Leading law firms are attempting to redress the gender imbalance in their most senior ranks by imposing targets for the proportion of women who should be appointed to partnership.
This coincides with exclusive research showing women account for just 21.4 per cent of equity partners at the leading 44 law firms, despite amounting to 52 per cent of the nation’s solicitors.
The Australian’s partnership survey, compiled by ECP Legal, indicates the position of women lawyers would be even worse but for the above-average rate at which eight of the largest firms have been promoting women.
Edwina Kwan is one of the newest partner at King & Wood Mallesons, who was recently promoted while still on maternity leave. Edwina was also a delegate of ACYD 2015.
One of those firms is King & Wood Mallesons, which has a target of lifting the proportion of women partners from its current 28.6 per cent to 40 per cent by 2022.
One of its newest partners, Edwina Kwan, was recently promoted while still on maternity leave.
Her elevation comes four years after she returned to KWM after working for two other firms, first in Hong Kong and then Beijing, where she spent five years building contacts while working on cross-border transactions.
She was back in Beijing last year, accompanied by her children, and expects her focus on cross-border deals will lead to more travel.
“It’s not easy but it’s doable if you make it work for you. I spent a month in Beijing last year and my five-year-old went to preschool there. My husband, who is a Kiwi, speaks Chinese so it’s easy for us to transplant back into that world,” Ms Kwan said.
Her appointment to partnership coincides with moves by the leading law firms to adopt a more flexible approach to promotions that seeks to accommodate the growing diversity in lawyers’ career paths.
While KWM and the seven other big firms have above-average cohorts of female partners, the Women Lawyers Association of NSW has urged all firms to adopt “achievable and measurable gender diversity targets” that do not amount to quotas.
Writing exclusively for The Australian, three of the association’s leaders have praised the use of targets for female partners and rejected criticism. As well as KWM, they write that the firms with targets include Gilbert + Tobin, Clayton Utz, Minter Ellison, Allens Linklaters, Herbert Smith Freehills, Ashurst and Baker McKenzie.
However Shaaron Dalton of ECP Legal, writing online for The Australian, argues against the use of targets. She writes that equality of opportunity should mean the best person is promoted and that firms that have adopted targets will have trouble meeting them.
by CHRIS MERRITT
Retrieved from www.theaustralian.com.au