A message from the CWLA

12 Feb 2014

The Canterbury Women’s Legal Association congratulates Justice Dunningham on her appointment to the High Court. It is extremely heartening to see the first “home grown” female practitioner being appointed to the High Court in Christchurch. The Association is intending to host a function to celebrate the appointment soon at which her Honour has agreed to speak. Further details will be sent to members and practitioners in the next few weeks.

While we now have “our own” woman High Court judge in Christchurch this should not be cause for lawyers to become complacent in terms of promoting the advancement or the potential for advancement for women in the law.   Women are still under-represented in senior positions in the law. A couple of weeks prior to the announcement of her Honour’s appointment, the Association co-hosted a conference seminar for professional women where Justice Glazebrook presented a paper which dispelled the myths as to why women are under-represented in senior levels of law. The paper helpfully addresses the question of “What can be done?” - perhaps a surprise to many the “main task is for the chaps”. This paper is now available on the courts website (It is just a matter of time and other myths) and I recommend that all practitioners read it.

The conference was a great success and has allowed the Association to embark on an ambitious website upgrade – see www.CWLA.org.nz soon!

Catherine Bibbey – Convenor CWLA

Following is the excellent article by Melanie Jones (solicitor – White Fox and Jones) published in “At the Bar “(NZBA newsletter) in December 2013.

On Friday, 22 November 2013, the New Zealand Bar Association and the Canterbury Women’s Legal Association organised a professional women’s seminar titled “Obstacles and Opportunities” at the Ridges Latimer Christchurch. 165 attendees listened, laughed, and responded to the panel of eight talented and successful presenters.

The seminar’s aim was to encourage and enable professional women to overcome obstacles and seek opportunities in their career development. Helen Cull QC chaired the seminar and did a wonderful job of introducing the presenters, ensuring that the programme ran smoothly and making poignant observations and comments throughout.

Mai Chen emphasised persistence in her presentation and reminded us of wise words from Calvin Coolridge that, “nothing in the world can take the place of persistence…” Successful individuals don’t just have one great moment; they constantly strive and take little steps to achieve greatness. Lawyers tend to have a strong perfectionist characteristic and need to be reminded that persistence is required to gain mastery of legal skills.

Lisa O’Neill, stylist, entertained us with her hilarious perspective on building our personal brand and personal plan. She empowered us to get out of our track pants or black uniform and ensure that our external appearance reflects our internal projection of ourselves. Lisa reminded us to create our own reality in our professional careers, and remember that “hope is not a plan”. She asked us all a challenging question – what would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? During Lisa’s presentation, I noticed many women wiping the tears of laughter from their face. Lisa was a breath of fresh air, and reminded us that we need to live today, not in five years time if and when we have lost five kilos.

I wondered if our next presenter, Andrea Thompson might struggle to follow such a dynamic speaker. However, I need not have worried. Andrea is the co-founder of Catapult, a company which specialises in leadership development. Andrea’s wise words focussed on projecting and building confidence in our professional lives. The starting point was:

• How do you see yourself?

Andrea made the valid point that men externalise failure, and women tend to internalise failure. We need to overcome this tendency to internalise by building a leadership backbone. Briefly this “backbone” consists of your vision, purpose, values and who you want to be. Andrea finished on the thought that “nothing comes to those who wait except mould.”

Justice Minister, the Honourable Judith Collins, is the current highest ranked woman in Cabinet. Ms Collins enlightened us with her history from a childhood farming background and desire as a 1960s school girl to become a “lady doctor” through to becoming a prominent member of the National Party. Ms Collins broached the subject of guilt and professional women. Women seem to specialise in guilt at every level - are we spending enough time with our children, our partner, our colleagues?

She counselled us that we, as women, need to let go of what other people think of us. Instead we have to be brave, courageous and occasionally completely outrageous!

The Honourable Justice Susan Glazebrook discussed the myths surrounding why women make up less than one-fifth of the large law firms partnerships in New Zealand and are under-represented generally in senior positions. Justice Glazebrook debunked each of those myths with compelling data. Justice Glazebrook then surprised us with her personal story of how she left school at 15 through to her appointment at the bench, with a varied life experience in between. Justice Glazebrook completed her presentation by urging us all to seize every opportunity that comes your way and to ensure that your professional career has a strong ethical foundation by giving back to your community.

Emily Morrow hails from Vermont, USA, where she was a senior partner in a large law firm. On emigrating to New Zealand Emily now provides consulting services for solicitors, barristers, in-house counsel and law firms focussing on non-technical skills that correlate with professional success. Emily’s presentation focussed on dealing with difficult personalities. Emily pointed out that in her work she is often asked to “fix” him or her. However, you cannot change someone’s behaviour, but you can change your own behaviour. Emily then went on to discuss four key personalities using owls, bees, dolphins and foxes to highlight the traits of these personalities. The key idea that I took away from Emily’s presentation was to try and understand the other “difficult” personality rather than focus on your own needs to be understood. This is probably an idea that might be wise to implement in our personal as well as professional lives.

Carmel Fisher, the founder and Managing Director of one of New Zealand’s largest investment managers, Fisher Funds, was the last presenter of the day. Carmel’s presentation encouraged women to live by choice, not chance with their financial decision making. It forced us to consider whether we are making wise investment decisions for ourselves. Women outlive their male partners on an average of seven years. At the very least we should be salting away 8% of our salary into a KiwiSaver Fund and as little as $50 per month into investments. She pointed out that when we are all in a rest home together, those that have heeded her advice will still be able to afford the purple rinse!

The afternoon finished with a word from the next generation. The very talented Alex Hallifax, a final year student from St Andrews College in Christchurch entertained us all on why mothers should not be their teenage children’s Facebook friends.

The organising committee are grateful to our sponsors as without them, the event would not have been possible. Our Law firm sponsors were

• Simpson Grierson
• Lane Neave
• Harmans
• Chapman Tripp;
• Wynn Williams

Our other large sponsors were:

• Craigs Investment Partners
• Merrill Corporation;
• Medical Assurance;
• Euromarque.

We are also grateful to Megisti Sailing Charters, Yazu Hair Lounge, Lone Star, Mind Food Magazine, Thompson Reuters, Lexis Nexis and Beauty at the Tannery who supported this event with contributions to speaker gifts, vouchers and goodie bag inserts.

At the end of the day our attendees left this conference refreshed, inspired, well fed with reading material for the weekend (Mindfood and Maserati magazines), jaffas or jet planes, hair and beauty products and vouchers!

As well as being a valuable opportunity for its members and the legal profession the CWLA and NZBA recognised that this conference would also be appealing to all professional women and as well as barristers and solicitors we had doctors, accountants and businesswomen attending and finding relevance in all the presentations. In addition, The CWLA as part of its wish to assist professional women in the community sponsored 6 places for professional women from the non-profit/charitable sector (i.e. City Mission, Cancer Society, Community Law and Womens Refuge) and also offered scholarship spots for women wanting to attend but unable to do so without financial assistance.

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