covid pandemic, including vaccine mandates.

He suggested lawyers who wanted to succeed “have to give up everything that you ever believed in and wanted when you set out on your journey to be a lawyer”.

“Unless you are in a position of power, you’re not getting anywhere,” he wrote.

“If you want to be a controlled muppet. Then you’ll go far. If you want to represent people on your own, you’ll get nowhere.

“As soon as you take on the establishment, the Law Society will be all over your arse like a wet dildo.”

The tribunal said Buckley’s comments amounted to professional misconduct and threatened to undermine the legal system.

Under legal professional law, NSW lawyers can be reprimanded, sanctioned or have their practising certificates torn up if they do something that diminishes the public’s confidence in the administration of justice or brings the legal profession into disrepute.

The final decision on whether to ban a person from working as lawyer rests with the Supreme Court.

The tribunal heard Buckley has been subject to formal reprimands in the past and had his practising certificate suspended between November 2021 and June 2022. He has not practised since.

Meanwhile, Buckley was also found to have actively encouraged people in a separate public Facebook group to provide false information to ASIC to get around the state’s public health laws, and misled donors in a series of GoFundMe-style campaigns asking for $10m to help mount an Australia-wide High Court challenge to mandatory vaccinations.

Buckley raised hundreds of thousands of dollars throughout Australia but the tribunal heard it was largely spent on the NSW Supreme Court challenge and he never ran a case in the High court.

Buckley unsuccessfully challenged vaccine mandates in the NSW Supreme Court. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Christian Gilles

When faced with criticism online about the fundraising, Buckley became abusive, telling users “go f—k yourself” and “keep sticking that dildo up your arse”.

Buckley tried to claim he had made the comments in a private capacity, however the tribunal was told the Facebook post he was responding to clearly identified him as a lawyer and included the name of his firm.

The tribunal said Buckley had shown no real insight into the seriousness of what he’d done, and in fact still “vigorously denies the implications of his conduct”.

They said his “cavalier attitude” was unlikely to change in the future and recommended his removal from the profession.

He was also ordered to pay the legal costs of the Law Society, which brought the action against him.