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‘Lawyers need to ensure a lack of discrimination’: New guidance released to combat racism in the profession
The Law Society of NSW has launched a new guideline for lawyers to address racism within legal practices and the broader community, as it remains a “serious and widespread problem”.
Grace Robbie
The task of eradicating racism within society holds particular significance for the legal profession, as lawyers bear the responsibility of ensuring the fair and effective administration of justice.
As highlighted in the new guide, “racism can have significant and detrimental impacts on, among other things, physical and mental health outcomes both at an individual and population level.”
Brett McGrath, the president of the Law Society of NSW, stated that “we live in one of the most successful multicultural nations in the world, yet racism persists in our society and extends into our workplaces.”
His comment is also supported by the recently published Productivity Commission’s Review of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, which emphasised that “racism and institutional racism remains a serious and widespread problem.”
The review also outlined that “government organisations have given comparatively little, or no, attention to their commitment to identify and call out institutional racism and unconscious bias, and specifically to address features of systems that cultivate institutionalised racism.”
McGrath emphasised that lawyers have a responsibility to address this important issue, not only for the profession but also to ensure that their broader community is best served.
“To better serve our diverse communities, lawyers need to ensure a lack of discrimination within their own ranks. This isn’t only important from a moral perspective, but it also makes business sense, because our profession, our workplaces and our clients are all diverse,” McGrath commented.
The new guide provides legal professionals and organisations with practical steps they can take to foster racism-free workplace settings. This is outlined in the following six actions:
- Express in organisational policies that racial discrimination, harassment, and vilification are unlawful and contrary to the ethical and professional duties of solicitors.
- Build racial literacy through evidence-based training.
- Motivate lawyers to identify structural discrimination and systemic racism and use their sphere of influence to advocate change.
- Hire, promote, and ensure sponsorship for culturally and ethnically diverse staff.
- Empower staff members to support other employees experiencing racism in the workplace and be effective allies.
- Create mechanisms of accountability and observe best practice responses to racism in the workplace.
McGrath expressed his appreciation towards “members of the Law Society’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee, which includes lawyers from ethnically and culturally diverse communities, for preparing this important guidance with input from our Indigenous Issues and Employment Law Committees and other key diverse stakeholder groups in the profession.”
However, as stated within the Introductory Guidance and Strategies for the Legal Profession, “The work of eliminating racism is not limited to a one-off action, policy or event. It requires organisations and individuals, through ongoing self-reflection, to consciously make frequent, consistent, equitable choices daily.”
