Jill Rowbotham | Source: The Australian, Wednesday, December 14, 2022 | Business Review

A flawed system of promotion is holding women back from achieving partnership and equity and law firms are pinning their hopes for change on remediation measures while they cast about for more circuit-breakers.

A number of firms have women chief executive partners or chairs – including appointments in the past week at Clayton Utz, where Emma Covacevich will succeed Bruce Cooper as chief executive partner in July, and Herbert Smith Freehills, which announced Kristin Stammer would succeed Andrew Pike as executive partner for Australia and Asia from May. Baker McKenzie’s Anne-Marie Allgrove will succeed Anthony Foley as national managing partner for Australia from July and Hall & Wilcox appointed Emma Woolley as its first woman chair from January.

Such announcements show some progress, but women partners still only make up 31.8 per cent of the total across firms in The Australian Legal Partnership Survey, as counted by the full time equivalent measure.

This is almost the same as in the June survey, where the proportion was 31.9 per cent. For women in equity partnership, measured by headcount, the average was 28.3 per cent, up by almost a full percentage point.

Almost one-fifth of firms surveyed have reached or exceeded 40 per cent of FTE women partners – the widely accepted goal for gender leadership parity in the workplace, where 40 per cent are men and the other 20 per cent are any gender. Many more are heading there, but the survey averages show the distance yet to cover.

This is an issue the Law Society of NSW will be taking up anew, says its president, Joanne van der Plaat, who has identified equal pay and flexible working as among the conditions crucial to retaining women in the pipeline to promotion. “Remuneration and career opportunities are vital to retaining high-performing staff,” she said.

“It’s about saying to firms, ‘Look at this with a business lens that improves productivity, it improves performance. Clients are looking at this in terms of your competitiveness and how you’re growing’.”

The society has invited signatories to its Charter for the Advancement of Women and other leading law firms to roundtable discussions of pay gaps emerging with early career lawyers and plans to issue new guidance notes in the next six months.

“Challenges that are systemic in the industry as well as in society… result in women not progressing at the same rate as their male peers,” Maddocks chief executive David Newman told the survey. In the last decade the proportion of women partners at the firm has risen from 18 per cent to almost 40 per cent, with 31.4 per cent of equity partners being women. “There’s certainly greater awareness of the systemic inequality within the system,” Lander & Rogers chief executive partner Genevieve Collins confirmed.

Graeme Walsh, principal of the 36-partner firm Barry. Nilsson. Lawyers, where women make up 34.1 per cent of partners but only 7.7 per cent of equity partners, acknowledged the legal profession had traditionally made few concessions to assist women to advance to higher levels. “The fundamental flaw is the system, focused on time-based billing rather than quality or value, disadvantages those who take a step back for parental leave and to care for young children, particularly in comparison to counterparts who do not,” Mr Walsh said. “The system has not been designed to support anything less than full-time work and for any lawyer who works part-time it is challenging to fit in all that’s required for advancement, both financial and non-financial performance factors.

“As a result, senior females can be disadvantaged in meeting criteria for advancement, with many leaving law firms to go to in-house and government roles to get away from timesheets.”

Walsh is among the leaders of surveyed firms who say things may improve because of the disruption of work patterns caused by Covid-19, where hours worked became less important than getting the job done. There may also be a seachange with the ascension of women leaders in client firms and the increasing number of men taking parental leave.

Many firms say they expect progress as current initiatives take hold. “Women have increasing pathways to leadership roles in our firm and we are confident this trend will continue to be reflected at the partnership level,” Norton Rose Fulbright chief executive partner Alison Deitz said. “Our sponsorship programs are achieving results, along with other inclusive gender-neutral policies. We also think that with hybrid work now being more commonplace, more of the traditional barriers for women are coming down.”

However, Piper Alderman managing partner Tony Britten-Jones stressed the need for continual and strenuous effort.

About 18 per cent of the firm’s equity partners are women. “The demands of high-level legal practice are not reducing and that means firms must work harder at supporting staff over the course of their work cycle,” Mr Britten-Jones said. “Flexible work arrangements, better technology and more generous parental leave entitlements assist, but are not a complete answer.”

Norton Rose Fulbright is among firms that have increased the proportion of women equity partners, to 23.5 per cent. Others included Ashurst, up from 26.5 to 30.2 per cent; Holding Redlich, up from 23.9 to 28.3 per cent, while MinterEllison dropped back from 33.1 per cent in the last survey to 32.5 per cent. All of the firms’s partners hold equity. “In 2022, we have seen increased numbers of women stepping into leadership roles, with 50 per cent of the office managing partners roles and over 40 per cent of our practice group leader roles occupied by women,” managing partner Virginia Briggs said. “The firm has a healthy pipeline of talented women aspiring to partnership, which sees it tracking well to achieve its target of 40 per cent women represented in the partnership by 2025.”

Pipelines were a common theme. Gilbert + Tobin, which improved to 35.7 per cent women equity partners from 33.3 per cent last survey, said many women were on track for partnership. “Our internal promotions over the last four years have been half women,” partner and chief operating officer Sam Nickless said. “We’ve also brought in a number of women as lateral recruits.”

Pinsent Masons, which had no women equity partners in the last survey, now has one. “Our pipeline of female talent on the pathway to partnership is strong,” human resources manager for Australia Scott Jenkins said.

DLA Piper managing partner for Australia, Amber Matthews, said that with 26.2 per cent women partners, “we still don’t have enough female representation at partner level”. “We are focusing on supporting and empowering our senior female lawyers to become partners through coaching, mentoring and sponsorship. We are pleased 50 per cent of our candidates for partnership in 2023 are women.”

More than half of EY’s equity partners are women. “This makes us a very attractive proposition for young female lawyers – they see (this) as a place where women are rewarded and achieve at the highest level,” EY law leader for Oceania Sarah Ralph said.

Measures to level the playing field include reduced billing targets following leave; equal representation on leadership development programs for partnership aspirants; and intervening early to foster young women.

 

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