Randal Dennings

 Randal Dennings  is an adjunct professor at the TC Beirne Law School at the University of Qld.  He was the lead partner of Clayton Utz’s National Governance and Compliance division. In this role he advised extensively in the public, private and Not For Profit  sectors on governance, legal risk and compliance issues.  He was with #Claytonutz for over 30 years and retired from legal practice in 2016 but remains active in his committee membership of the Queensland Law Society’s Banking and Financial Services Committee and chairs the University of Queensland’s (UQ) Law School Pro Bono Centre, and is a regular lecturer for the Law School, 

As young lawyers or even older ones, we often form the impression that partners of large law firms are unapproachable, tough and occasionally arrogant.  There maybe partners out there like that but #Randaldennings is not one of them!  What I took away from this interview is that to make it to partner level at a large national firm you need 

·  Good social skills

·  Kindness and compassion

·  The ability to see other points of view 

·  A supportive partner, in Randal’s case his lovely wife Susan

·  Hard work which may mean sacrificing other parts of your lie 

Randal talks about 

·  Growing up in Greenslopes amidst the repatriation hospital and the foundry

·  How he was the beneficiary of the #whitlam government’s free higher education reform

·  How the lack of social capital made it very difficult to get his first legal job

·  How a love of books and libraries landed him his first legal job 

·  How hard work can compete with natural talent.

·  What kept him in the same workplace for close to 40 years 

·  His respect and admiration for the people he worked for and with at Clayton Utz.

·  How he pivoted his legal practice to credit in the 1980’s when new credit legislation was introduced into Queensland and across Australia.

·  His role in the civil penalty applications in the 1990’s 

·  How that work led Suncorp to ask him to look at their legal compliance system and morphed his career into a leading expert on compliance and saw him co author chapters in leading CCH texts on compliance

·  How a few drinks with friends (#simoncleary and #paulo’shea),  after a QPILCH function led to the formation of the #UQProbonoCentre

·  His concern for regional practitioners and the unrecognised #probono work that they undertake on a daily basis.

·  How his faith shaped him as a man and a lawyer.

·  The #AustralianLabyrinthnetwork what it does and how he became involved.

You can contact Randal through Linked in (22) Randal Dennings | LinkedIn  or by sending me an email through my  website www.lorettakreet.com.  Please drop me a line if you have  any questions or  know of someone who may be interested in being interviewed for this podcast.