After 26 years at the Society, Chief Executive Stephen Hodder bows out with pride

After 26 years at the Society, Chief Executive bows out with pride

Stephen Hodder’s fi rst interaction with the Law Society was not under the most pleasant of circumstances.

Working as an insolvency accountant, he had engaged the services of a legal practice in relation to the liquidation of a company he was administering, but, due to the matter going substantially out of time he was forced to other than to report the matter to the (then) Legal Practitioners Conduct Board and Law Claims.

At that stage, he would never have imagined a future as an administrator in the legal profession, let alone becoming one of the Law Society’s longest serving chief executives.

But a lack of job satisfaction in his then workplace and the Law Society’s decision to conduct an organisational review forged a path for Stephen to make an unlikely career change.

Stephen, like many of his colleagues at the time, was a loser of a merger between the fi rm he worked for. He went from being the national training manager and national discipline offi cer to “just another one of the boys” – spending most of his time trying to maximise returns for creditors – a task he came to view as thankless.

He decided it was time to get out – not only from his workplace but of practising as an accountant

Fortuitously, the Law Society was advertising for a newly created deputy position, after the Executive and Council of the Society had recognised the role of executive director (as it then was) had simply become too large

Stephen applied for the job, faced intense panel interviews and psychological testing, and was hired.

“It was a newly created position so I was really lucky in that I could shape it how I wanted to,” he said. “(Then Executive Director) Barry Fitzgerald and I worked fabulously as a team.”

Stephen spent 15 years in the role of deputy before being appointed executive director (now called Chief Executive) following Jan Martin’s retirement.

By this time, Stephen was already fully acquainted with the challenges ahead and had an intimate knowledge of how the Society operated.

What did surprise Stephen was the level of altruism and service among the legal profession.

“I was quite stunned when I fi rst stepped into the role,” he said. “I could not believe how incredibly generous the profession was, both to the profession itself and the Law Society, and how much people went to such great lengths give of themselves for the benefi t of others and did not expect anything in return.”

“Coming from an accounting background that was a really marked difference and one of the things that made me really enjoy working with the legal profession.”

When Stephen was fi rst employed, the Society had fi nancial reserves of about $60,000. The Society now holds reserves of about $4.5 million. The fi nancial health of the Society, and its strength as an organisation that provides real benefi t to members, is what Stephen if most proud of.

Stephen has overseen the sale and lease back of the former Waymouth St headquarters, as well as the relocation to the present, fi t-for-purpose premises on North Terrace.

“The Society is now in my view, properly and adequately resourced and staffed with the appropriate staff structure,” he said. “It is a modern and functional organisation with fantastic loyal, compassionate and capable staff with a great culture.”

“The culture is customer focused with a true passion for serving the profession. The Society that will be inherited by my successor is a signifi cantly better one than when I fi rst commenced. That is my proudest achievement.”

“I have also had some really proud moments mentoring and watching younger staff members and some younger members of the profession grow and develop and grow.”

Stephen puts the Society’s substantially improved balance sheet down to sound fi nancial management, including fi nding income streams in addition to memberships subscriptions, prudent and appropriate allocation of costs among business units to ensure each unit was accountable and not subsiding other units, and price structuring that that makes non-members pay signifi cantly more for services than Members do.

Ultimately, revenue generated must be used for an appropriate and relevant purpose, and every dollar needs to be accounted for.

Stephen has been particularly committed to ensuring the Society remains relevant thought the entirety of a practitioner’s career, starting with their undergraduate studies.

“I worked hard to create a plan so the Society was relevant to a law student, then have specifi c services and benefi ts aimed at practitioners through all stages of their career, from just starting out, intermediate level, and senior level,” he said.

Stephen was particularly proud of establishing Platinum life membership for practitioners who have been Members of the Society for 30 continuous years, which has been extremely well received by longstanding Members.

Stephen admits that he erred in discontinuing the deputy role. One his main reasons for scrapping this role was to fi nancially enable the Society to hire a policy coordinator and communications offi cer.

In Stephen’s view, the addition of dedicated policy and communications staff members has benefi tted the legal

Stephen Hodder

profession by strengthening the Society’s advocacy on behalf of the profession, but he came to realise what the executive and council did all those year ago, that the chief executive’s job was just too vast on its own, and in recent years he was able to he reinstate the “deputy” position, now known as Chief Operations Offi cer, which Dale Weetman currently holds.

