The former lawyer was found guilty in March 2020 and sentenced to an aggregate term of three years imprisonment from June 2020, which was to be served by way of an intensive corrections order.

While concerned about the offending itself, Justices Julie Ward, Michael Ball, and John Basten of the NSW Supreme Court said it was most concerned with Yousif’s untruthful evidence and lack of insight.

“At the very least, the answers she gave in cross-examination … demonstrate that Yousif has not fully accepted the respects in which her conduct involved the commission of serious criminal offences, including criminal offences going to her honesty,” the bench said.

In their written reasons, published late last week, the bench said this made Yousif unfit to remain on the roll and it was “not possible to say with any confidence if and when the position will change”.

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Sometime between February and October 2016, while Yousif was working as a law clerk, convicted drug dealer Clinton Parkinson approached the firm to represent him on a parole application.

Shortly after his release, the two began a relationship and Parkinson decided he wanted to join the Bandidos Motorcycle Club.

During the course of her offending, Yousif was working at Aboriginal Legal Service (ALS) and then at Legal Aid in Wagga Wagga.

In early November 2017, video surveillance captured Parkinson and Yousif counting money and discussing the supply of drugs. Police claimed Parkinson had an arrangement with a man to transport the methylamphetamine to Melbourne and Albury so it could be sold.

After learning Parkinson needed an additional $4,000, Yousif asked if he needed her to “pull out two thousand from my account?”

When he turned this down, Yousif said: “I can pull it but then you’ve just got to give it back to me. If you need it then I’ve got it for you.”

Around this same time, Parkinson’s cousin and prospective Bandidos member, Danny Kearney, was invited to participate in an annual motorcycle ride to Tasmania but needed a specific category of motorcycle that required an unrestricted licence.

Given Kearney had neither, he and Parkinson came up with a plan to obtain an unrestricted NSW licence by forging an Indian driver’s licence and taking it into Service NSW.

When he attempted to do so, Kearney was told he needed to present a letter from the Consulate General of India to prove authenticity, so Parkinson prepared for the fake document to be made.

During a discussion on 22 November about how to make the document appear genuine – including by damaging it – Parkinson asked Yousif to join Kearney because she was a lawyer.

According to the judgment, Yousif said: “If they say no, then I can say I’m a [justice of the peace] and I’ll certify that it is … a true copy.”

The next day, Kearney presented the torn-up copy of the letter and claimed it came from India. When the employee pointed out it purported to be issued by the Consulate General of India in Sydney, Kearney became frustrated and walked away.

Yousif asked the employee if she could verify the document as a true copy because she was a justice of the peace (JP), but she was refused.

When cross-examined, Yousif’s initial position was “all solicitors were JPs” but later resiled from that to claim she told the employee she was a JP because “a lay person doesn’t understand that a solicitor is also a JP … it’s easier for me to say I’m a JP”.

Before the NSW Supreme Court, Yousif maintained she did not understand solicitors were not JPs until the cross-examination.

Justices Ward, Ball and Basten said the offences “could not be looked at in isolation” and had to be considered in light of Yousif’s decision to establish “a close personal relationship with a known criminal”.

While the court accepted Yousif’s evidence that the relationship had been abusive, it was not willing to accept the relationship was the primary reason she had committed the offending.

“It seems plain from the language she used in the recorded conversations … and what actually happened that she was a willing participant in the events that constituted the offences,” it said.

The court also said Yousif’s evidence at her criminal trial that she did not know the document was false could not be accepted.

“It is not plausible that someone who participated in the concoction of a story about how the letter came to be damaged believed the story when giving evidence of it.

“Similarly … it is not plausible that Yousif did not know that the money she was counting, and that she offered to supplement, was to buy illicit drugs,” Justices Ward, Ball and Basten said.

On the latter, the bench said Yousif’s evidence was “particularly evasive” because, on several occasions, she had denied knowing the money was used for “the supply of 55 grams of methamphetamines”.

“The introduction of a precise quantity in the answer to the question created an ambiguity because it became unclear whether Yousif was denying that she knew the precise quantity of drugs to be purchased or whether she was denying that she knew that the money was being used to purchase any drugs,” the court said.

Turning to the evidence into her insight, the court said Yousif first gave evidence she refrained from seeking psychological help because she thought it would damage her case. She then indicated she would give evidence because it would assist her case.

“This and the other evidence we have referred to indicate that Yousif remains a person who is willing to say and do whatever will achieve her immediate goals without being overly concerned about what the right thing to do is,” Justices Ward, Ball and Basten said.

The case is Prothonotary of the Supreme Court of New South Wales v Yousif [2025] NSWCA 77.