News & Views

Allens has announced the appointment of 12 new partners to bring the percentage of female partners to over 37 per cent on 1 July, exceeding the firm's gender target – set in 2017 – of at least 35 per cent female partner representation in 2022. The firm has set a new target of at least 40% female partner representation in 2025, under its 40:40:20 aim: 40 per cent women, 40 per cent men and 20 per cent any gender (women, men or non-binary persons). READ MORE

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AusLSA members need to understand and address the risks of modern slavery in their supply chains. AusLSA will convene a series of Modern Slavery Roundtables with members that are interested in helping their firms reduce the risks of harm to people trapped in Modern Slavery.  

Robin Mellon, CEO at Better Sydney is our guest presenter for our first roundtable on the 9th of may where he will discuss

• the value of collaboration,
• key areas where law firms could collaborate to improve modern slavery outcomes and
• ideas about similar collaboration models or organisations that we could learn from .

Robin has promised an honest - no punches pulled - assessment of the state of play and the requirements for success. REGISTER HERE

Last week AusLSA held its first Climate Action Roundtable. We were delighted to see 44 attendees from our AusLSA members on the day and a further there 38 registered members who will be receiving this recording and presentation.

we were left with the clear impression that there is great interest, not only in the importance of climate action, but also in developing the many skills, tools and actions we all need to learn about to help our firms respond in a meaningful way. Collaboration between members of AusLSA is a great way to do this and we look forward to an exciting ongoing roundtable series.

1. You can review a recording of the roundtable including all questions and after discussion HERE
2. A copy of the roundtable introduction slides can be viewed HERE
3. A copy of Chris from Pangolin’s overview presentation can be viewed HERE

Stay tuned for an invitation to our next roundtable

The IPCC in April 2022 effectively gave their final warning that if we want to limit global warming, deep emissions reductions across all sectors must commence immediately. Science based targets are a way to help organisations with a clearly-defined path to reduce emissions, in line with Paris Agreement goals. Such targets include the downstream impact of supply chains. The fashion industry, perhaps with an implicit alignment to the Paris agreement, talks about the use of Science-based targets in their industry HERE and how this can help with greenwashing. The same lessons can be applied to other manufacturing supply chains.

Jerome Doraisamy from Lawyers weekly writes about a new report from DLA Piper that found that Australia comes second only to the United States when it comes to the volume of climate-related litigation disputes.  DLA Piper partner Tricia Hobson said “Organisations which fail to adopt comprehensive environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies will be overly exposed to litigation risk. We are yet to see uniform standards around ESG reporting, but that’s only a matter of time,” she argued. READ MORE

Lawyers consistently rate in the top two occupations with the highest prevalence of mental health problems," says Law Society. Georgia Neaverson from Australasian Lawyer revisits some important foundations and issues with mental wellbeing in law firms READ MORE

A third of US businesses are losing employees, sales and investment opportunities by failing to adequately address the climate crisis, a new report has found. The survey found that 33% had reported losing business to competitors due to inadequate strategies and tangible actions to respond to the climate crisis. Businesses reported losing employees, sales and investments. READ MORE

Net Zero is not a passing trend. It's a crucial lever for driving ambitious climate action. But Net Zero can be complex and daunting if not explained in the right context with the right audience in mind. The Carbon Trust are a UK consultancy and are holding Webinar to explain Net Zero to Corporates in April and May 2022 The widespread adoption of Net Zero targets - from countries to companies - is part of a long-term shift to decarbonise economies in response to the climate emergency.REGISTER HERE

Some numbers have been run on the 2022 Federal budget on commitments to climate action. The deficit for 2022-23 is expected to be $78 billion, 3.4% of GDP. Just 0.3% of total expenditure (mostly previously announced) has been committed to climate change initiatives, falling lower, to just 0.2% in 2024-2026.  The $1.3 billion of new investment in the budget to "maintain energy security, keep downward pressure on energy prices while reducing emissions, is modest compared to the $5.6 billion on 6 months of fuel excise duty relief. The World Economic Forum estimates US$4-5 trillion is required annually to keep climate change at 1.5 degrees. If Australia invested its share based on GDP, this would translate to around AU$80-110 billion annually   READ MORE

The Victorian Legal Services Board and Commissioner recently surveyed Victorian lawyers to understand the impact of workplace culture on the wellbeing of lawyers. Notably, half of respondents reported that their workplace culture had a more positive than negative impact on their wellbeing and cited their workplace’s response to COVID-19 as one of the reasons for that response. The survey found that the factors that had the most positive impact on wellbeing were supportive colleagues, flexible work arrangements, reasonable work-life balance, supportive management and a culture that does not tolerate bullying or discrimination.

Conversely, the top factors negatively impacting wellbeing were unreasonable workloads, poor work-life balance, long work hours, hypercritical culture and lack of collegiality. READ MORE