Promotion of Women Survey 2023

AWLA has recently published data from its 2023 Promotion of Women Survey.

The promotion of women to senior positions in the legal profession is of keen interest to AWLA. The retention and advancement of women lawyers is also a key issue in the broader legal community – with NZLS reporting that while the majority of people working in firms with more than one practitioner are women, women make up less than one third of partners or directors in those firms.

Visibility of the proportion of women in partnership across a range of firms is an important part of drawing attention and accountability to the progress that is or is not being made to address this inequity. For this reason, since 2020 AWLA has compiled information about the proportion of women partners across a range of firms, and their promotion in recent years.

AWLA sought data from 36 different firms around Auckland, with approximately 80% of firms responding.  

Click here to see how firms around Auckland are tracking.

We hope that this information is useful to you. From our perspective, it shows that we still have a long way to go to achieve gender parity in partnership in the legal profession, but there is also some good work being done to achieve this goal.  Next year, we intend to seek information on the number of women holding 100% equity partnership, to gain better understanding of the percentage of women who have the power to drive the overall direction of firms.

In 2022, AWLA also published results from a survey we conducted of firm’s parental leave entitlements.   The purpose of this survey was to increase transparency and discussion around these entitlements.  You can find that information here.