Alison Mau: How much proof does Law Society need of sex pests in ranks?
Sunday, 3 June 2018
OPINION: Claiming a lawyer has lied would surely be the quickest way to get yourself sued, wouldn't it? So I won't make such an imprudent claim.
However, when the Law Society said this week that it truly didn't know about the massive problem of sexual harassment in the profession, it stretched incredulity to the maximum possible point.
Law Society President Kathryn Beck faced the media on Wednesday to present the results of its sexual harassment and bullying survey. The Society was stung into action by media reports of appalling behaviour at Russell McVeagh, in the summer intern programme of 2015-16.
The survey results were grim indeed – more than 33 per cent of female lawyers said they'd been sexually harassed at work. Fourteen per cent of male lawyers responded with similar claims.
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Beck said the Law Society had been 'surprised and caught out by these results'.
It has no basis for that surprise.
Way back in 2015 – before the interns at Russell McVeagh suffered their sexual assaults – the Society was handed a report showing as many as half of all lawyers had experienced sexual harassment. Another research paper, Josh Pemberton's 'First Steps' in 2016 further highlighted the explicit sexism, including open harassment, experienced by junior female lawyers.
How many times does the proof have to be slapped on your desk, before you are no longer 'surprised'?
Senior female lawyers in this country are way past the point of politely pleading for something to be done. They are enraged.
In a letter they sent me this week, the Wellington Women Lawyers' Association chucked out the civil talk and openly slammed the Law Society for its inaction.
The Association's members have known about the problem for 'all of our careers' said WWLA Convenor Steph Dyhrberg. They've held seminars, workshops and panels, written articles, pleaded and cajoled, even written a draft sexual harassment policy which the Law Society declined to formally adopt.
The Association is scathing about Kathryn Beck's claim to have learned through media reports about the situation at Russell McVeagh, pointing out that the Law Society's executive director was told by one of the survivors two years ago.
'No investigation was initiated until the scandal became public,' says Dyhrberg. 'We owe the media a debt of gratitude for forcing the Law Society to act.'
Former lawyer Olivia Wensley has been fighting for months to highlight the severity of the issue. She's not confused by the silence of the victims up to this point. She's been clear that she could only share her own story because she has no intention of ever practising law again.
'Everyone else is afraid of speaking out because they're afraid of the repercussions.'
The light finally appears to be dawning for the legal profession's official regulatory body. In Kathryn Beck's own words, no-one's coming forward because 'they feared for their careers, and because they didn't think anything would change.'
Beck says change is coming, but the taskforce the Society is setting up to find a solution will rely on volunteers. Free work. How many lawyers do you know who will work for free? As Steph Dyhrberg darkly predicts, any lawyers who volunteer will almost certainly be 'the same passionately committed women who (already) do most of the work in this space.'
Change could be coming to the wider workforce, too. In today's story by #metooNZ reporter John Anthony, gaps in the ACC provisions for survivors of sexual harassment are laid bare.
Mental harm caused by sexual harassment is not covered by the Crimes Act. Sexual assault is covered. Experts say the line between the two is discriminatory because the mental harm caused by harassment can be just as damaging.
It makes sense for ACC to cover both, and when contacted this week the politician charged with making change, Jan Logie, confirmed that discussions are underway to close those gaps.
It can't come a moment too soon for the thousands of survivors whose careers and livelihoods have been ruined by behaviour that New Zealand society should not accept, in any form.
* Contact Alison Mau privately by messaging her Facebook or Twitter page, email alison.mau@stuff.co.nz.