PRESS / SPEECHES

FEMALE lawyers want a more flexible legal profession so they can better manage their professional and personal commitments, according to a survey of women lawyers.

More than a quarter of women (25.2 per cent) surveyed by the Women Lawyers Association of NSW listed flexibility as their top priority.

This was closely followed by women wanting support to overcome impediments to leadership positions.

WLANSW president Natasha Walls said the online survey of more than 150 female lawyers asked respondents to focus on aspirational changes that would make the biggest difference to their career, rather than on their biggest professional problems.

Ms Walls said flexibility had been on the agenda for a long time, but the context had now changed because more men were demanding flexible work and technology had enabled flexible arrangements like never before.

She said WLANSW was keen to reframe the debate.

“There’s this assumption that flexibility means you want to work part-time … and that if you’re working part-time you’re broken – you’re only part of a full-time worker,” she said.

“It’s about exploring what flexibility means. It might mean you need to pick up the kids or drop off the kids at a certain time so you work different hours. There is a whole range of different things.”

Ms Walls said the business case for flexibility was clear, with research showing companies that had adaptive and agile cultures financially outperformed those that did not.

The survey also revealed women lawyers wanted support to reach the top of the profession.

Ms Walls said WLANSW would roll out a number of new initiatives – including “Workshops over Wine”, which would bring in successful women to teach women practical skills, such as how to build their personal brand, handle the media and ask for a pay rise.

“It’s not about women saying they want a hall pass to get into leadership positions,” she said.

“It’s about women saying, `We’ll bring the talent, just take away the unnecessary obstacles’.”

The survey results also revealed a significant proportion of women – 17.1 per cent – want a transformation of billing models in the legal profession to recognise value rather than hours spent at their desk.

A further 16.8 per cent wanted a thriving social and professional network for women lawyers in NSW, while 16 per cent of respondents wanted support to start or maintain a legal practice.

Originally posted by Nicola Berkovic, The Australian

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