Stephen Rugendyke 
Principal Lawyer, Newcastle
Family Law
Stephen Rugendyke firmly believes that “commitment to your client’s best interests and to your own excellence will bring lasting rewards in terms of professional growth, job satisfaction and financial reward.”
Stephen enjoys the culture at Slater & Gordon as he feels it supports a culture of commitment to clients, excellence and cutting-edge approaches to practice.
Both Stephen’s clients and colleagues describe his strength to be, commitment, understanding and support, which is encouraging for the firm’s Family Law department and of course for Stephen.
In the practice of Family Law, helping people achieve justice means helping them get to a point where they have the best basis to move on with their life, without having sacrificed self-worth and dignity and with the best outcome possible from the legal system, with their best interests always paramount. “Making a difference to how people move on after the end of a relationship, with their dignity intact or recovering and having achieved a result that they can be happy with”
The very nature of Family Law means that everyone’s story/case is different to the next, with Stephen’s client base ranging from very young, vulnerable children to adults from all walks of life. Typical matters in which Stephen acts include parenting matters, as a representative for one of the parents, or the children and sometimes for other family members and property settlements both between married partners and partners to de facto or same sex relationships, ranging from relatively straightforward settlements to very complex cases involving multiple parties.
The most important thing for Stephen in his work, is having his clients recognise that he is genuinely trying to look after their best interests and helping them achieve an outcome that they recognise as the best that can be obtained without too high a financial or personal cost and where they can move on and/or rebuild their lives.
Expertise
- Family Law
- Independent Children’s Lawyer (previously Separate Representative)
Career history
- Slater & Gordon since 2008 (lawyer)
- 1995-2008 Rugendyke Lawyers (principal lawyer)
- 1991-1995 Tilbury & Co, Solicitors, Armidale (lawyer/partner)
- 1987-1991 Marsdens (solicitor in charge)
- 1985-1987 Watson McNamara & Watt, Solicitors (lawyer)
- 1983-1985 W A Dowe & Co, Solicitors (lawyer)
Memberships & associations
- Law Society of NSW
- Family Law Section of the Law Council of Australia
- North & North West Law Society
- Hunter Valley Family Law Practitioners Association
Professional qualifications & admissions
- 1996 Accredited Specialist in Family Law
- 1992 Appointed to Legal Aid Commission of NSW Separate Representatives for Children Panel
- 1982 Admitted, Supreme Court of NSW
- 1981 Bachelor of Laws, University of Sydney