Designing Gender Equality into the Future of Law: Final Report

Abstract

The Gender Equality in Working Life (GEWL) Research Initiative at the University of Sydney is a multidisciplinary research initiative leveraging several decades of research expertise on women's working lives to establish an action-oriented, practical approach to building a gender equal future of work.

This report the culmination of a three-phase research project designed to investigate how lawyers of all genders understand and experience the changing nature of work. It was developed through in-depth interviews with 33 senior stakeholders in the legal profession, an online survey of 766 practicing solicitors in NSW, and seven online focus groups with 30 early- and mid-career lawyers.

While the number of female solicitors relative to male solicitors has been increasing steadily since 2011, and women have comprised more than half of all solicitors in Australia since 2018, women remain markedly under-represented in senior leadership roles.

More than three-quarters (78 percent) of women and just over half (53 percent) of men surveyed agreed that sexual harassment is a problem in the legal profession, and a mere 16 percent of women and 33 percent of men agreed it is being adequately addressed.