Legal arena not transformed

PROGRESS: SA GENERAL COUNSEL FOR DIVERSITY INCLUSION LAUNCHED

- WELLINGTON CHIMWARADZE

Office will take difficult but essential fight forward.

People of colour and women are still not reaching career pinnacles in the broader legal profession in numbers that allow us to say the system has been transformed.

Despite the many legal requirements in place to ensure more diversity across the economy and despite the increase in black and female law graduates over the past 30 years, the legal profession is still predominantly white and male.

For example, the Law Society of SA reported that in 2017, 59% of bachelor of laws graduates were African, yet in the same year 61% of admitted attorneys were male and 58% white, 25% African, 9% Asian and 5% coloured, with 2% "unknown".

Also in 2017, advocates were 63% white and 37% black. Why?

It's not as though we haven't been trying. First, there are the many requirements of South Africa's transformation legislation to be met the Employment Equity Act, the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act and Codes, the Skills Development Levies Act and the Preferential Procurement Framework Act.

Very many of us in the legal and corporate spheres truly want to see young people, and especially young black people, flourish.

The good news is that after two years of discussions the SA General Counsel for Diversity & Inclusion (GCDI) was founded in 2019 and officially launched to the industry in 2023, to foster greater diversity, equity and inclusion in the legal profession.

This initiative gives us the impetus and support we need to meet this challenging task.

I cannot point to anyone, the world over, who has met this task perfectly, but as long as we keep challenging ourselves and making progress, we have hope.