The appointment coincided with Ms MacDonnell’s 30-year anniversary at the firm, after joining in June 1992. She has practised in insurance litigation for over 25 years, primarily in the public and product liability areas.

In a conversation with Lawyers Weekly following her new appointment, Ms MacDonnell said she was “truly honoured” to be Holman Webb’s first female chair and was excited to help shape the firm’s future moving forward.

“At Holman Webb, we are all about the development and rewarding of talented individuals. I have seen our business evolve over the years and I am proud of where we have come. 67 per cent of our legal staff are female, and our executive team mirrors that 67 per cent — statistics that I am personally very proud of,” she said.

“It is also great to be part of the growing number of women assuming leadership roles across all industries and organisations, and I just hope that I can provide a bit of inspiration and belief for women who have such goals in sight.”

Particularly, when it comes to the career progression of younger female lawyers, Holman Webb have focused on being supportive of mentoring and learning programs.

“My advice for younger female lawyers in other firms is to carve out a plan — work with your leaders and find mentors and champions to help unlock opportunities for growth. You should seek regular feedback, and most importantly be a champion for collaboration and teamwork. If they don’t already, I think firms should offer mentoring and learning programs for emerging leaders. Similarly, firms should plan ahead in terms of succession, and assess what needs to be done to help retain key individuals,” Ms MacDonnell said.

“Retention and development of associates with three to five years PQE is a key challenge for firms. Whilst support for younger female lawyers is crucial at all levels, I find that this is an especially crucial period in a lawyer’s career; so at Holman Webb, we run training specifically focused on this group. The modules in this program have been designed to extend the skills developed as graduates and help lawyers prepare for future leadership responsibilities.”

VIEW ALL

The focus of the program is to provide a “formal program of learning”, bringing associates together regularly to learn together in a social environment. This also helps the firm retain associates by investing in their professional development early on.

“Similarly, our Senior Leadership Program focuses on skills and behaviours of effective people leadership, using the overarching theme of emotional intelligence. The program looks to enable the firm’s female (and male) leaders to work across a range of scenarios and situations: leading across generations; role modelling effective behaviours; building trust and empathy including conflict situations; understanding and embracing diverse behaviours and motivations,” Ms MacDonnell explained.

“Through ongoing participation in the program, our leaders developed the abilities to support the goals of Holman Webb through enabling employees with daily actions that engage, motivate and build high performance and productivity in individuals and teams.”

In terms of issues and initiatives Ms MacDonnell plans on focusing on, she said staff attraction will remain an ongoing priority, as well as maximising efficiency.

“Holman Webb is lucky to have a variety of champions working together with our leadership team. We have a clear strategy focused on engagement at all levels. We have programs and initiatives with key committees dedicated to both retaining existing, and attracting new talent to service our growth — and we have invested heavily in technology platforms and continuous improvement.

“I think the war for talent will continue. I can’t envisage returning to the way we worked before COVID-19, but I can see the legal sector following other industries with things like collaboration, flexible hybrid working, and much greater use of technology and innovation,” she explained.

“We have witnessed the shaping of new norms and are encouraged by some of the shifts taking place within the industry; especially as we find ourselves handling more remote court hearings, and the need to work both digitally and differently across teams. Things we began doing out of sheer necessity have led to better collaboration. To be honest, we’re now working more efficiently across teams and regions as a result.”

Moving forward, Ms MacDonnell plans on driving a number of strategic plans through the firm’s leadership team — focusing on innovation, employee engagement and learning and development initiatives.

“Initiatives will be designed and introduced in response to feedback from the recent Best Places to Work survey. We will also have ongoing initiatives to ensure that our people strategy is both well-defined and linked to business outcomes, as well as effectively measured and appropriately recognised in performance appraisals and incentive schemes,” she said.

“I am blessed with an excellent team, and I plan to support their initiatives, remove barriers and be a beacon for communication. Most of all, I want to both ensure that the voice of our client needs is being heard ‘loud and clear’, and champion those needs now and into the future.

“As a firm, we are also proactively focused on our purpose. This is not the same as our mission, vision, or values — and it is not about economic exchanges. It is something more aspirational. Through pro-social activities (targeting specific charities), we aim to draw our teams closer, with consistent pursuits connecting them with a shared goal. We will define our purpose in the coming 12 months, allowing our teams to continue making valuable societal contributions that go beyond economic value.”

Holman Webb will also “stay on top of best practice” to achieve an optimal working environment — and have placed greater importance on cyber security.

“We have been monitoring one particularly ugly and unfortunate trend, and in turn, will be keenly focused on protecting our firm from cyber crime. Around the globe, like never before, cyber criminals have tools and levels of sophistication that truly boggles my mind. In response to these threats, we have continued to invest, test, run simulations, and hold multiple backups across different providers — amongst a million other things,” Ms MacDonnell added.

“This cyber security continues to be a focus as our clients expect us to match, if not exceed, their levels of compliance and layers of protection. Fortunately, we have a group of super smart individuals — both internally within Holman Webb’s ICT team, and externally within our partner network.”

Looking to the next year, Ms MacDonnell said she is looking forward to seeing an increase in communication across the firm to help Holman Webb continue to grow.

“Firm-wide communication plays a key role in our ongoing focus on knowledge-sharing, and we are always looking for ways that we can continue to learn from each other with greater efficiency. I recognise that our younger staff often think differently to our older staff. They have different priorities and values, and a different approach to problem solving. I’m looking forward to tapping that contrast as a resource, to ensure that the firm is on track to be the type of organisation our present youth wish to lead into the future,” she added.

“I hope to engage with staff so that everyone feels safe, secure and respected, and is happy to come to work. I would like everyone to feel that Holman Webb is the best place to fulfill, and hopefully exceed, their career ambitions! I am proud of the diverse and capable team we have at Holman Webb, and I look forward to watching them thrive under my watch.”