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Improving cultural diversity in law amid backlash to DEI
As the legal profession continues to grapple with cultural diversity, the national president of the Asian Australian Lawyers Association outlines the key steps needed to drive meaningful progress, particularly in light of the recent global rollback of DEI initiatives.
Grace Robbie
Speaking on a recent episode of The Lawyers Weekly Podcast, Matthew Floro, the principal for Johnson Legal and the national president of the Asian Australian Lawyers Association, shared the multifaceted approach required to address cultural diversity disparities within the legal profession.
In the same episode, Floro shared his insights on the current state of cultural diversity within the legal profession.
According to Floro, Australia’s law student cohort is vibrant and diverse, with students from diverse gender and cultural backgrounds.
“At the student cohort, incredible diversity. And you see, at our universities around the country, in our law schools, fantastic gender diversity and cultural diversity,” he said.
However, Floro pointed out that this inclusivity does not translate as effectively in law firms, where the lack of diversity becomes especially evident at senior levels despite the substantial cultural diversity seen in junior cohorts.
“But then when you go into the law firms, you start to see a slight reduction in that diversity. Although the junior cohorts in law firms are still pretty diverse, we are now seeing more senior associates and special counsel from diverse backgrounds, but there is still a lack of diversity, cultural diversity at the partnership level,” he said.
The situation is even more pronounced within the Bar and the judiciary, with Floro noting: “The Bar has a long way to go, and when you look at the ranks of senior counsel, King’s counsel, not many faces among those ranks are from a culturally diverse background, and unfortunately, the judiciary is even less.”
The issue of diversity within the legal profession arises at a time when US entities are dismantling programs that promote DEI in federal workplaces, raising concerns and speculation about the future of DEI in the Australian legal profession.
In a recent article, Floro voiced strong opposition to efforts aimed at dismantling DEI initiatives, emphasising that such actions “risk reversing the progress made towards greater representation and equality for historically underrepresented communities, including Asian Australians, in leadership positions across law, business, and government”.
Lawyers Weekly also recently spoke with the leaders of several of Australia’s largest law firms, as well as law department heads, regarding the future of DEI within the legal profession. However, the consensus among these leaders was that such initiatives and approaches are an integral and enduring aspect of legal workplaces that is “not going away” any time soon.
To enhance cultural diversity within the legal profession amid the growing global backlash against diversity initiatives, Floro advocates for a comprehensive, multifaceted approach to address this challenge from multiple perspectives effectively.
One key strategy Floro suggested is developing and implementing robust policies to combat racism while fostering cultural competency.
“What we can do so we can work with [the] profession is … making sure that we have really strong policies against racism, including cultural competency and culturally sensitive communication and leadership training.
“This is so that people from different backgrounds can appreciate that perhaps there are different ways of communicating and different ways of leading which may come from a different background or different worldview,” he said.
Floro also underscores the importance of law firms and legal institutions continuously developing and evaluating their recruitment, retention, and promotion strategies.
“We can look at recruitment, retention and promotion strategies, how we actually go to market, look at CVs and not mark people down because they’ve come from the western suburbs of Sydney or Melbourne or different parts of Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, et cetera, which perhaps aren’t as well privileged,” he said.
To ensure accountability, Matt proposes establishing safe reporting systems where discrimination and bias can be reported without fear of retribution.
“We can look at establishing safe reporting systems to ensure that people that suffer discrimination and bias and stereotyping can actually report these things,” he said.
“We can look at how we can conduct or commission independent external assessments of workplace practice because often having that third-party perspective can detect these biases.”
