Women's legal networks in Australia

The national body and its members

Start with the national picture. Australian Women Lawyers is the peak body for the women lawyers associations. Its board is made up of representatives from each state and territory association. If you join one of the nine constituent bodies below, you are automatically a member of Australian Women Lawyers. If you belong to none of them, you can apply to it directly, provided you would be eligible to join one.

Victoria has two constituent bodies, one for the profession at large and one for the Bar. The Northern Territory association has no website of its own; its page sits on the Law Society Northern Territory site.

Who can join

Each association sets its own rules, and they differ more than the names suggest. Several admit men or supporters in a non-voting category. Here is what each one states.

• New South Wales. Categories cover the judiciary, barristers, solicitors, community lawyers, academics, law students and corporate members. Men who are practising lawyers, law graduates or law students and who support the association's objects may join as associate members without a vote.
• Victorian Women Lawyers. Voting membership is for barristers, solicitors and law graduates, and the rules are written in gender-neutral terms. There is a non-voting student category for LLB, JD and PLT students, and a non-voting associate category for supporters who are neither admitted nor law graduates.
• Women Barristers' Association. Membership is open to current members of the Victorian Bar, in ordinary, honorary and associate classes. The association centres the experience of women and welcomes people of all genders who wish to advance its purposes.
• Queensland. Membership is for women who hold a law degree or are studying for one in Australia. Categories include students, junior lawyers, regional practitioners, barristers, the judiciary, retired members, and community and not-for-profit lawyers. The committee may also appoint an advocate member, who need not be a woman or a lawyer.
• Western Australia. Senior, junior and student memberships are for women. A Friends & Allies category is open to any person who supports the association's objects and is admitted in Western Australia, holds an Australian law degree or works as a paralegal. Organisations can take corporate membership.
• South Australia. Members come from private practice, the public sector, the courts, universities and the judiciary, and include women not currently practising. Corporate membership extends benefits to a member's legal staff, men and women.
• Tasmania. Ordinary membership is for women who are admitted or are law graduates. Associate membership is open to any admitted person or law graduate who supports the objectives, without a vote. Student membership is for women in the final year of a law degree.
• ACT. Membership is open to individuals of all genders. Ordinary membership is for people who are admitted or hold a law qualification, or who demonstrate a commitment to the association's objects. Associate membership, without a vote, is for students and people qualifying for admission.
• Northern Territory. Membership bands cover full-time employees, part-time employees, students, graduates, clerks and associates.

Women at the Bar

If you are at the Bar, your options depend on where you practise. Some Bars have a membership body, some have a committee, and Queensland has a briefing list kept by its women lawyers association.

The Bar Association of Queensland has an Equal Opportunity & Diversity Committee, and the Western Australian Bar Association publishes its commitments on a Diversity & Equality page. Neither lists a separate body for women barristers.

The Equitable Briefing Policy

The Law Council of Australia's Equitable Briefing Policy is the profession's main instrument for changing who gets briefed. Adoption is voluntary. It is open to briefing entities, which include law firms, corporations and government bodies, and to individual barristers.

An adoptee aims to brief women barristers in at least 30 per cent of all briefs and to pay them at least 30 per cent of the total value of brief fees. The targets are not mandatory and are not quotas. Adoptees give the Law Council a confidential report by 30 September each year. The Law Council publishes the results in aggregated, de-identified form in an annual report on the same page.

The Victorian Bar has adopted the policy and the Law Council's Diversity and Equality Charter. The Western Australian Bar Association records its endorsement on its Equitable Briefing Policy page.

If you are looking for a woman barrister to brief, you have several search tools. The Victorian Bar's Find a Barrister search has a gender filter. So does the New South Wales Bar Association's Find a Barrister advanced search. Queensland has the list above, and the South Australian association's Find a Woman Lawyer directory includes barristers. Australian Women Lawyers keeps a page of links to each state and territory association.

Other networks

Two more bodies sit outside the state and territory structure.

• Diverse Women in Law: a not-for-profit that supports diverse women through all stages of legal study and practice. Membership opens each year.
• Women in Insolvency and Restructuring Victoria: a not-for-profit professional organisation whose members include lawyers, barristers, accountants, bankers, academics and policy makers working in insolvency and related fields.

For students and new lawyers

You do not need to be admitted to get involved. Victorian Women Lawyers has a student category for LLB, JD and PLT students and runs a mentoring program for law students. The New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australian and ACT associations all have a student category, and the Tasmanian association takes women in the final year of a law degree. The Northern Territory association lists students, graduates and clerks among its members.

The Women Barristers Forum in New South Wales promotes the Joanna Knight Scholarship, a fund of the Australian Communities Foundation. It gives financial support to women and First Nations law students and solicitors experiencing financial disadvantage, to help them enter the profession and come to the Bar.

Different from women's legal services

One distinction saves confusion. Women's legal services act for women as clients, and Women's Legal Services Australia is their national network. They are separate from the professional associations on this page. In the Atlas they are listed under Legal aid & community legal.

Conduct at work

The profession's framework on sexual harassment is national, with reporting channels in each state and territory. The Law Council's National Action Plan to Reduce Sexual Harassment in the Australian Legal Profession sets that framework. Its Time for Change portal gathers resources for every state and territory. In Victoria the Victorian Legal Services Board + Commissioner provides an anonymous online reporting tool alongside its complaint process. The Board states that sexual harassment can amount to professional misconduct.

There is also a Commonwealth duty. Under section 47C of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth), an employer or a person conducting a business or undertaking must take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate certain conduct as far as possible. That conduct is sex discrimination in employment, sexual harassment and harassment on the ground of sex, hostile workplace environments, and related victimisation. The duty commenced on 13 December 2022.

The Australian Human Rights Commission states that the duty extends to sole traders and the self-employed. It has had power to enforce compliance since 12 December 2023.

The numbers

Two official figures give a sense of scale, and each carries its own date. The 2024 National Profile of Solicitors, prepared for the Conference of Law Societies with data as at 31 October 2024, reports that women were 56 per cent of solicitors nationally and outnumbered men in every state and territory. The Victorian Bar states that in 2026 women are 35 per cent of its membership.