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Solicitor loses court fight against NSW Bar over mental health findings
A solicitor who was refused a barrister’s practising certificate due to concerns she was mentally unfit to hold one has failed in yet another attempt to reverse the NSW Bar Association’s decision.
Naomi Neilson
About five years after she first took the Bar Association to court over its refusal to grant her a practising certificate, solicitor Connie Louise Picos has once again failed to overturn the decision and have the NSW Supreme Court determine she is “fit and proper” to practise.
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Late last week, Justice Fabian Gleeson, together with Justice Mark Leeming and Justice Anthony Payne, dismissed three applications brought by Ms Picos in the Court of Appeal and made a finding that she had not been denied procedural fairness in related proceedings.
Ms Picos, who held a solicitor’s practising certificate for the 2019–20 financial year, applied to hold a barrister’s practising certificate in August 2019 after passing the bar examination earlier in the year.
In the application, Ms Picos disclosed adverse credit findings had been made against her and that she had been involved in other litigation as a party. She also disclosed she was treated for schizophrenia but had not needed assistance since May 2018.
Ms Picos was examined in September 2019 at the request of the Bar Association, and a psychiatrist reported her “unstable mental state” meant she was not currently fit to hold a practising certificate.
At this time, she commenced proceedings in the Supreme Court.
Responding to Ms Picos’ report from her own doctor disputing this, the Bar Association added that even without the mental health findings, her conduct in “historical and current” proceedings was “inconsistent with the good character (or fitness and propriety) expected of members of the practising profession”.
Ms Picos withdrew her application for a barristers’ practising certificate but made a second application in November 2019.
When this was refused in December, Ms Picos sought leave to file an amended summons seeking interim and final relief. She did not exercise the right of review of the Bar Council’s decision.
Justice Francois Kunc dismissed this application.
In April this year, and despite being out of time, Ms Picos applied to appeal Justice Kunc’s orders and filed a summons seeking a judicial review of the Bar Association’s December 2019 decision.
Ms Picos alleged the Bar Association’s decision was “invalid” because the NSW Law Society had granted her a practising certificate, which she said meant she was a “fit and proper person”.
Separately, by notice of motion in January 2022, Ms Picos brought contempt charges due to an alleged breach of suppression orders made in a 2015 proceeding in which she was a party.
Ms Picos alleged various members of the Bar Council and its solicitors had breached the suppression order during the process of considering whether she was a fit and proper person.
In February 2022, a registrar set these orders aside and, following Ms Picos’ challenge of this decision, Justice Jeremy Kirk dismissed her application and revoked the suppression order.
In the Court of Appeal in August this year, Ms Picos requested leave to appeal the summons made by Justice Kunc, judicial review of the Bar Association’s December 2019 decision, and notice of motion seeking to vary or discharge Justice Kirk’s orders.
Justice Gleeson dismissed all three applications.
The court found there was no jurisdictional error in the Bar’s decision, and no error was found in Justice Kirk’s orders.
Further, it found the Law Society’s decision to grant Ms Picos a practising certificate “did not operate as a constraint” on the Bar’s discretionary powers or on its obligation not to grant Ms Picos a certificate “if it found she was not a fit and proper person”.
