Cawley was admitted as a lawyer in 2007. He was admitted as a legal practitioner of the High Court of Australia in 2009 and the High Court of New Zealand in 2023.
Cawley’s passion for industrial relations is matched with over 17 years of experience at leading industry associations, small to medium businesses, large corporations, government agencies and legal practices.
He was a member of the National Workplace Relations Consultative Council and Committee on Industrial Legislation which were central to developing the Fair Work Act. He was also involved in the award modernisation process in 2008, the process which developed the current modern awards.
He gained unique experience and insights from his work developing the legislation and modern awards.
Cawley has achieved significant outcomes in a range of cases before industrial tribunals such as the Fair Work Commission and the NSW Industrial Relations Commission.
He has appeared in three national wages cases, a number of significant industrial disputes and a wide variety of applications relating to unfair dismissals, general protections and employee disputes.
Cawley is an experienced HR professional and has worked as an HR director, senior business partner, project and change manager.
He also has significant experience solving issues relating to wage compliance, underpayments and remediation work.
He also enjoys coding and app development. He designed and built CheckPay, a precise underpayment calculation and analysis app. He also designed and created iVOTEr, an enterprise agreement voting system.
Cawley holds a Bachelor of Laws, Master of Laws and Executive Master of Business Administration.
Cawley is the Managing Principal of Hennings Lawyers.
