A Barrister's Blog

When I think of practitioners who are struck off the roll, I usually think of some kind of serious dishonestly or financial fraud or stealing of client money. So, I was a little surprised to read that someone had been removed for: “grossly discourteous, coarse, disrespectful, gratuitously offensive, improperly threatening and wholly unprofessional” conduct. I have blogged several times about cases where there has been unnecessarily aggressive correspondence. The case of Mr Sideris is next level and was done by someone with more that 40 years experience who should have known better.

How did it start?

Like all good stories it started innocently enough. Mr Sideris was attempting to help his 93 year old mother in law in a dispute with the Salvation Army (“TSA”) over a Refundable Accommodation Deposit for aged care accommodation. The solicitor acting for TSA wrote to Mr Sideris (6 times) requesting that all correspondence be directed through his office. Sideris ignored this repeatedly and kept corresponding directly with TSA.

Rule 33 of the Legal Profession Uniform Law Australian Solicitors’ Conduct Rules 2015 is sometimes known as the “no contact” rule. The rule has existed in some form since at least 1847 and is clearly not an obscure rule that was unknown to Mr Sideris. It’s purpose is to make sure that the legal matters are conducted properly through the solicitors.

The emails

Initially Mr Sideris’s emails told the TSA solicitor that was “pissed off” and wanted the solicitor to “test my patience no more.” Email after email was filled with profanities, personal insults, threats, and baseless allegations. TSA was accused of wanting the mother in law to  “wither and die” and to “torture” her “to the end” and warned that “the way things are going she will die soon and it will be your fault”.

Mr Sideris also helpfully informed the TSA solicitor that he had “been a lawyer when you were in nappies,” suggested he needed to “grow up,” and in one memorable sign-off noted that he could “say f––k off but I am too much of a gentleman.” In yet another email, Mr Sideris demanded TSA’s solicitor to “cut this legal bullshit and let common sense prevail,” before signing off with a *Dirty Harry* reference: “So with respect, grow up mate … GO AHEAD MAKE MY DAY.”

NCAT

It was ultimately the no contact issue and the tone of the emails sent by Mr Sideris which resulted in a complaint being made and the matter going to NCAT.

NCAT found him guilty of professional misconduct  and recommended his removal from the Roll. Rather than seeing the error of his ways, this caused an escalation in behaviour.  Correspondence to the Law Society, Hicksons Lawyers, and the Tribunal itself ran to nearly 400 pages — a remarkable volume of output for a man who would later tell the Court of Appeal he had not read either of the Tribunal’s decisions and was “not interested” in doing so. He referred to NCAT as “a bunch of idiots hiding behind a Govt banner,” described the Stage 1 decision as “a load of shit,” and sent emails to the Law Society and Tribunal that attached, for clarity, images of a middle finger.

The Greek Village Gambit

This is one of my “favourite” parts of this story. When the Law Society commenced proceedings in the Court of Appeal in late 2024, Mr Sideris refused to accept service by email, signing off that email with “piss off all of you,” and followed it up seven minutes later with a second email stating simply: “Again — simply put … piss off all of you.” When asked to confirm his address for service, Sideris replied that documents should be physically delivered to him at “Filia Village, Filia Greece” — a village in the Peloponnese — as he would be “absent and on the road for over 2 years.”

He was actually questioned about this by Bell CJ in the C of A. He admitted that he had lived in Filia when he was 4 years old and that the last time he visited there was in the 1980’s. Apparently Filia is now deserted. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Court found this was a deliberate attempt to obstruct service.

The Decision – struck off

The Court — Bell CJ, Kirk JA, and Griffiths AJA — had no difficulty concluding that Mr Sideris was not a fit and proper person to remain on the Roll, and was likely to remain so indefinitely. His purported apology, offered shortly after the Stage 2 NCAT Decision, had been rendered entirely hollow by the sustained torrent of abuse that followed it. The Court observed in its own understated way that the correspondence “betoken[s] unfitness to be held out by the court as a member of a profession in whom confidence could be placed.”

Mr Sideris was removed from the Roll, and he was ordered to pay the Law Society’s costs.

If you want to read the whole story start with Council of the Law Society of New South Wales v Sideris [2025] NSWCA 159