Reporting sexual harassment within the Australian legal profession

Abstract

On 1 April 2022, the Law Council of Australia’s amendments to the Legal Profession Uniform Law Australian Solicitors’ Conduct Rules 2015 came into effect. These amendments sought to expand the scope of Rule 42, which prevents solicitors from engaging in conduct that constitutes sexual harassment. However, in practice this amendment may have limited effect given the ‘reasonable grounds’ requirement, the lack of deterrence achieved by orders and, most importantly, underutilisation due to underreporting. The article poses ideas to increase reporting.