College of Law representatives Terri Mottershead, Joanna Abraham and Sheetal Deo joined an impressive ensemble of speakers at the Lawyers Weekly inaugural Women in Law Forum 2022. The forum aims to tackle unresolved inequity across the legal profession and shine a spotlight on the major issues facing women practising law today.
Women now represent the majority within Australia’s legal profession and yet gender inequality prevails across the leadership landscape. The Lawyers Weekly Women in Law Forum 2022 brought together leading legal professionals and advocates to address how women and men can best advocate for change. The end goal - to collectively look at how we can create better working environments for the emerging generation.
Terri Mottershead, Executive Director, Centre for Legal Innovation (CLI) at the College of Law; Joanna Abraham, Lecturer, the College of Law and Executive Victorian Women Lawyers; and Sheetal Deo, Principal of Shakti Legal Solutions, Founder of The Diversity Collective, Adjunct Lecturer & Mentor at the College of Law and member of the CLI Emerging Leaders Advisory Board - brought their considerable breadth of experience, passion and knowledge to two of the forum’s central panels.
Women and the legaltech divide
Terri contributed to a session on The Value of Women in Legal Tech. The panel explored the opportunities for women who are currently significantly underrepresented in the legaltech sector in order to influence change. They also looked at what change should look like, how employers can advance women in legaltech, and why women have a critical role in the future of legaltech/AI.
“There’s a massive and urgent need for more diversity and inclusion in the legaltech and AI space,” Terri explains. “We’re in real danger of developing tech that isn’t designed for most people. We’re seeing more and more algorithms being set up to ask questions and produce answers, but what if they’re not the right questions or they produce the wrong answers because women and other diverse groups are underrepresented in the process or the data sets are biased?”
Terri continues, “We’ve already seen this happen. It’s raised serious ethical and legal issues. The more tech and AI we use, the more integral diversity becomes to the conversation, the process, the systems, the products, and all the outcomes.”
The impact of technology on the business and practice of law was a driving force behind the recent development of the College of Law’s Career Skills Framework. Digital Business is a core domain in the Framework. It also provided the opportunity for the CLI’s work to be analysed and reflected in this contemporary education strategy and in the context of an increasing number of different job opportunities for law grads.
“We are a client-centric, data-driven and tech-enabled industry. Digital literacy is not negotiable and, in some places like the US, now mandatory,” Terri says. “Research suggests that women have better digital skills than men, so that, coupled with the fact the majority of lawyers and law students are women in many places around the world, it’s not a stretch to understand how critical it is for tech to be a pervasive and integral part of every law school and PLT curriculum. It’s been wonderful to see the College embrace this and work on practical ways to bring real-world legaltech into the classroom.”
Unconscious bias impacting the legal sector
Joanna and Sheetal shared their insights on the far-reaching implications of unconscious bias in the legal sector in the Fighting Unconscious Bias from the Top Down forum. The discussion focussed on fostering a culture of change, growth and equity - fighting unconscious bias from the top by hearing from those who have excelled in their own legal careers. Joanna and Sheetal are both accomplished lawyers who have dedicated much of their careers to advocacy. They are passionate champions of diversity in the legal sector and broader community, fighting for justice for those who are marginalised.
Joanna believes unconscious bias is an issue that goes well beyond ‘diversity and inclusion’ but affects the legal profession on a micro and macro level. As individuals, managers/leaders and businesses as a whole – the need for self-development impacts all aspects of daily legal life.
“We need to get comfortable with having uncomfortable discussions. No one is immune from the pitfalls of unconscious or affinity bias, not even those from an intersectionally diverse background,” Joanna explains. “It can get uncomfortable when we, as leaders, are faced with our own biases if this doesn’t necessarily fit with our vision or perception of ourselves, which is why it’s important to maintain and foster an environment of safety and trust when attempting to challenge these archetypical spaces and practices.”
According to Joanna, the process involves being mindful about your leadership and the way it impacts those around you.
“We’ve all heard about the ’business case’ for incorporating diversity and inclusion policies and practices but let us challenge ourselves to move on from this mere tick-box approach and really establish a point of attack for further action,” Joanna says. “This involves being more intentional and transparent with our commitments to eradicate biases. From a strategic perspective, it would help to move things like diversity and inclusion policy and practice out of the jurisdiction of HR and put it into corporate strategy. Have it function as a KPI for strategic growth and organisational health.”
Better equipping new law graduates to deal with these types of issues as they enter the legal profession is a key focus for Joanna in her PLT programs at the College. It also forms part of the College’s Career Skills Framework under the Personal Effectiveness domain, which includes Emotional Intelligence, Communication, Well-being, Growth Mindset and Personal Values & Professional Brand.
“Having myself struggled in the early days of my legal career with issues relating to harassment, sexism and racism, all without a support network to fall back on, as a lecturer, I make it my mission to incorporate a mentoring aspect in all my student interactions,” Joanna explains.
“The current landscape of the legal profession is evolving to embrace differences and reward individuality, and that’s what we at the College encourage our students to do. It’s important to bring your whole self to the table, stand up for what you want and believe in, and to unapologetically stand not just in your own power, but in the power of the collective strength of all those who have come before you. This way you can pave the way for all who come after you, especially the female graduates who will likely bear the brunt of these issues in the workforce.”
College of Law programs
If you would like to continue these conversations about the role of women in legal business and legaltech, register for the next session in the CLI’s Women Legal Business Founders and Leaders Series on Thursday December 1st at 9am here. The topic: Funding For Women Led Businesses – Tips and Traps, you will hear from Carolyn Breeze, Chief Commercial Officer (CCO), Zepto; Jannaya James, Partner – Financial Advisory, Grant Thornton Australia; Terri Mottershead (Facilitator) Executive Director, Centre for Legal Innovation (Australia, New Zealand and Asia-Pacific); and Basha Rubin, CEO & Co-Founder, Priori Legal.
For more information on the College of Law’s PLT and postgraduate programs please follow this link.