Legalwise News NZ Editor Caroline Tang interviewed New Zealand Law Society president Kathryn Beck about mandatory female quotas for company boards, after Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter suggested last month that the Government might consider options to “incentivise” private companies to increase female representation on their boards, if companies failed to make progress.
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Women make up 19 per cent of directors in the companies listed on the NZX Main Board, according to data from the operator of the New Zealand Stock Exchange.
The Government is leading by example and requires that women make up 50 per cent of all public sector boards by 2021. Government figures show that women made up 45.7 per cent of state boards last year. Three of the Law Society’s five board members are women.
The Law Society’s position
A Women’s Advisory Panel and Gender Equality Charter are among the initiatives of the NZLS aimed at boosting diversity and closing the gender pay gap across the legal profession, but president Kathryn Beck said having a mandatory percentage of women in decision-making roles in law firms was not currently on the Law Society’s agenda.
“The Law Society has looked at targets for law firms but we decided not to pursue them. I don’t think we should mandate targets – we couldn’t anyway – but rather we strongly encourage law firms to look critically at their own organisations, set their own targets and do what it takes to meet them,” she said.
“I encourage those targets to be aspirational. If firms set their own targets, it becomes a personal commitment for them. But in terms of the broader issue of targets or quotas for our business community, the Law Society does not currently have a view on that.
“I think what has become very clear over the last six months in our profession is that law firms need to be very conscious of the importance of building greater diversity into our law firms and making them more inclusive and representative.
“A commitment to diversity goes to the culture of an organisation. It is clearly in the interests of law firms to have genuinely diverse boards and management teams that acknowledge the role they have in leading the development of an inclusive organisational culture.”
Overseas examples
Ms Beck, speaking as an employment lawyer of more than 25 years’ experience, said mandatory quotas overseas appeared to have been successful in increasing female representation on company boards.
“What I would say, from my observation of what has worked overseas, in terms of achieving a critical mass of gender representation on boards, is that the countries that have been making real progress towards that are the countries which have quotas,” she said.
“So, the point of difference between those countries and everybody else talking about having more women on boards but still not achieving that yet, is that those countries have mandatory quotas and that seems to be the only real point of difference, from what I can see.
“I am not saying mandatory quotas should be legislated, but it seems to be something that works overseas. Now, whether that is right for us, I don’t feel able to say that, but I think we need to look at it.”
A number of European countries, including Norway, France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands have enshrined female quotas for corporate boards in law, with a range of percentages and varying degrees of sanctions for non-compliance.
Ms Beck said New Zealand would need to look thoroughly at all options before considering legislation for mandatory quotas. “I would not say, go ahead and do it. But, if we were to do something like that as a country, we would need to have a comprehensive look at how we could do it, what models have worked and equally, what any unintended consequences would be,” she said.
The legal profession should set targets
Ms Beck said there was a need for the legal profession to set targets for female representation in decision-making roles, just as firms set targets in other aspects of their practice.
“Personally, I think, that in the past few years, now that the business case has become very obvious in relation to the profit and productivity benefits of having a greater proportion of women in decision-making roles, we had thought that that in itself would drive the change, but to date that does not appear to have done so,” she said.
“So, in order to achieve change, I think that we do need to set targets; we set targets in other areas of business when we want to drive positive performance and change. I think, what business is good at is setting targets; recognising what they need to do to better and setting targets to achieve that.
“I see no reason why, if we are taking this seriously, we would not set targets for women in decision-making roles in the legal profession. I think it also applies elsewhere; studies show that those things can apply across the broader business sector too.”
Ms Beck said the benefit of targets was that they prompted people to reflect and focus on what they needed to do in order to achieve those targets. “I think targets, as well, will create a more hopeful environment for those people who are considering applying for more senior positions. If they can see there is a positive inclination towards increasing the number of women in decision-making roles, then they are more likely to put themselves forward,” she said.
Conclusion
Ms Beck encouraged all businesses, including law firms, to set targets for women in decision-making roles and to implement plans in order to achieve those targets.
“In terms of the broader community, I think the Government is leading by example. All businesses should be striving to achieve those targets in practice and, the setting of targets would assist in achieving at least 30 per cent of women representation on boards, which is the point at which it starts to make a difference,” she said.
“It doesn’t mean favouring one over the other, but I think we can safely say that historically one has been favoured over the other in terms of gender, and that this is one way we can address this inequity.”
Kathryn Beck became the 30th President of the New Zealand Law Society in April 2016. One of the youngest Presidents to hold this office, Kathryn is also the third woman in the role since the organisation was established in 1869. After completing a BCom (Labour Relations) and LLB from Auckland University, Kathryn was admitted as a barrister and solicitor in Auckland on 1 May 1991. She joined the Auckland law firm Haigh Lyon in 1994 and, after becoming a partner, led the firm’s employment law team and became head of litigation. An accomplished lawyer, she now has over 25 years of practical legal experience.
Kathryn left Haigh Lyon in 2005 to establish Swarbrick Beck with fellow employment lawyer Penny Swarbrick. They were joined a few years later by Don Mackinnon and then Bridget Smith, renaming as SBM Legal in 2014. In her time at SBM Legal, Kathryn has acted in multiple leading cases and is a key adviser and facilitator in several high-level union-employer relationships. She has established herself as a top lawyer in the employment law field, while also expanding her skill set to include health and education law.
With considerable experience in alternative dispute resolution, Kathryn also acts as a mediator and facilitator. She has conducted independent investigations for several large companies, charitable institutions, trust boards, tertiary institutions, and government departments. Kathryn is an active participant in matters involving the representation and regulation of the legal profession and, in her former position as convenor of the Law Society’s Employment Law Committee, she was active in the field of law reform speaking and presenting at several national and international lawyers’ educational events on the subject. While chairing the New Zealand Law Society Board, Kathryn has also represented the Law Society at overseas conferences.
Since becoming Law Society President, one of Kathryn’s main passions has been supporting the retention and promotion of women in the legal profession. In 2016/2017, Kathryn championed the work of the Law Society’s Women’s Advisory Panel to introduce the Gender Equality Charter saying in a September 2017 article, “we need to see greater progress in terms of the advancement of women to the higher ranks of the legal profession. The charter is about the profession committing to concerted action to address this visible and longstanding problem.”
In April 2018 the Gender Diversity Charter was launched at Parliament. Since then, a number of law firms have signed on in support of gender equity. Kathryn is also a leading voice on anti-harassment and discrimination initiatives in the legal profession. She chaired NZ Rugby’s Respect and Responsibility review panel, evaluating how NZR addresses player culture within the sport, focusing on harassment and discrimination. She now chairs NZR’s Advisory Panel and has played an integral part in the introduction of initiatives to improve its approach to this issue.
Kathryn sits on the board of the Auckland Community Law Centre and is an ongoing voice for improved access to justice, using her position to encourage other lawyers to get involved. She also places great importance on supporting and improving the well-being of practising lawyers under her leadership by encouraging the legal profession’s implementation of mental and physical health initiatives. Law Society presidents are elected yearly for up to three years. Kathryn was re-elected for a third year and will finish her time in this role in April of 2019.
