The legal profession is increasingly becoming more diverse. Women now make up two thirds of the profession and the majority of law graduates, and the profession is seeing greater ethnic diversity among those entering practice.¹ This is not reflected in senior and leadership roles. Career penalties associated with time away from paid work, often linked to caring responsibilities, continue to slow progression where flexible work, career continuity, and clear pathways back into senior roles are lacking.

At the same time, New Zealand’s workforce is becoming more ethnically diverse. Stats NZ’s ethnic population projections show Māori, Pacific, and Asian peoples are projected to make up around half the population within two decades.²

Research increasingly shows that gender and ethnic diversity are associated with stronger organisational performance and productivity.³ For the legal profession, this underscores that diversity is not only an equity issue, but a strategic one.

How the profession operates is changing

The way legal work is structured and delivered is evolving. Law Society data shows the profession is becoming more geographically and digitally dispersed, with many lawyers now working in smaller regional firms or hybrid roles outside major centres.⁴ These changes can also affect access to informal networks, mentoring, and visibility.

Legal work is also increasingly public-facing with career paths more likely to move across private practice, government, iwi, in-house, and corporate roles.

In this context, ensuring practices are in place to retain talent and maintain professional standards is critical for the profession’s future resilience.

Online harm and leadership in public spaces

As the legal profession becomes more visible and digitally connected, online harm is emerging as a barrier to leadership. New Zealand research and reporting by the Ministry for Women, including its 2025 work on gendered online abuse, shows that women in public-facing and leadership roles are disproportionately targeted, with impacts on participation, visibility, and willingness to engage publicly.⁵

Research consistently shows that sustained online abuse can lead to self censorship or withdrawal from public roles. The impact is not evenly shared. New Zealand and international research, including Ministry for Women reporting and Human Rights Commission and academic research consistently shows that Wāhine Māori, Pacific women, ethnic minority women, disabled women, and rainbow women are more likely to experience online abuse that is sustained, personal, and threatening, rather than incidental or generic.

Legal workplaces have a role to play, including setting clear expectations around professional conduct, offering visible support to those affected, and contributing to sector wide conversations about safety and professionalism in public spaces.

Looking ahead

In New Zealand, examples from across the profession already demonstrate that flexible work, career continuity, and senior progression can coexist when systems are designed intentionally. The profession has a significant advantage in the number of women choosing law as a career, a depth of talent that many other sectors do not have.

The task now is to build on what works, confront where barriers remain, and shape pathways that reflect a changing profession. If we get this right, the result will be a stronger, more resilient profession, better equipped to serve both its members and the communities it supports.

Learning from others and collaborating as a sector

The legal profession is not alone in grappling with pipeline to leadership challenges. Sectors such as engineering, accounting, technology, and energy face similar pipeline challenges and offer useful lessons where the following three elements come together:

• Transparency – organisations measure and report gender pay gaps and representation by role and seniority, shifting conversations from intent to evidence and enabling comparison over time.
• Deliberate pipelines – structured mentoring, sponsorship, and targeted leadership development support progression into senior and decision-making roles, not just recruitment at entry level.
• Collective accountability – industry bodies set shared expectations, benchmark progress, and create peer accountability through tools such as accords, charters, reporting frameworks, and, in some cases, voluntary targets.

1. New Zealand Law Society, Snapshot of the Profession 2025 (Te Kāhui Ture o Aotearoa)
2. Statistics New Zealand, National ethnic population projections: 2018 (base)–2043
3. Gail Pacheco, Lisa Meehan, Thomas Schober Workforce Diversity and Firm Productivity in New Zealand 202
4. New Zealand Law Society, Snapshot of the Profession 2025 (Te Kāhui Ture o Aotearoa)
5. Ministry for Women, New tools to help women navigate online harm (2025), and related research on gendered online abuse in public facing roles