Speaking to Lawyers Weekly ahead of the inaugural Women in Law Forum 2022, chief executive and founder of Legally Yours and committee chair of the Women of Australian Legal Technology Association (WALTA) Karen Finch said that while she is optimistic about female representation in Australia’s legal tech industry, further action is required to provide women with more opportunities.
Indeed, a report by ALTA released last year revealed that 53 per cent of lawyers in Australia are women, yet they comprise only 21 per cent of legal tech founders.
The Diversity in Legal Tech – It’s Time for Action report also found that only 21 per cent of technology professionals are women, and 29 per cent of funded companies have at least one female founder.
The gender gap in funding is particularly stark, with only 19 per cent of legal tech companies with a female founder having raised funds, compared to 50 per cent of companies with a male-only founder.
“The funding is quite woeful. We’re hugely unrepresented. It just doesn’t make its way down to us for a number of reasons,” Ms Finch said.
“Some might say it’s because we don’t fit the mould of what a tech start-up founder should be. Others say we don’t have the right connections because a lot of us haven’t gone to the right schools or we haven’t hung out in the right networks to access that funding.”
Ms Finch called on funding providers (including venture capital, government grants, and private equity firms) to address this shortfall.
Women also face conscious and unconscious bias from investors who do not take their ideas, innovations, and solutions seriously, she observed.
Source: Investors don’t take women in legal tech seriously – Lawyers Weekly