By Kate Allman -
Stuart Clark is a Member of the Order of Australia, the 2016 President of the Law Council of Australia, and a partner in the Clayton Utz litigation team. Despite having a diary as jam-packed as his resume, Clark has volunteered in the NSW Rural Fire Service for 43 years. KATE ALLMAN finds out how he keeps his cool under fire.
When Stuart Clark went to Charterhouse boarding school in Britain, one of his challenges was finding time to try out as many of the 80-odd extracurricular clubs and societies as possible. He filled his days with football, hockey, cricket, rugby and student politics – when not in the classroom – and, of course, he had to be in bed by curfew.
Clark’s days are still hectic, but his nights are short. He is a litigation partner at Clayton Utz and travels around Australia in his role as the 2016 President of the Law Council of Australia. When he is at home in Sydney, he hauls fire hoses through the bush in northern Sydney as a member of the Hornsby/Ku-ring-gai Rural Fire Service (RFS).
How does he fits it all in? “I guess I get up early,” Clark says. “I don’t sleep too much. And I have a great PA.”
He learnt to survive on minimal sleep at Macquarie University (he was in the law school’s first intake) where he joined the Australian Union of Students and became a “full-time student politician and part-time law student”.
