Darren Gardner

Darren is a trusted and valued consulting partner and legal adviser to employers in the corporate and government sectors. He is the head of our Workplace Law & Culture team. Darren is considered by many of his clients to be an integral part of their leadership team helping to deliver on important organisational change and effectiveness objectives.

For over 25 years Darren has tirelessly served his clients best interests:

• in the heat of litigation and in the cut and thrust of regulatory investigation
• through negotiation, conciliation and mediation of complex industrial disputes and sensitive workplace grievances
• in challenges to and in the protection of human resource management initiatives; employment attraction and retention systems; people diversity and effectiveness, workplace safety and senior management change processes.

Darren also provides creative workplace dispute resolution services as an accredited mediator and internationally trained negotiator. From his wealth of practical experience and specialist law and practice knowledge, Darren can skilfully encourage parties to get to the heart of an issue. He does this sensitive to intersecting political, industrial, legal and commercial interests to find the right workplace solution.

Clients enjoy an ease of doing business with Darren. He instils immediate confidence as an engaging, genuinely interested and intelligent lawyer who understands the broader dimensions, finer details and what materially matters. He prides himself on delivering results on time, within budget using smart ideas, pragmatic thought, and crisp, insightful advice.

Qualifications & Memberships

• Bachelor of Laws (Hons) (University of Technology Sydney)
• Master of Laws (Hons) (University of Sydney)
• Accredited Specialist – Employment and Industrial Law (Law Society of NSW)
• Accredited Mediator (National Mediation Accreditation Scheme, NMAS)
• Admitted Barrister (Supreme Court of NSW) 1993 and Admitted Solicitor (Supreme Court of NSW and High Court of Australia) 1994
• Member - Industrial Relations Society of NSW (IRS NSW)
• Member - Institute of Arbitrators and Mediators Australia (IAMA) Resolution Institute
• Member - Institute of Public Administration Australia (IPAA)
• Member - Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI)
• Member - Australian Labour Law Association (ALLA)

• Managing sensitive and complex workplace relations situations to find the best possible results which pass legal compliance stress tests and are robust enough to endure the continuing cycles of workplace improvement.
• Expert advice and guidance to manage misbehaving or poor performing employees and improve workplace productivity and engagement.
• Advising on executive arrivals and departures, including protecting against risks to confidential information, intellectual property, staff and customer non-solicitation and agreed restraint and non-competition obligations.
• Advising on and interpreting contracts, industrial instruments, and legislation to fashion simple, compliant and workable policies and practices.
• Advocacy in the regular and specialist courts in employment, anti-discrimination, and industrial tribunals and in workplace safety, coronial and administrative law inquiries and litigation.
• Specialist experience in public sector dispute, performance, disciplinary, change and dismissal processes and proceedings, investigations and hearings.
• Designing effective and appropriately adapted workplace strategies for company and government boards of management, chief executives, ER and IR managers.
• Specialist experience advising on and representing clients in equal employment opportunity, privacy, anti-discrimination and harassment and vilification prevention, complaint handling and litigation proceedings.
• Restraint of trade and confidential information business protections in employment, remuneration and benefits contracts and policy drafting, enforcement and compliance strategies.
• Conducting and advising on sound and defensible investigations of employee misconduct, crime, misadventure or workplace safety risk events.
• Managing injured and ill employees and legal compliance.
• Disciplinary and dismissal advice, including unfair, threatened and unlawful dismissal action; unlawful discrimination, adverse action, workplace change and redundancy negotiation and litigation.