It is a return to home of sorts, across from the Southport courthouse.

The director of Gatenby Criminal Lawyers had the same office about 20 years ago as he began to make his name in the legal fraternity, particularly in representing high-level gang members.

Mr Gatenby points to a signed Wallabies jersey framed but not yet hung on the wall.

A present years ago from a former client, he claims. His signature is on the jersey.

When pressed to explain, Mr Gatenby mumbles excuses about “something I made go away”, before changing the subject.

In a lengthy sit down with the Bulletin, he talks the bikie landscape today, the underworld’s relationship with cops, turf wars, juvenile crooks, Mongols boss Nick “the Knife” Forbes, representing Anthony Mundine and reality TV’s Suzi Taylor, and a dominatrix who “would try to get me to select particular judicial officers because she claimed they had been clients”.

GCB: You’ve made a name for yourself representing high-level bikies. How did that start?

MG: I acted for a couple of people associated with the clubs and then I seem to have acquired a large number of them. It’s probably an area that we now specialise in.

GC: What’s it like having to deal with gang members? Are they different from other clients?

MG: Bizarrely, they’re perhaps the easiest people to deal with. They are not what a lot of people think. They’re quite aware of the laws.

They’re extremely polite. Obviously, they’re happy with what we do, but they’re certainly some of the more polite clients we have.

GCB: So, when they come in it is not intimidation and bluster?

MG: Not in our office. In fact, it’s not uncommon for them to open the door for other people.

They are very, very, very polite to all of the staff. It’s the opposite of what you might think, very much so.

… There’s definitely a different side to what you read about in the objection-to-bail material.

GCB: You have (Mongols national president) Nick “the Knife” Forbes as a client. What’s it like representing someone at such a high level in the gangs?

MG: He doesn’t seek to be treated any different to other clients. I don’t think he’s any different to other clients.

He’s not a silly man. He certainly understands the law and he understands the role we play in it and you can have a decent conversation with him about what the law says you can and can’t do and how you can challenge various bits and pieces.

It’s obviously interesting work at times.

I suppose when you’re acting for someone like Nick, you get the opportunity to do that sort of work that you otherwise wouldn’t get to see. He’s good.

GCB: There seems to have been a lot of bikie activity recently. In the past couple of years we have had Shane Bowden’s murder, and the murders of Shane Ross and Cameron Martin, which is alleged bikie activity, and things in Melbourne are starting to ramp up again.

MG: I think a big portion of the problem is the fact the bikies are no longer regulating each other. The government took away their capacity to do that. And I think that’s been a creature of the (Newman government’s anti-bikie) VLAD laws and the subsequent consorting … In fact, they’ve made the situation worse, not better.

GCB: Should the general public be worried?

MG: By driving the bikes underground, you’ve created a vacuum that’s been filled by other people that don’t observe that hierarchical system the bikies had.

So you’ve got a lot of very young people, it seems they’re just not interested in anything else but themselves.

And if you look at that old way of doing things, the bikies used to say that you don’t attack a person in their home, you don’t do it in the streets.

There used to be a system where police could reach out to senior members and have a conversation and the laws have taken that away.

Then you have some police officers that seem to be on a crusade to cause as much havoc as they possibly can. I mean, for example, in New South Wales their specialist system started attacking a lawyer because he was representing them and you can see that there is a real capacity for that to occur.

GCB: Do you think we will see bikie wars on the Gold Coast anytime soon?

MG: No, I don’t. I know that behind the scenes there’s a lot of effort going into resolving conflicts by senior bikies.

And there’s perhaps a greater level of co-operation between senior bikies and police officers than the general public might realise.

I think that politicians and some police officers make the situation sound a lot worse than it is.

I don’t think it’s in anyone’s interest for bikie wars to erupt on the Gold Coast.

GCB: What is it about the Gold Coast that attracts the bikies and the drug culture?

MG: It’s been around since I have been on the Gold Coast. It always seems to have had colourful characters. I think it’s part of the Gold Coast charm to some extent, but some people take it too far.

GCB: More memorable clients?

MG: People where they really made an effort to rehabilitate and you achieve a good outcome for them.

They’re the things that really make you happy to do this. You think of young people that have just had this most incredibly disadvantaged life. They have, you know, almost no prospects of success in life and then you see them get someone that assists them, they get some therapeutic intervention and they turn their life around.

GCB: What was it like representing (former police prosecutor) Rosanna Doolan (who in 2012 lied to a magistrate to get her boyfriend a reduced sentence)? *Doolan was sentenced to 10 months’ prison in 2015

MG: It was difficult to represent her because I’ve obviously had dealings with her and a number of the witnesses that were cross-examined were people that you knew … It was hard to cross-examine the people you work with every day.

GCB: What do you remember about that case?

MG: Look, I just think it was an unfortunate example of a young practitioner who thought she was doing the right thing that got led astray to some extent.

It was really tragic that someone could make a decision like that and had her career taken from her and ultimately spent some time in custody.

She was, you know, a nice person but she obviously had some difficulties.

GCB: How about (alleged Mongols bikie and son of drug kingpin Dion Spizzirri) Kris Spizzirri?

