Despite being a partner with a firm at the top end of town, the new Law Council of Australia president will draw on humble beginnings and personal experience in setting his agenda for 2013, reports Justin Whealing.

Joe Catanzariti had a problem.

The newly-appointed president of the Law Council of Australia, a partner at Clayton Utz for 23 years, had a kitchen installed recently and, while not quite ‘as mad as hell and not willing to take it anymore’, he wasn’t happy with aspects of the job and was looking at seeking legal redress.

“It was all too difficult,” he says. “I was working out whether I needed to go and get legal advice, and then write letters, and then do this, and then do that, and then you sit back and say ‘I give up’.”

Despite Catanzariti’s knowledge of the legal system and his connections, his kitchen issues brought home to him just how hard and expensive it can be for Australians to seek legal redress for common problems.

He believes it doesn’t have to be like that.

Catanzariti says that since he started practising in 1982, the number of fees, such as for court transcripts and filings, has priced many Australians out of using the legal market.

“These aren’t legal fees, these are all the add-ons,” he said. “We are moving towards much more of a user-pay system and, the debate is, is that the right model?”

Catanzariti is ready to have that debate. He believes it is time that a universal system of legal services was closely looked at.

“If it is up to me, and it is not, I would like to see a system similar to Medicare, which would enable a ‘mum and dad’ consumer who have, say, a dispute with their builder, to be able to go to a legal provider with a fixed fee,” he says. “The fixed fee would determine if you have a right of action or not, and that would be a Government-funded system.”

Boy from Bondi

At first glance it might be surprising that a partner at Clayton Utz, no stranger to charging megabucks for access to its top practitioners, is advocating for a more equitable legal system. However, the noted workplace lawyer’s working-class upbringing as the son of Italian immigrants has meant that the issue of access to justice is one of his five nominated priority areas this year.

Growing up in Bondi Junction in the 1960s and ’70s, when it was still a working-class suburb rather than a haven for business barons, backpackers and B-list celebrities, Catanzariti’s childhood was tougher than many of his private practice colleagues.

 “I grew up in a terrace, and a lot of [the] time, to make ends meet, we had shared accommodation,” says Catanzariti, describing the regular parade of tenants as providing a “colourful” upbringing.

“The highlight for me on payday was to get a packet of chocolate biscuits and that is why I have a sweet tooth. 

“It was a really big deal to get chocolate biscuits.”

At a time when the eligibility guidelines for legal aid are getting tighter and tighter across the country, the LCA will be actively seeking to ensure governments don’t further compromise access to justice for Australians at the margins.

“Justice is something we talk about, but don’t really have,” he says. “I have used the expression many times about the working-class poor [during the interview].

“There are those that can get legal aid in a very limited way, for example, for criminal matters, but there is this great working-class group that doesn’t have access to assistance.”

In an election year, it is clear that Catanzariti does not intend to shy away from tackling policy issues if the LCA feels they will adversely affect the legal profession or Australian society.

“It is the complexities of the laws, and one of the challenges for the LCA when engaging in dialogue with the Government is can we simplify something?” he says. “A lot of our submissions point out to the Government that Section 37BB or whatever doesn’t work.

“That is the beauty of having an independent view from people that live and breathe the stuff.”

Retaining talent

Another priority area nominated by Catanzariti is diversity.

This year, the LCA will embark upon a major female attrition and engagement study, with the first part of an extensive report due to be released in June.

“It won’t just be a survey about the problems; we all know the problems [facing female practitioners]. 

“This will be an attrition and retention study, and we need to work out what will ultimately retain people.”

A committee headed by Fiona McLeod SC, the chairman of the Victorian Bar Council, has helped to frame the parameters surrounding the study.

In the past, many diversity campaigners from within and outside the profession have laid the blame for the high turnover of female lawyers and small percentage of women in senior positions at the feet of the culture at large law firms.

Last year, the noted Australian National University academic Margaret Thornton commented that the culture of large law firms is incompatible with notions of work-life balance. 

“I can’t see the numbers of women in senior positions improving in this present climate,” she told Lawyers Weekly in May. “It is no good producing the rhetoric and saying things should improve and having little studies and tweaking this and that.

