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The NSW Law Society has refused to renew a practising certificate for a lawyer whose Kazakhstan-based firm has been embroiled in lengthy legal action with a former colleague and director.
Michael Earl Wilson’s application to renew his practising certificate for the July 2025 to June 2026 period was refused by the Council of the NSW Law Society, according to the Office of the Legal Services Commissioner’s (OLSC) Register of Disciplinary Action.
The decision, published online late last week, found Wilson was “not a fit and proper person to hold a practising certificate”.
It added Wilson breached the Legal Profession Uniform Law Australian Solicitors’ Conduct Rules 2015 and acted contrary “to the conditions attached to his practising certificate”.
Wilson is the founder of Michael Wilson & Partners, a firm incorporated in the British Virgin Islands and primarily based in Kazakhstan.
The firm has been involved in a dispute with former director John Forster Emmott. With more than 80 judgments issued in Australian proceedings brought by Michael Wilson & Partners against Emmott alone, the issue has reached an “extraordinary level of disputation”.
Last July, the NSW Court of Appeal invited Wilson to show cause as to why his conduct should not be referred to the OLSC. It related to his request for the court to review a recusal application, despite there being strong evidence that the application was never made.
The bench made the referral in September.
In coming to the decision, Justices Mark Leeming, Anna Mitchelmore and Stephen Free said Wilson insisted there was “no basis whatsoever” for the referral and pressed the recusal matter again.
“[The paragraphs] maintain that others [notably Emmott and the judge] have not behaved as they should have. They disclose no insight into the point which led to referral being raised in the first place, namely, his complaint that Justice McHugh had refused to disqualify himself when no such application had been made to him,” they said.
