Our Commitments

The diversity and individualism of our people goes a long way to creating our culture. The unique experiences, different perspectives and the paths they've taken, make us the firm we are today. It is important to us that our people can be their authentic selves and thrive, both at and outside of, work.

We are proud of our progress in achieving greater female representation in the partnership and other senior roles. To ensure we remain focused on diversity, inclusion, equity and belonging, we have established targets to achieve at least 45% females in the partnership and a workforce representing at least 25% ethnically diverse people by 2030.

  • Identifying and removing any biases that may exist during recruitment, promotion, work allocation, performance, and remuneration processes.
  • Undertaking robust moderations as part of our annual performance and remuneration review process to ensure fairness and consistency of both performance ratings and salaries across our people.
  • Ensuring policies and practices promote our ongoing support for diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging within the firm.
  • Actively considering promotional opportunities from within our business services teams.
  • Joining the NZ Parental Pay Register to support transparency on parental leave across Aotearoa.
  • Becoming a signatory to the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles and the New Zealand Law Society’s Gender Equality Charter, which is aimed at increasing retention and advancement of women lawyers.
  • Voluntary committing that our women lawyers will receive at least 50% of external instructions for all significant matters.
  • Actively promoting diversity related calendar events including Lunar New Year, Pride, International Women’s Day, Pink Shirt Day, Matariki, Te Wiki o Te Reo Language week, Mental Health Awareness Week and Movember.

we’re committed to:

Pay gap reporting

Cultural competency

Rainbow

Pay gap reporting

As signatories to the Mind the Gap Registry we have calculated our gender and Māori and Pacific Peoples ethnicity pay gaps for 2024. These calculations use Statistics New Zealand’s methodology and include all our people across legal and business services teams, but exclude those in the partnership.

Firm wide, the median hourly rate for males is 11.1% greater than females. Within our legal teams the median hourly rate for males is 2.2% greater than females. While our data uses distinct female and male categories, we acknowledge there are other gender categories.

The median hourly rate for all other ethnicities is greater than the median hourly rate for Māori by 17% and Pacific Peoples by 8.0%.

Cultural competency

We have a formal Te Reo Māori Policy to encourage, support and facilitate the use of te reo Maori through language lessons, and invest in Te Tiriti education. We have an appointed Pou Arataki – Māori Cultural Advisor, whose role includes developing and enhancing the cultural competency of our people, as well as developing relationships with iwi, hapū and Māori focused organisations. Our Pou Arataki and Māori legal group, Te Waka Ture, champion Te Ao Māori at Chapman Tripp day-to-day, including promoting the use of karakia and whakatau where appropriate, establishing waiata groups and celebrating Matariki and Te Wiki o Te Reo.

Rainbow

Our Rainbow Committee supports our employees who identify as part of the rainbow community, and works with our Leadership Team to advocate for inclusive policies and practices. Our Rainbow Tick accreditation signals our ongoing dedication to ensure our people can be their authentic self.

Living Wage accredited

We are proud to be recognised as a Living Wage employer. Paying at least the Living Wage enables our people and more importantly, those of our suppliers to afford the necessities of life and participate in their communities.

Community and Sustainability

Our Community Programme invests in a more resilient and more sustainable Aotearoa. We aim to make a difference in our communities by applying our time, skills and funding, and seeking to reduce our own environmental impact. Everyone has the opportunity to participate, including by providing pro bono legal advice or volunteering in their local community and doing something that is important and meaningful to them.

Read our 2023 Community report

people in audience clapping

First Foundation

Working with our Community Partner, First Foundation, we sponsor a number of scholars during their university studies through the provision of financial support and work experience.  First Foundation assists academically talented but financially disadvantaged students across Aotearoa to achieve their potential through tertiary education. Learn more about our partnership with First Foundation.