Doubling Down
A matter of days after former solicitor Mr Senanayake (S M Senarath Bandara Chanaka Senanayake) failed in his application to get his ticket back, he returned to the NSW Supremes asking Acting Justice Michael Elkaim to modify his judgment to achieve “a balance between the public interest and the principles of fairness, proportionality and the proper administration of justice”.
He submitted Elkaim’s reasons were “unjust”. He also wanted a suppression order. HH did not oblige:
“Changing a judgment to meet the wishes of a disgruntled litigant is not part of the administration of justice. If anything, it impedes the administration of justice.
In addition, the declarations sought in the notice of motion have no sound basis, are not necessary (even if substantiated), or in the case of the declaration for the granting of a practising certificate, is an attempt to intrude upon the defendant’s statutory function of regulating the legal profession.”
The former migration lawyer, was refused renewal of his practising certificate by the NSW Supreme Court, due to his persistent failure to admit wrongdoing.
At the heart of the controversy lies an earlier complaint made against Mr Senanyake to the Migration Agents Registration Authority by a Mr M and Ms Z in 2016.
During the investigation, MARA discovered 10 migration applications which were “potentially duplicated or template-based protection claims”.
MARA then instigated its own complaint against Senanyake, which found that he breached the Code of Conduct for Migration Agents. His registration with that body was consequently suspended for five years.
Senanyake unsuccessfully sought a review of the decision in the AAT.
Later in 2020, the Law Society rejected his application for renewal of his ticket.
In the successive months and years, Senanyake applied for a practising certificate a further eight times, and each time was refused.
His ninth application, refused in July 2025, is the subject of the appeal.
Elkaim AJ similarly refused to renew the certificate, finding that Senanyake had not established that he is fit and proper.
This was largely due to the fact that rather than accept the findings of MARA and the AAT, Senanyake continued to insist he did not act improperly. This stance was maintained both in submissions and cross-examination:
Q. And you’ll see at 92, the member found that you acted in breach of 2.8?
A. That’s the member’s opinion.
Q. Once again, do you deny that you breached clause 2.8?
A. No. I deny it. I deny it.
The basis for his argument appears to be that the MARA and AAT decisions had “prima facie deficiencies”, which he thought was enough for his application to succeed.
Elkaim AJ described the plaintiff as “so confident (as to the wrongness of the decisions) that he simply repeated his submissions each time he made an application”.
However, by failing to attempt to persuade the Law Society of any specific failings in the decisions of the AAT or MARA, the court found that his attitude bore a “degree of arrogance”.
Any arguments regarding rehabilitation, such as Senanyake’s academic achievements, were also given little weight.
Senanyake raised that he had received a Master’s degree and a PhD from the University of Selinus. Elkaim appeared slightly sceptical about this credential, noting that it required “little more than” payment of between €2,000 and €3,000.
In any event, the court found that rehabilitation necessitates an acknowledgement of past errors, which Senanyake continued to explicitly reject:
“There’s nothing else to rehabilitate because I haven’t done anything wrong.”
A further point to note is that during the AAT review, Senanyake made serious allegations against the solicitor for the complainants, Ms Stratigos.
He accused her of intentionally fabricating facts and providing false and misleading statements to Australian government agencies – yet the AAT found no evidence of wrongdoing.
HH cited with approval a recent decision in the Western Australia State Administrative Tribunal, which held that this alone may be capable of finding a person is not fit and proper (see Legal Practice Board and Barker [2026] WASAT 74).
Although Senanayake’s five-year suspension from MARA had lapsed, which is a powerful consideration in favour of renewing his PC, his “overwhelming lack of insight” as to the reasons for his suspension led the court to sink his application.
Senanayake v Law Society of NSW [2026] NSWSC 790
False Dobbing
Between 2018 and 2020, former police officer and Queensland lawyer Julie Gilfoyle breached a cocktail of professional duties, including knowingly making misrepresentations to Queensland police, leading to one of her clients being falsely charged with a criminal offence.
The nine charges raised against Gilfoyle in the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT) amount to instances of both professional misconduct and unsatisfactory professional conduct, causing the Tribunal to recommend her removal from the jam roll.
Some of these charges follow an unfortunately familiar pattern of delay and concealment. For example, Gilfoyle failed to lodge for eight months an application for financial assistance from Victims Assist Queensland for her client, CM.
This lapse led the Tribunal to find her guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct.