“I don’t want to say that the outlook for the profession is gloomy, but it is with regard to issues such as diversity and attrition.”

Unsurprisingly, Catanzariti feels that view is too simplistic.

“I think the large firms are doing a lot,” he says. “There is a huge amount of flexible work practices available to men and women, and childcare available for men and women,” he says, when speaking about the policies at his own firm, which also include statistics that track the percentage of female barristers briefed.

Catanzariti has hit the ground running on this issue, talking to female lawyers from the Bar, the in-house community and private practice.

“Female lawyers tell me that some judges don’t understand the problem of certain court sitting times,” he says. “Other problems include that you get a leading female silk, and I have said this to the Attorney-General in the past, and within five seconds of becoming a silk you appoint them as a judge, so we don’t get enough role models [for female barristers].”

Keeping schtum

While Catanzariti’s determination to address female attrition is obviously sincere, he offers no comment when asked about whether the well-publicised Bridgette Styles matter will hamper his efforts to engage with women lawyers.

In 2010, Styles, a graduate solicitor with Clayton Utz between August 2007 and December 2008, brought proceedings against the firm, alleging she suffered discrimination and harassment.

Her original claim alleged that Luis Izzo, a solicitor with Clayton Utz, went to Catanzariti, the head of the workplace relations, employment and safety practice group, with allegations that Styles was “conspiring” against a group of lawyers with regard to a sexual harassment complaint. 

It was further alleged by Styles that Izzo sent an email to a human resources manager — at the request of Catanzariti — that contained 16 defamatory imputations against her. Styles claimed that, as the email sent by Izzo was at the direction of Catanzariti, the partnership as a whole was responsible for any defamatory consequences. 

Given that the matter was settled in November 2011 for an undisclosed sum, with that agreement including confidentiality clauses, all that Catanzariti was willing to say was: “I have always been a strong advocate for the advancement of women in the workplace and the promotion of measures to reduce the attrition of women in law.”

“As practice group leader I actively encouraged many women in my team, including several mothers, to work flexibly or part-time,” he says, stating that “over 20 per cent of our team were benefiting from flexible workplace arrangements, well above the firm average” when he stood down as the practice group head this year in order to combine his personal practice with the demands of the LCA presidency. 

Outward bound

While a major focus for Catanzariti will be to shore up the profession’s internal stocks, he is unashamedly taking a regional approach to the president’s role.

On his agenda is the formation of a LCA delegation to visit Papua New Guinea (PNG) to promote the rule of law, and he has spoken with senior political figures about the planned trip in March or April.

“We have a MOU with the PNG Law Society and I think that, given what has happened in PNG in the last little while, it is quite appropriate that we show our commitment to PNG and send a delegation,” said Catanzariti, confirming that he has spoken to the federal Attorney-General Nicola Roxon about the planned trip.

PNG has undergone a period of great political turmoil over the past 12 months, as a power struggle has erupted between current prime minister Peter O’Neill and former prime minister Michael Somare.

In June last year, the Supreme Court justice Nicholas Kirriwom was arrested shortly after the chief justice Salamo Injia was detained.

Catanzariti defends the decision of the LCA to actively intervene in PNG while not making similar moves in other Pacific nations, such as Fiji, where the rule of law has been compromised.

“You can’t do everything in one year,” he says. “The South Pacific Lawyers’ Association is one of the vehicles that we work through for the whole of the region.”

In addition to PNG, the other Asia-Pacific nation that will garner special attention from the LCA this year is China.

In April, the LCA plans to launch the inaugural China Law Week. The genesis behind such an initiative came from a visit Catanzariti made to China with Minister for Trade Craig Emerson last year.

Catanzariti says that international arbitration is also an area that offers Australian lawyers a greater opportunity to engage with Asia, with the creation of the Australian International Disputes Centre in 2010 providing a spur.

“We know Singapore and Hong Kong are very attractive places to have international arbitration, but we want to promote Australia as a neutral, relaxed environment and a great place to have international arbitration,” he says.

After 30 years as a lawyer, far from slowing down, Catanzariti is speeding up, and it is clear he relishes life in the legal fast lane.

“I still have the passion,” he says. “You have to make everyday a successful day and if you lose your passion for what you are doing and you turn it into a job, perhaps you shouldn’t do it.”