Women in Law report: findings from South Africa’s women in leadership in law roundtables

We've launched a joint report from our International Women in Law roundtables in South Africa.

Women In Law South Africa (WOZA), in collaboration with Angeli Arora and the Law Society of England and Wales, have released the findings from South Africa’s Women In Leadership In Law roundtables held in 2019.

The report was launched during a webinar event on Thursday 27 August 2020. Our international programmes manager for Rule of Law, Lizzette Robleto de Howarth joined the panel to discuss the outcomes of the research.

In South Africa, according to a number of recent studies, at least 50% of the entrants in the legal profession are female. However, nowhere close to this percentage of women occupy the leadership roles in the profession. This trend is not unique to South Africa but is seen across the globe.

The purpose of the roundtables was to identify the reasons why women are not advancing in the legal profession on an equal basis to men and to understand the barriers to achieving equality. The roundtables then looked for tangible solutions to help promote change, in an action-orientated and collaborative manner.

By participating in the international program, the participants reviewed different perspectives and solutions deployed across the globe to come up with a list of calls for action that work in South Africa.

The roundtables were attended by approximately 135 women from a broad cross-section of the legal profession, including:

• partners, associates and candidate attorneys in large and small practices
• sole practitioners
• legal counsel
• academics (including professors)
• judges
• representatives from NGOs and industry bodies