Latest news – Call for access to justice for all; Big pay-off for innovators; Mixed news for female lawyers

Law Council wants justice for the disadvantaged

Some of Australia’s most disadvantaged people cannot get access to justice and urgent reform is needed, according to the Law Council of Australia. In an address to the National Press Club in March, Law Council President Morry Bailes released a progress report and three early recommendations from the Law Council’s national Justice Project, a review into the state of access to justice for some of Australia’s most vulnerable people.

“It is the plight of all those excluded from justice in Australia, marginalised and disadvantaged Australians, that prompted the Law Council to initiate The Justice Project, one of the most important pieces of work we have ever undertaken,” Bailes said. “Through the Justice Project, the need for urgent reform is abundantly clear. People are falling through the cracks.”

The three early recommendations are:

• Need for a whole-of-government approach to reform: “It’s clear that we must move beyond thinking about justice issues within the silos of law enforcement, courts and legal services,” Bailes said. “We must embed access to justice within multi-disciplinary policy and funding frameworks – where the lawyer or solicitor is co-located with the doctor, the nurse, the community nurse, the social worker, the mental health professional, and together they provide advice and support to the people who come through the door.”
• Introduction of Justice Impact Tests for government policies: Now in place in the United Kingdom, they would mean that every government policy process must factor in how any new policy would impact on the justice system – from health to welfare, and education to housing.
• Additional major funding for legal assistance and the courts:The Law Council estimates that, as a minimum, an additional $390 million a year is required to get the legal assistance system back on its feet. “We also need to adequately resource our overloaded courts, where waiting times in the Family Court stretch up to three years. We also need a National Justice Interpreter Scheme,” Bailes said.

He added: “We must recognise the preventative, everyday role of timely, effective legal assistance in stopping simple problems from escalating into more serious, often criminal matters, costing the taxpayer and the community.”

Innovation investment hits pay dirt for law firms

Professional services firms that invest in innovation get a very healthy payoff, according to the latest CommBank Professional Services Business Insights Report. The research reveals that that law firms and institutions across professional services sectors are investing an average of $171,000 a year in innovation initiatives for a return of $585,000. More than half of all law firms are actively innovating, with about a third making improvements to their commitment to new innovative services.

The Business Insights Report states that all players within the professional services market “are undergoing deep and lasting structural change, driven by disruptive technologies, changing customer demands and new market entrants”. It says accounting and legal firms are increasingly looking to move up the value chain, as outsourcing, automation and new business model competitors threaten to absorb the lower-value, high-volume activities that have traditionally generated so much of their revenue.

The research points to the value of investing in innovation, with firms that have implemented innovations generating an average of more than $3 for every dollar they invest in innovation while injecting $12 billion into the Australian economy. “Overall, our research paints an encouraging picture of an industry responding to structural change by finding new and better ways to deliver value to its clients,” says Marc Totaro, national manager, professional services business and private banking for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

The report says innovation can take many forms, from highly visible changes such as introducing a new product or changing the organisational structure of a firm, to more subtle changes such as refining hiring and employee appraisal processes.

Good news, bad news for female lawyers

On the gender front, two new studies – one in Australia and the other in the United Kingdom – reveal interesting developments for female lawyers.

In Australia, data from the Victorian Legal Services Board reveals that for the first time in history, practising female lawyers now outnumber practising male lawyers in Victoria. The figures show that at last count there were 10,971 female lawyers in Victoria, compared with 10,933 male lawyers in the state. Female lawyers form most of the state’s 20-50 age bracket, while men still outnumber women in the 51-and-above age bracket.

In the United Kingdom, however, the Salary and Benefits Benchmarker 2018 report from legal recruitment firm Douglas Scott found that fewer female lawyers harbour aspirations to be in leadership positions than male lawyers. About 70 per cent of lawyers surveyed aspired to be a partner, a manager, or a business leader. However, while 79 per cent of male lawyers had leadership ambitions, only 66 per cent of female lawyers answered in the affirmative. Among female lawyers, the leading reason not to pursue partnership is “no route or room for progression” (27 per cent), followed by “work-life balance” (26 per cent) and “stress” (16 per cent). More male lawyers cited “no route or room for progression” (40 per cent) as a barrier to pursuing leadership positions.