Lawyers seek graduate ban

A GROUP of Queensland lawyers has taken the extraordinary step of personally contacting the body that oversees legal admissions to object to Gold Coast law graduate Jacob Reichman being added the role of solicitors.

Reichman, the practice manager and a law clerk at Southport firm Donnelly Law Group, was in 2016 fined $1500 for engaging in legal practice 12 times when he was not an Australian legal practitioner.

The 28-year-old had in 2013 and 2014 intervened in police interviews with clients on the Gold Coast and failed to correct officers who assumed he was a solicitor, when he was in fact a law student.

Reichman unsuccessfully appealed against his conviction and penalty but has completed his legal practising certificate and university degree.

Almost five years after the conviction, Reichman is trying to get admitted to practise as a solicitor but the Queensland Law Society (QLS) has also lodged documents opposing the admission, saying he is not a fit and proper person to work as a solicitor.

His contested admission hearing will be heard in the Brisbane Supreme Court next week, when Reichman will be represented by Queensland’s top silk Saul Holt, QC.

It is understood the objection letter penned by the Queensland legal practitioners to the Legal Profession Admission Board argues Reichman does not “at this present time” have insight or reasoning to uphold or fulfil the role as a solicitor in Queensland.

However, it is understood some senior legal practitioners have also written letters in support of Reichman, saying he had been “personally disappointed” by his past and had now developed insight into his transgressions, which occurred almost seven years ago.

QLS immediate past president Bill Potts said it was up to the Supreme Court to consider whether the former Bond University student should be admitted.

He said the QLS had lodged opposition to the admission on the basis Reichman had been convicted of holding out to be a solicitor when he was not one. “Honesty is not something you can be taught,” Mr Potts said.

He said Reichman had “actively, repeatedly and persistently attempted to mislead courts, police and clients”.

When contacted by the Bulletin, Reichman said it would be inappropriate to comment about his own admission to the legal profession while the matter was before the courts.

Reichman previously worked under the instruction of controversial barrister Chris Rosser, who himself now faces being struck off after a tribunal found his conduct at the bar was “disgraceful, dishonest and dishonourable”.

Mr Rosser was in October found by the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal to have used two legal “advisory services” as a “deceptive facade” to get work.

The judgment also found he instructed Reichman to attend court and police interviews for him.

QCAT president Justice Martin Daubney recommended Mr Rosser be struck off.