Duke’s Regular Lawful Hand Bids Farewell

It is good to say that most of the time when human means specialists and lawyers find on their own functioning together on a thing, matters have gotten challenging.

Due to the fact 1987, when individuals generally fragile and critical predicaments have transpired, Kate Hendricks, Duke’s deputy standard counsel for labor and work, has been at the desk, supplying collaborators with wisdom drawn from her deep lawful experience and reassurance as a result of her innate calm confidence.

“She has a way of trying to keep every person even-keeled,” stated Duke Health System’s Main Human Assets Officer and Senior Vice President Rhonda Brandon, who will work with Hendricks usually. “It’s like when you are on an airplane and you strike turbulence. If you seem at the flight attendant and they are fantastic, you know you are likely to be Ok.”

At the close of December 2022, Hendricks will retire from the area she’s been an critical piece of for a few-and-a-half decades. She’ll leave guiding an establishment that is routinely cited as a best position to get the job done, and a network of colleagues and collaborators who have benefitted from her comprehension of the law, her information about Duke, and her determination to the individuals who make it go.

“For the associations involving Duke’s staff members and the institution, concerning its college and its college students, and amongst Duke and any one who relies on us, belief and regard are main factors,” explained Duke Main Audit, Threat and Compliance Officer Leigh Goller. “Kate has been a devoted steward of the two.”

Even though some do the job has associated scholar challenges, exploration collaborations and emblems, most of Hendricks’ focus has been on employment and labor guidelines. With her sharp memory and deep knowledge, she’s assisted guidebook Duke leaders towards alternatives in usually complicated – and normally private – conditions involving office procedures, employment misconduct and union negotiations.

“We are legal professionals, we’re in this article to give the ideal legal assistance to Duke,” Hendricks mentioned. “And we’re finest served by obtaining a moral compass and making confident that we’re treating individuals rather. You can emphasis on the guidelines and laws, and the like, but in the long run, Duke is going to be most effective served by managing its staff, its college students and other people reasonably. You have to continue to keep that greater photo in intellect.”

A native of Jackson, Mississippi, Hendricks 1st came to Duke as a college student at the Duke University College of Law. Immediately after graduating in 1983, she used four several years doing the job in private apply in Washington, D.C. for a company which sometimes did do the job for Duke.

“When I would do the job on our Duke matters, I kept wondering, ‘You know, I actually like it down here,’” Hendricks claimed. “When a occupation possibility at Duke turned readily available, I jumped at it and hardly ever seemed back again.”

In 1987, Hendricks joined Duke’s crew of all around a half-dozen lawyers functioning in the lower level of the Allen Building. At the time, Duke’s workforce was much less than fifty percent the dimensions it is now, it operated just one healthcare facility and its globe-class investigation functions ended up still getting form.

In the many years to occur, the Duke Place of work of Counsel grew from a handful of lawyers to much more than 20 and Hendricks’ workspace moved from the Allen Creating, to North Pavilion and inevitably the American Tobacco Campus. Along the way, she gathered tales and ordeals which built her an a must have asset to her colleagues, who sought her advice when struggling with sophisticated problems.

“You can sit down with Kate and start out chatting about a situation and she’ll slowly but surely clear away her glasses and tell you about scenarios she remembers from a long time back,” explained Duke Interim Vice President for Human Assets Antwan Lofton. “She’ll go all the way back again to the 1980s and can notify you the names of instances, and who was in the meetings. You simply cannot change that.”

Whilst she’s noticed huge alter all through her time at Duke, Hendricks is encouraged by the simple fact that the main values of respect and have confidence in have remained constants. That excellent is what saved her at Duke and a little something she expects will endure very long just after her do the job is done. 

“The folks I have worked with at Duke have generally been dedicated to managing people pretty,” Hendricks claimed. “If we hadn’t shared that identical established of values, I’m not sure I would have been below that lengthy. But that ethical compass, I felt that when I very first bought below and continue to experience that to this working day.”

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