Judge Orazio (Ray) Rinaudo AM

Chief Magistrate

Ray Rinaudo, was admitted as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Queensland in 1979 and admitted to the role of Solicitors of the High Court of Australia in 1981.

He practiced continuously as a Solicitor for 24 years till 2003, firstly as a partner in a large city firm and then in his own firm, Rinaudo & Co, for 17 years.

He was president of the Queensland Law Society in 1991/92, and chair of the Law Societies Alternate Dispute Resolution Committee. He also served on a number of other committees of the Law Society. He was approved as both a Law Society Mediator and Arbitrator.

He served as a Commissioner with the Crime and Misconduct Commission, the Legal aid Commission a part-time member of the Australian Administrative Appeals Tribunal. He was chair of the Queensland Real Estate Institutes Professional Standards Tribunal for many years.

Ray has been involved in dispute resolution since the late eighties and, in 1990, undertook his first course in dispute resolution at Bond University. Later, he completed his Masters of Laws in dispute resolution at the same institution.

Ray has undertaken thousands of mediation, arbitrations, adjudications and conciliations in all manner of disputes. These include family mediations for legal aid and for many private disputants, commercial disputes, civil disputes for the Supreme Court (for which he is a approved mediator) and privately, conciliations at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and for the Federal Magistrates Service, Arbitrations under the Property Law Act and Adjudication under the Body Corporate and Community Management Act, as well as mediations and arbitrations for the real estate industry.

Ray has international experience in teaching mediation both in Hong Kong and Malaysia as well as locally, having taught in Arbitration and Mediation at the University of Queensland as will as coaching for that University and Bond University over many years.

After 24 years as a "main stream" lawyer, Ray sold his practice in September 2003 to concentrate on Alternate Dispute Resolution.

Ray was an adjunct Professor in the School of Social Science University of Queensland and was awarded the Centenary Medal in 2000 and made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2017.

On 28 February 2005 he was appointed Magistrate for the State of Queensland, after constituting a court for two years at Southport Court on Queensland's Gold Coast, he constituted a court at Charleville Court, some 850 kilometres west of Brisbane and also serviced the courts of Roma, Mitchell, Cunnamulla. Quilpie and Tambo covering an area of some 400,000 square kilometres. On 20 December 2008, he was appointed to constitute the Court at Sandgate situated on Brisbane northern bay area. On 2 January he was appointed Regional Coroner sitting in Brisbane Magistrates Court. He Acted as Deputy Chief Magistrate for a period of three weeks in June and since 4 August 2012, is currently Acting Deputy Chief magistrate till 17 December 2012.

On 24 June 2013 he was appointed Deputy Chief Magistrate and on 8 July 2015, Chief Magistrate and Judge of District Court.

Judge Rinaudo will sit as Chief Magistrate for 5 years until 7 July 2019, when he will then sit as a District Court Judge untill his retirement.

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