Suite No. 6-6-11, Tingkat 6, Menara MAA, No. 6
Lorong Api-Api 1, 88000 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia

Tel: +6088 232662
Fax: +6088 232654

Sabah Law Society Initiatives

Advancement of Women

The Sabah Law Society promotes diversity, equality and inclusion in the legal profession, in particular by developing and progressing initiatives to ensure equality of opportunity for all members of the legal profession, regardless of race, ethnicity, heritage, gender, age, religion, disability or sexual orientation.

Women make up more than 50 per cent of the legal profession and have made significant advances in all areas of practice. However, impediments still remain to the retention and career progression of women in the profession.

The Charter for the Advancement of Women is designed to promote and support strategies to retain women from all backgrounds, including women with disability, in the profession over the course of their careers, and encourage and promote their career progression into leadership and management positions.

The Charter aims to achieve this by assisting the legal profession to develop cultures which promote diversity and inclusion, prevent sexual harassment and bullying, and impact positively on all practitioners in their place of work, resulting in better business outcomes for the legal profession and the community as a whole.

In support of this initiative, the signatories to this Charter commit to:

Demonstrating leadership by removing gender bias and discrimination in the legal workplace;
Driving change in the legal profession by developing a culture that supports the retention and promotion of women from all backgrounds;
Implementing recruitment and promotion strategies that include gender diversity and gender pay equity as important considerations;
Promoting mentoring and sponsorship of women in the legal profession;
Encouraging and facilitating flexible work practices to support a better balance of professional and other commitments;
Ensuring that sexual harassment, or any form of bullying in the workplace, is not tolerated;
Establishing procedurally fair, safe, accessible and transparent sexual discrimination and harassment complaints processes; and
Establishing training to protect complainants from victimisation, encouraging bystanders and others to report and 'call out' offensive and intimidating behaviour.

The Charter and Charter Guidelines:

The Charter

Charter Guidelines

The following documents to help practitioners, supervisors and practices when considering and implementing flexible work arrangements are also available: