Interview with Morgan Evans, Aotearoa Legal Workers' Union

The Aotearoa Legal Workers' Union was established in February 2019 to represent workers at legal workplaces in Aotearoa. It advocates for fair treatment and accountability in the profession. We recently caught up with one of its co-presidents, Morgan Evans to talk about how the union has developed over the last year. my position of privilege to do something positive

Can you remind us of why the union was set up and tell us why you yourself became involved in it?

The key drivers for ALWU were the #metoo movement and the incidences of sexual assault that occurred at Russell McVeagh in the summer of 2015/16, which demonstrated so clearly the pervasive and dangerous power imbalances in our profession. This also led to consideration of other consequences of that power imbalance – for example, low pay, long hours and burnout. After the events of that summer came to the light, it became clear that legal workers did not feel empowered to speak out about these issues in their workplaces. The union was a way of giving them a voice.

In terms of my own personal drivers, I wasn’t initially part of the group that set ALWU up (although a number of them were friends). I was a summer clerk at Russell McVeagh during that 2015/2016 period but chose to work at another law firm, where I had been for just over a year when the union was set up.

Obviously, I’m a white middle-class male. For that reason, I wasn’t personally affected by the events that occurred during that summer and haven’t had to jump many of the hurdles that others face just to participate, never mind succeed, in the profession. Instead, I found that I thrived within the law firm environment because so many of the structural issues that the union is working to address do benefit people like me.

So your own interests are best served by the existing position that those who worked long hours and could put up with the initial low pay, would later benefit more?

I was initially thought to be too corporate for the union. In fact, I was invited along to my first ALWU meeting because the interim Executive thought that, if they could convince me that unionisation was a positive step, they could convince anyone! I was an easy sell and have been heavily involved with ALWU ever since. For me, it is all about using and to make a difference for others.

Part of ALWU’s message is that even if you are set up to succeed in the profession or are in a good team or at a good firm, there are others who aren't and are struggling. Again, it’s about recognising that you have been lucky and seizing the opportunity that affords you to help others.

In an article, you quoted your grandfather who said that much is given to you and therefore much is expected of you. Is that how you would sum up your involvement?

Yes, that is something I believe in and it rings true for lawyers in general. We are people to whom much has been given and that places a responsibility on us to give back to our communities. It is really what ALWU is all about: lifting each other up and creating a profession that lifts society up as well.

Your executive seems to be made up of people very much like you, people who are starting out in the careers. Is that a fair comment?

The Executive contains a broader range of ages and experience than people think. We are lucky to count senior associates, barristers and an Executive Manager among our ranks. That said, it would be fair to say that the driving force behind the union is a group of young people who are coming up through the junior ranks of the profession and saying that they won’t put up with the status quo – the promise of big money 10 to 15 years down the want to do things a different way.

Have you discovered new drivers now that the union is more established or has your focus changed?

No, the core focus hasn’t changed but we are having to think very carefully about how we address the issues facing the profession and what the best ways to work with its various stakeholders to do that are. There hasn’t b een a union for legal workers for a long time, so we’re figuring out how a union should behave in this space and what kind of value it can add for its members.

What kind of response have you had?

By and large it has been pretty positive. When things have been done a certain way for a long time you have to expect some pushback when you come along and propose a different approach. We have experienced that at times. But law firms are the sum of their parts, and their parts are people. So, they are very conscious of the need to recruit and retain good people. They do want to keep those people happy and support them in growing and developing. There is a lot of scope for working together.

The challenge for us is to show employers that doing the things we think they should be doing to look after their employees is in their interests as well. Where we have been able to do that, we have had real success. For example, most large firms now have minimum wage monitoring mechanisms that top-up salary payments to junior staff who work so many hours that their effective hourly wage is less than minimum wage. They also facilitate check-ins on the health and wellbeing of those staff.

How do you fit in the type A personality, who does want to keep going in the traditional way? Are you saying they should not get ahead even if they are working twice as hard as others?

That’s an interesting one because for some people, living that lifestyle is what they want and also isn’t necessarily bad for them. It depends on the cloth from which you are cut.

My personal view is that the challenge that the union faces is making the profession a space in which anyone can thrive, and one that accepts and celebrates people working in a variety of different ways with a variety of different ends in mind. You should be treated with respect and the contribution that you make to your firm should be valued whether you are working 9-to-5 or 9-to-midnight.

We are not saying that everybody in the profession should be working 9-to-5. That just isn’t a practical reality. What we are saying, however, is that people should be paid for the hours that they work, we should be monitoring those hours and there should be checks and balances in place to make sure that they are healthy and safe. We have had some interesting conversations with a range of stakeholders around this issue. For example, we had a great meeting with WorkSafe and all of the large firms at the start of the year and discussed the drivers for the “workaholic” culture within the profession and how it impacts on legal workers’ wellbeing.