Stephen believes the quality and quantity of Society’s output has increased since he started at the Society.

“I think that the extent to which the Society informs, interacts and represents the profession has changed markedly since I started,” Stephen said. “The quality of our various publications is extremely high, particularly given the size of the organisation and the limited resources.”

“I often receive comments about the quality of Law Society submissions in the national sphere, those comments are often to the extent that the Society “pulls above its weight”.

Stephen strongly believes that it is not necessarily an advantage for the Chief Executive to be a lawyer. In fact, he sees benefi ts to a non-lawyer being in the role.

“So much of the job is being able being able to visualise and identify issues, and then work out in which order dots need to be joined. The job is administrative, which is why you don’t need a lawyer. That’s not to say a lawyer shouldn’t be the chief executive, just that it doesn’t have to be a lawyer, as long as you have the appropriate staff that you recognise, trust and empower, and the right reporting relationships with executive and council. And you also need the ability to recognise when you do need a lawyer, and in this organisation it’s not hard to fi nd one! “

Stephen has identifi ed three key challenges for the Society and legal profession going forward – the size and operation of the Society’s Council, the inevitable establishment of a national profession, and diversity and inclusion within the legal profession.

Stephen has participated in three attempts over the years to reduce the size of and change the structure of the Society’s Council.

“My view is that it is simply way too large, he said. “While on the one hand, it can be said that the size of the Council provides for broad representation of the Membership, my opinion is that it could be halved in size without any such detriment. My suggestion for the future is that the size and structure of the Council again be revisited.”

The establishment of a national profession, which would see practitioners across Australia be subject to the same rules (known as the uniform law), has been adopted by NSW, Victoria and most recently WA.

“The Society, having reviewed the Uniform Law again during the last 18 months has decided it does not support participation at this time due to a number of specifi c objections. But it will come at some stage. It is a matter of when, not if, in my view,” he said.

“Rather than each presently nonparticipating jurisdiction dealing with things separately, my suggestion is that there be some sort of summit held involving those jurisdictions. If the law societies in those jurisdictions band together, they might be able to infl uence and bring about changes to the structure of the Uniform Law which would then make it palatable.”

With regards to diversity, Stephen has witnessed signifi cant in-roads made towards gender equality in the profession, having overseen a formidable amount of work developing initiatives, resources, and projects to address gender equality and associated issues, including successfully lobbying for a mandatory annual CPD to address bullying, discrimination and harassment in the profession.

“The membership needs to address diversity in its true sense – rather than focusing almost solely on gender. Gender balance and related issues are of course important, but I think that the size and mix of the profession will see the gender gap close. We need a greater focus on ensuring the profession is truly representative of society by promoting diversity that goes beyond gender. Bullying, discrimination and harassment also remain challenges and must continue to be addressed.”

Stephen had always said that 10 years is a long enough time to be in the role of Chief Executive. “If you have not achieved achieve want you wanted to achieve in 10 years, you are probably not going to achieve it,” he said.

Stephen has achieved most of what he set out to achieve, and strongly believes it is time for someone else to take the reins.

He would have retired earlier if not for COVID-19 and then the major cyber incident that temporarily crippled the Society’s IT infrastructure.

“I wanted to help guide the Society through the pandemic, which was a really turbulent time for everyone,” he said.

One of his signifi cant achievements during this time was delivering a $1.8 million relief package to members of the profession, to help lawyers impacted by covid.

But perhaps more than his achievements, Stephen will cherish the friendships he has made.

“I consider it to have been an honour and a privilege to have been in this role,” he said. “The membership has some fantastic people in it and I have made some lifelong friends. Similarly, the Society has some truly amazing and fantastic staff. Some of the staff will also be lifelong friends.”

So what’s next for the new retiree?

“The short answer is I don’t know!’”

“I have not had a long holiday for 26 years so intend taking the summer off the think about what I want to do. I intend to do almost nothing for three months, other than relax, enjoy summer and Christmas and do some travelling both locally and overseas,” Stephen said.

“I also intended to do a little bit of volunteer work in the coming months. After a three-month break, I will think about it. I do not have any intention to work full time ever again, however I know that I will need something to keep me intellectually stimulated. What that might be, I don’t know. I just want to relax at this point and decide for myself what I want to do, rather than doing what my diary and email tells me I must do.” B