Clare Raimondo
Clare Raimondo is a Partner in HWL Ebsworth’s Workplace Relations and Safety team. She is the South Australian Practice Group Head and is a member of the Firm’s Board of Partners.
Clare has broad expertise in employment and workplace relations matters, having practised as a registered industrial advocate before joining the legal profession. Her work encompasses all aspects of the employment relationship, advising and representing employers on a range of workplace legal issues including industrial & employment, enterprise bargaining, workplace health & safety and discrimination matters. Her practice has both an advisory and litigation focus.
Clare has been named as one of South Australia’s leading practitioners in Workplace Law by the Australian Legal Business Magazine and Doyle’s Guide to the Australian Legal Profession has regularly recommended her as a leading Employment & Industrial Relations lawyer. Clare has also been named in Best Lawyers™ Australia for Alternative Dispute Resolution and Occupational Health & Safety Law.
Experience
- Advising on industrial relations strategies and workplace law obligations arising from major commercial transactions including S Kidman & Co’s $386 million sale, the $670 million divestment of forestry assets by the SA Government, $427 million sale of SA Lotteries operating rights, $1.605 billion commercialisation of South Australian land titling and valuation services, the commercialisation of South Australian road maintenance and street lighting assets and numerous private sales and acquisitions;
- Advising employers in relation to disciplinary investigations on various matters including a corrections officer accused of using inappropriate physical force against a prisoner, an educator accused of inappropriate physical contact with children, an employee accused of abusive and threatening behaviour towards a work colleague contrary to the applicable code of ethics, and undertaking a complex disciplinary investigation and audit for a resources industry employer after alleged irregularities were discovered in practices at its on-site medical clinic;
- Advising a tertiary education provider in relation to a complaint made by an employee who alleged she was sexually assaulted by a colleague following a work-related conference when both employees were intoxicated;
- Advising a university in relation to a discrimination complaint made by a student who alleged she was disadvantaged in her studies towards a medical degree due to her carer’s responsibilities for a seriously disabled child;
- Representing an automotive industry employer in re-negotiating its enterprise agreements against a background of multiple union representation, a history of industrial disputation and significant industry re-structuring;
- Successfully obtaining an Equal Opportunity Act exemption allowing a defence industry employer to take a person’s nationality into account when employing workers for sensitive national security projects;
- Representing a large wine industry employer in an industrial dispute with two trade unions which arose after the company decided to outsource part of its operations, resulting in the redundancy of several positions;
- successfully representing the Commonwealth in relation to the first South Australian application seeking an intervention order to protect employees from violent and threatening behaviour by a customer while at their workplace and in multiple subsequent similar applications;
- Representing a large cattle station in relation to a safety prosecution following an accident at a remote worksite in which a young and inexperienced worker was fatally injured; and
- Advising a local government organisation about the potential risks and liabilities associated with allowing an employee with significant non-occupational injuries to return to work, and successfully defending a subsequent discrimination claim.
Clare’s publications include:
When Worlds Collide: Managing Workplace Safety and Employee Discipline [2013] AMPLA Yearbook ISSN 0812-857X.