‘Law firms must get change champion’

It must be someone who is a high earner and shouldn’t be left to HR

“TRANSFORMATION requires a champion.” This is a call made by the Centre for Applied Legal Studies in their report on the transformation of the legal profession.

The report calls for a champion to be identified in each of the country’s law firms to steer both race and gender transformation.

“The champion must be someone with power in the organisation and who is both respected and a high feeearner.

“Somebody in a position of power in a firm needs to take on the role of championing transformation. This should not be left to human resources,” the centre says in its report, due to be made public on September 30.

The report focuses on whether there has been meaningful transformation in terms of race and gender in South Africa’s legal profession after 20 years of democracy.

De Rebus SA Attorneys Journal editor Nomfundo Manyathi-Jele analysed the findings of the report.

Manyathi-Jele said a number of women working in the industry had expressed dismay after experiencing “problematic work assignment patterns” in firms.

“In a mixed group of male and female junior attorneys, the women spoke about how they were assigned administrative or company secretary type assignments while their male counterparts would be included in meeting with clients and given ‘real’ legal work such as transactional work,” she said.

The centre also recommends in its report that fair and representative mechanisms be crafted that hold perpetrators to account and protect victims of discrimination and harassment.

It has recommended that the Law Society of South Africa and the General Council of the Bar put policies in place to address harassment and sexual discrimination in the profession.

Jeremy Muller, the chairperson of the General Council of the Bar, said the Cape Bar had adopted a sexual harassment policy “some years ago”.

“The current chair of the sexual harassment committee is a senior female advocate at the Cape Bar. I understand that very few reports of sexual harassment have been reported,” Muller said.

He said the Bar’s maternity policy initiated in 2009 has proved to be a success with more than R200 000 being paid to claimants in the past two years.

Law Society chairperson Richard Scott said the society focuses on promoting women attorneys in leadership positions.

“We have appointed women attorneys to all our specialist committees that deal with various areas of the law and legal practice.

“This is important to dispel the notion that women attorneys are suitable only for certain fields of practice,” said Scott.

The report also recommends that the Department of Justice and Correctional Services undertake research to monitor the progress of black female law graduates over a ten year period.

The department was unable to provide comment on the report’s recommendations by time of going to press.