There are positive trends in the Australian legal profession's efforts to improve equality among the ranks of barristers, but the challenge will be monitoring the situation locally, the ACT Bar Association president has said.
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Last week, the Law Council of Australia, which represents the law societies and bar associations in each state and territory, released its inaugural report on its equitable briefing policy.
The policy was launched in 2016, with the goal of encouraging the people and organisations who brief barristers to brief women in at least 30 per cent of all briefs available, and for the women to receive at least 30 per cent of the value of all brief fees, by 2020.
While women make up half the profession, and the majority of graduates from law schools, they currently comprise a significantly lower percentage of barristers who spend fewer hours in court and get paid less in fees.
The council's first equitable briefing report, released last week, revealed women barristers received 20 per cent of total briefs and 15 per cent of total fees.
Among junior barristers, women barristers received 28 per cent of briefs, and among senior barristers, the women received 12 per cent of briefs, the report found.
President of the ACT Bar Association Ken Archer said there are 10 women barristers in Canberra, and that the national report accurately reflects the local situation.
"Certainly, we're getting some really good people in and they're not starving, let's put it that way, I think because they're good," he said.
"The trends are in the right direction."
But Mr Archer said the challenge for the ACT was capturing the information to monitor how the equitable briefing policy is going in practice.
"It's going to be quite complicated to do," he said.
"The question is if they're being briefed by Firm X, how many times does Firm X brief the bar and what percentage of those briefs go to women.
"It's an attempt to capture what proportion of briefs being briefed to the bar are going to women."
Mr Archer said that was difficult information for the bar to collect, because it was a question for the solicitors who brief barristers.
But Mr Archer said the Law Council's report suggests encouraging results, considering the overall lower numbers of women at the bar.
The report found, for example, that of junior barristers, women received 20 per cent of total briefs and 15 per cent of total fees.
While the proportion of women in the barrister profession does vary across jurisdictions, about 23 percent of all Australian barristers were women in 2015.
“What gets measured gets managed. While this first round of data shows there is obviously a long way to go, we have been greatly buoyed by the enthusiasm for change among the profession,” Law Council president Morry Bailes said in a statement last week.
He said more than 350 organisations and individuals have signed onto the policy, as well as the "overwhelming majority" of large Australian firms and corporations.
Mr Bailes said the trend for women barristers was encouraging, but shifting a long-standing culture would not happen overnight.
The Turnbull government has adopted a similar equitable briefing policy and has set specific targets for Commonwealth bodies to brief senior and junior female barristers from July 1 this year.
The aim is to have senior female barristers accounting for 25 per cent of all briefs, or 25 per cent of the value of all brief fees paid to senior barristers, while the target figure for all junior barristers is 30 per cent.
In 2016-17, women barristers received 29.6 per cent of all briefs and 26.2 per cent of the value of all briefs for Commonwealth legal work.