A big topic for discussion at that meeting was the fact that so many lawyers have type A personalities that push them to and over their limits to succeed. That changes the nature of ALWU’s work too. The classic union/employer narrative involves a union protecting its members from exploitation by their employers. When we talk to employers about issues like minimum wage compliance, we are asking them to put systems and structures in place to ensure that they are not paying staff less than their statutory entitlements. That protects our members from exploitation. But it also empowers employers to step in when people are at risk of burning themselves out – protecting them from themselves. That isn’t an issue that most unions are thinking about.

There are, of course, client expectations around delivering work in ridiculous timeframes and we also discussed how the profession can change those expectations. It’s a difficult one because a lot of clients would probably say that they don’t expect juniors to work ridiculous hours. But if an urgent piece of work needs to be done, often those positions fall by the wayside! Where that kind of work is necessary, ALWU’s view is that the people doing it should receive a fairer share of the money that is made because of their efforts.

Is there a corollary with other professions such as junior doctors in hospitals?

Well, yes in so far as there is an expectation that when you start out you do the hard yards and reap the benefits further down the track. But doctors are getting paid for every hour that they work, and their union is dealing with one big central employer. That makes things easier for them. It has, however, been good to see the junior doctors taking industrial action, because it shows that it’s not impossible for other professional service providers to take similar steps.

Unfortunately, one of the challenges that we face is that people in general are quite sympathetic towards junior doctors who are providing a service that society values. There is less public sympathy towards lawyers! Our public messaging, therefore, is different – we are saying “hey, if you pay a lot of money to have a law firm do an urgent job for you and a clerk or junior lawyer works until 3 AM to get the job done, but receives very little by way of salary in return, who is benefiting here? Let’s all be treated more fairly by the powers that be in this situation.”

Are you getting any comments or complaints about the way junior litigators/counsel are being treated by seniors or in court?

Very infrequently – but yes, and the Bar Association probably hears the same stories that we do, that bullying starts at the top. We don’t always see counsel appearing in the courts treated with the upmost respect, although that might seem appropriate where they have failed to prepare properly. Those power imbalances definitely exist. Interestingly, we have a lot of judges’ clerks as members and pleasingly they report that they are well looked after, whatever happens to counsel in the courtroom.

There are stories about some judges who viewed every time they sat on the bench with junior counsel appearing before them as a training opportunity. Should we encourage judges to view themselves as part of the training process?

Well, that has been my experience of appearing and generally I understand that judges are very forgiving of junior counsel. But I imagine the approach changes judge by judge.

My impression is that there is a big push to get junior litigators into court. The more that you can do to bring people up through their court experiences and the more opportunities that less experienced counsel have to get on their feet, the better. They are likely to be better quality senior counsel down the road, so it will ultimately benefit the courts. I expect this is something of which the judiciary are conscious.

What do you think the legal profession will look like in future for people of your generation and how will that impact on your union?

The first big question is going to be how will the profession emerge out of Covid 19? The union was building towards collective-bargaining in the next year or so as a way to increase membership and add tangible value for members. That followed on from our focus on minimum wage and overtime issues.

Now our focus is on advocacy work – supporting lawyers who are affected by pay reductions and redundancies arising out of Covid 19. So hopefully in the immediate future, the profession will be one where people are still employed and are able to earn a decent wage.

The other question is obviously how it will affect how we work? Will we stay in our big city offices or will more people work from home? Will the courts use AV facilities more often? Hopefully, it will precipitate a shift to electronic filing - the number of trees that are killed by a work in the courts surprises many junior lawyers when they join the profession.

What about the impacts of technology in general? The pundits say that it will lead to a greatly reduced legal profession, perhaps sooner than we expect – in fact one has said within six years.

As a union, we are thinking more about the people side of things than the tech side. Change always presents opportunity and while we will lose some things that lawyers have traditionally done, there will always be other ways in which we can add value. I’m still hopeful and I get the sense that my contemporaries are still hopeful about their future as lawyers. And, of course, tech can improve access to justice, which is a really great thing. So ALWU sees technology as an opportunity, not an enemy.

What are your immediate needs for the union?

We started off advocating for our members in a broad sense – pushing for changes to the way that people are paid in the profession and for accountability for the events of 2015/16. Now we are focusing on advocacy in a narrow sense – assisting individuals who need our help right now.

To provide that assistance to members, we have formed an Employment Law Committee, chaired by Maria Dew QC, to provide them with general guidance on employment law issues. We have also begun offering members pro bono legal advice via ALWU’s Pro Bono Panel, which consists of several senior employment law specialists. Our ability to provide that assistance is dependent on people volunteering their services – so volunteers are our biggest immediate need.

* Morgan Evans is the co-president of the Aotearoa Legal Workers' Union which was established in February 2019 to represent workers at legal workplaces in Aotearoa. If you want to get involved with the union and in particular its new Pro Bono Panel, please contact Morgan at president@alwu.org.nz. You can find more information about the union at https://alwu.org.nz/