However, Gilfoyle’s error was compounded, leading to a finding of professional misconduct. She had sent numerous emails to CM falsely representing the state of progress of the application. For example, she told the long-suffering client:
“Nothing else is required and I sent on Thursday [sic] express post your material and should receive confirmation and victims assist file number by email to me any time soon.”
At the time of communication, no application had been lodged, and nor had any material been posted to VAQ.
Eventually, the application and accompanying documents were received by VAQ in February 2020. The documents were dated September 14, 2019, and were signed by the client, CM, without her knowledge or authorisation.
Additionally, she falsely certified copies of CM’s driver licence and health card, despite the fact that Gilfoyle had never sighted the original documents.
Other charges of dishonest behaviour, which also led to findings of professional misconduct, occurred in the context of a dispute with another former client, BAE, over unpaid legal fees.
When bringing proceedings before the Tribunal over this matter, Gilfoyle relied on a costs agreement that was purportedly signed by BAE, but which turned out to be false.
BAE had not met Ms Gilfoyle on the date asserted, and nor had he signed the adduced costs agreement.
However, when this was disputed by BAE, in a second affidavit Gilfoyle doubled down on her position, annexing a letter stating:
“I cannot provide you any explanation as to why [BAE’s] signatures differ at the two pages you refer to but I assure you that [BAE] signed both of these pages in my presence after discussion was had with him concerning the contents of the documents.”
Gilfoyle ultimately accepted that BAE did not sign the costs agreement, and that the evidence she provided was false.
That’s not the end of it. Gilfoyle’s dishonesty was further compounded by an additional false statement provided to the Queensland Police Service, in which she alleged that BAE signed the costs agreement despite not disclosing that he was an undischarged bankrupt.
This caused BAE to be charged with failing to disclose his bankruptcy when obtaining goods or services, in breach of s.269(1)(ac) of the Bankruptcy Act 1966 (Cth).
The consequence for BAE was more trouble and expense, as he needed to obtain a forensic document examiner to prove that the signatures were not his.
The court further noted that had there not been written proof that BAE had made a disclosure of bankruptcy to Gilfoyle, there was a real risk that he could have been convicted of a crime he had not committed.
A further charge leading to a finding of unsatisfactory professional conduct was that Gilfoyle had sent discourteous and disreputable correspondence.
An email was sent in response to a witness advising that they intended to speak to the media about a case, asking about Gilfoyle’s willingness to speak with the media herself.
In her response, which extended three A4 pages, Gilfoyle made a number of assertions against the magistrate and court system, including:
“[The] Acting Magistrate came in and knew nothing about the matter. He said he was consenting. Here was the dilemma. This is why DV continues to be enabled by our courts.”
And:
“Her Honour would have just issued the order without admissions for five years. I could see that the Magistrate had no education on DV. So I educated her.”
Although the Tribunal re-affirmed that criticism of the court is not necessarily a breach of professional duties, criticism needs to be accurate, temperate, and based on a reasonable foundation.
This was not found to be the case – rather the conduct was likely to a material degree to bring the profession into disrepute.
Ms Gilfoyle did not contest the application of the Commissioner to the Tribunal, and the parties relied on a Statement of Agreed Facts.
She had surrendered her ticket to trade and agreed never again to be employed in legal work.
However, she did attempt to argue that she should not bear the costs of the matter on the basis of exceptional circumstances, none of which were found to be exceptional.
Her arguments relevantly included the financial impact of a costs order, which was rejected on the basis that it is not unusual that practitioners may lose their livelihood and be more financially challenged because of misconduct.
A further argument regarding her mental health was also rejected. While her mental health had undoubtedly deteriorated, largely due to a sexual assault in December 2020, poor mental health was described by the Tribunal as “commonplace” in the legal profession, and without more, unexceptional.
Further, while delay may in limited circumstances be sufficiently exceptional, here, the seven-year period that occurred during which the complaints were investigated was not enough to relieve Gilfoyle of costs.
The serious nature of the charges merited a thorough investigation, and although Gilfoyle eventually accepted the charges, initially she disputed several aspects of the draft disciplinary application.
The Tribunal held it was admirable that Gilfoyle otherwise agreed to facts, complied to all relevant time frames, and took steps to reduce the work involved, but it was not exceptional.
Gilfoyle was ordered to stump the costs of proceedings, and a recommendation was made to the ACT Supreme Court (where Gilfoyle was admitted) that she be derolled.