Anti-Semitic lawyers engaged in professional misconduct, says Jewish body

Australia’s peak Jewish body wants two lawyers investigated for professional misconduct, saying the messages they exchanged used age-old blood libel tropes to vilify Jews.

Former BlackBay Lawyers partner Justin Carroll, left, and Yianni van Gelder

Australia’s peak Jewish body has lodged a formal complaint of professional misconduct against two Sydney lawyers caught exchanging horrifying anti-Semitic slurs, saying the messages used age-old greed and blood libel tropes to vilify Jews.

The move comes after The Australian revealed WhatsApp messages between former BlackBay Lawyers partner Justin Carroll and his colleague Yianni van Gelder railing against “more Jew confected antisemitism” and laughing at the “Holohoax” and the “Schlomo-caust”.

The comments, which stunned the Sydney legal world, clearly sought to deny, distort or minimise the Holocaust, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry says, “thereby denying or diminishing the reality of the single largest genocide in human history”.

The ECAJ has now asked the NSW Legal Services Commissioner to investigate whether the messages brought the legal profession into disrepute and, if established, to initiate disciplinary proceedings against the pair in the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

The tribunal can suspend or impose conditions on a solicitor’s practising certificate or recommend they be struck off the Roll.

Former BlackBay Lawyers partner Justin Carroll.

The trove of incriminating messages revealed that for months before leaving BlackBay, Mr Carroll, 54, and Mr van Gelder, 28, were planning to set up a rival firm, suggesting one client would “try to ‘jew’ me” by negotiating better rates.

In another message, Mr Carroll says: “Zionists are without question the closest thing we have to Nazis.”

That claim was “Holocaust inversion pure and simple and anti-Semitic, in that it seeks to falsely equate the actions of Jews or Zionists or the State of Israel with those of the Nazis”, ECAJ said in its complaint.

A claim by Mr van Gelder that Judaism “basically tells them to harm children” was a classic example of the blood libel trope, ECAJ said, a false accusation dating back to the Middle Ages that Jews murdered children to use their blood in rituals.

“These tropes are well-documented and recognised and, while they shift to incorporate the circumstances of each new era, they prove remarkably stubborn and adaptable,” ECAJ said in its complaint, co-signed by ECAJ president and prominent Victorian silk Daniel Aghion KC, and co-CEOs Peter Wertheim and Alex Ryvchin.

“This type of discourse seeks to create a world where anti-Semitism is acceptable once again, and where Jews are held responsible for anti-Semitism.”

By repeatedly asserting that Jews were responsible for carrying out “hoax” anti-Semitic attacks, Mr Carroll and Mr van Gelder “deliberately and explicitly call into question the veracity of any allegations of attacks against Jews, including the Holocaust”.

“The effect of this conduct was to potentially discriminate against Mr Carroll and Mr van Gelder’s Jewish clients and fellow practitioners, and the Jewish community more generally, on the basis of their Jewish ethnic or ethno-religious identity,” the ECAJ said.

BlackBay Lawyers managing partner Victoria-Jane Otavski with former employee Yianni Van Gelder, right.

ECAJ argues the messages breach the Legal Profession Uniform Law Australian Solicitors’ Conduct Rules, in particular displaying dishonest or disreputable conduct that is likely to bring the profession into disrepute, and anti-discrimination.

“The principles that apply to this complaint are that solicitors who identify themselves as such may attract liability for professional misconduct even if it occurs outside the course of legal practice,” the complainants note.

ECAJ said it recognised that the messages were intended to be a private exchange between Mr Carroll and Mr van Gelder, but they had been published, and reflected “a normalisation of their own anti-Semitic prejudices to the extent that they felt comfortable to share them with their professional colleagues, and to discuss their Jewish client in a deeply offensive way”.

“Messages between the solicitors, now published to the world at large, which were seriously offensive, accompanied by media coverage of the messages, identifying Mr Carroll and Mr van Gelder as legal practitioners, which was likely to diminish trust and confidence in the profession and was thus likely to a material degree, to bring the profession into disrepute.”

The statements also gave rise to an apprehension of discrimination by Mr Carroll and Mr van Gelder against their Jewish clients and fellow practitioners.

The messages were “performative” and the language “was on any view crude, dehumanising, insulting, and offensive”, ECAJ said.

Mr Carroll and Mr van Gelder were terminated by BlackBay Lawyers in February on the grounds of “serious misconduct”, and the firm has launched legal action against the pair in the NSW Supreme Court for the return of confidential information and delivery of computers, phones and electronic devices for forensic analysis.

Mr Carroll told The Australian that the WhatsApp messages were confidential and that he intended to take legal action against the newspaper. “The material has been improperly taken from me,” he said, but declined to respond to questions about the anti-Semitic statements in the messages.

Mr van Gelder told The Australian the comments were taken from a private conversation, “out of context”, and were not intended to be taken seriously. “I am sorry they have been published and have caused hurt and concern. They do not reflect my views or feelings,” he said.