Women now make up 57.5% of New Zealand lawyers, according to the latest Law Society figures released in June 2026. The same data show that women hold 43% of partnership and director roles, revealing a gap between headcount and ownership.
Partner equity and pay gaps
Among firms that have signed the Gender Equality Charter, the share of equity partners who are women remains below 40%. The ALPMA 2026 salary survey reports an equity-partner pay gap of 7.9%, roughly $23,000 a year.
Titles on professional networks do not distinguish profit-sharing partners from salaried partners. The Auckland Women Lawyers’ Association’s 2025 table highlights why this matters: Anderson Lloyd listed 14 women partners, all holding full-equity stakes, while Tompkins Wake listed the same number but only three were full-equity.
Only 12 of the 38 firms gave AWLA a figure for women in full equity. Among the seven largest partnerships, only Russell McVeagh’s number appears: 16 women. A blank means a firm did not respond or declined.
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Progress and setbacks in the pipeline
A decade ago women accounted for 47% of the legal profession, and partnership advancement takes time. Since July 2017, women have secured 48% of new partnerships at both Chapman Tripp and Dentons Kensington Swan.
ALPMA’s findings also show broad pay parity at junior levels, with women out-earning men at associate and senior associate grades. However, compliance with pay audits among charter firms fell from 72% to 63% over two years, and reviews of retention and promotion dropped from 73% to 51%.
The Bar Association’s December 2024 report put women at 30% of lead counsel in the Court of Appeal and 26% in the Supreme Court over four years. Removing Crown Law cases reduces those figures to 22% and 16% respectively.
In civil appeals before the Court of Appeal, women led for the appellant 44 times, while men did so 344 times. Lady Deborah Chambers noted that the big commercial briefs still tend to go to men.
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Criminal barrister Julie-Anne Kincaid points to the instructing solicitor as a filter that influences brief allocation. Yet only 37% of charter signatories have adopted the voluntary target of directing 50% of external instructions to women, and roughly a third of those firms track the data.
Calls for transparent metrics
Not every gap is discrimination. Career breaks, client portfolios and individual choices all play a part. But firms cannot diagnose what they will not measure in public.
The Law Society has launched a five-year diversity strategy, but a simpler approach could be to require each large firm to publish three figures annually: the proportion of women in full-equity roles, the partner pay gap, and the share of major matters led by women.
A profession that demands full disclosure from other sectors should be able to manage these basics.