MG: Ah, look, he’s a person who’s obviously spent some time in the judicial system and knows the system well. He’s difficult in that he had some criminal history, but he was okay … he is fine.

GCB: Other high-profile clients?

MG: I did a traffic matter for Anthony Mundine, which was quite interesting. He’s obviously got a very public persona, but … he was a really nice and genuine person. I quite enjoyed acting for him. He was, as I say, completely different to his public persona. The irony was the moment we stepped outside of court, that public persona came on and he just changed.

I actually think he’s a very smart man that has been very successful by doing that.

I was taken by how genuine he was and how interested he was in what you would say.

He was very softly spoken. The amount of charity work and assistance he gave to young people, particularly Aboriginal people, that he didn’t want to publicise, was just really surprising. I don’t think he’s what people think he is. I think he really tries to make a difference.

There have been lots of colourful characters. (Former The Block reality TV contestant) Suzi Taylor has been an interesting person and, you know, she was an example of mental health not being treated.

It was quite bizarre. She was loved by Channel 9 and then she was ultimately set up by Channel 9. She was destroyed by the very people that created her.

Her ability to get on with life after that has been a struggle. She’s certainly an entertaining person. And you can see why they initially got her in the first place.

GCB: Tell me a little bit about the dominatrix (who was a regular client)?

MG: It was a really sad story, actually, because she’d been the victim of childhood sexual abuse. She had children. And I don’t know that she really knew how to be a proper mother. I recall acting for her son and being contacted by police and he was sitting on that gutter because he couldn’t go in while mum was working. She always would try to get me to select particular judicial officers because she claimed they had been clients of hers. I don’t know whether that’s true or not, but it was always a good story.

GCB: What about Anthony Yoon Sun Soong (convicted of the attempted murder of ex-Big Brother contestant Sam Wallace)?

MG: What he did on that particular day was very egregious and not appropriate in a civilised society. But as his defence lawyer you get to see a completely different side of him.

You get to see the young boy that was raised by grandma and you have the grandmother who may not still be alive when he gets released from custody.

So you see this completely different side of things.

I remember acting for another fellow who shot someone at the Nerang River. He was very young.

Again, it was a tragic story. I remember seeing him the day that his trial commenced and him saying: “Michael, you’re the only person I can talk to, I don’t have anybody that can help me.”

That’s a really difficult position to find yourself in, where you have someone facing life imprisonment and there’s nobody they have, except for the professional adviser.

It’s on one hand flattering, that someone places that much trust in you, but equally it’s a very onerous position to be giving that advice to someone.

GCB: More memorable moments in the courtroom?

MG: I’ve seen a lot of changes in the courtroom. When I first started there were no metal detectors and I’ve had clients that have come in with dogs in their bag and, while cross-examining, I have heard the dogs growling at me.

I had a lady that brought a snake in and I’m very scared of snakes, so I had to get an adjournment so she could get rid of that.

The flip side too is you meet a lot of people that you perhaps wouldn’t otherwise meet that are pretty decent, genuine people.

GCB: A couple of years ago, you had quite a challenge with (former employee) Briana Ioannides (who fell into drug addiction). What did you learn from that experience?

MG: Sometimes you represent people that have addictions to drugs and the like and you don’t always see that first-hand. And you don’t realise how quickly and how destructive drug addiction is.

That was a real learning curve. In terms of just how quickly that all unfolded and how difficult it was for her to get out of that situation.

Professionally, it was very damaging for the firm. It very much harmed our reputation but, equally, it must have been incredibly difficult for her.

She was a person who while working here was very empathetic and the last person I thought, unfortunately, would be involved in drugs.

The lure of bright lights and that lifestyle on the Gold Coast, it’s very difficult, particularly for young people, to get away from.

I think there’s a real danger for young solicitors not to get caught up in that sort of lifestyle and not to see that as something that’s beneficial to them.

I think young practitioners need to get someone that will mentor them and assist them in making sure they don’t go down that slippery slope.

GCB: You’ve represented a couple of juveniles for serious offences. The difference between dealing with a juvenile client and an adult?

MG: Dealing with juvenile defendants is difficult because they’re just so young and don’t fully understand what they’ve done.

You have to deal with their parents as well.

I remember giving advice to a client, it was on a Saturday, and he’d smashed windows on a series of trains. He told me he’d spoken to police and I remember his mother getting up and whacking him across the back of the head. She said to him: “You wait till your father gets out of jail.”

She wasn’t upset that he’d smashed 20 or so windows. She was upset that he had spoken to police and he should have known better than to do that. When that’s your starting point, it’s very difficult for these people to climb out of the continuing court appearances and that life.

GCB: Around the courthouse you are known as someone who lives to put a bit of levity into things. Is that a conscious choice?

MG: I don’t know that I’ve deliberately tried to be funny and, bizarrely, I don’t think of myself as a funny person. I think sometimes too, we deal with so much tragedy, we’re acting for people who’ve done the worst thing on the worst day of their life and that’s quite confronting. It is a heavy burden to bear. And I think sometimes, if you don’t have some levity, you’d go insane.

lea.emery@news.com.au