The legal industry doesn’t just have a harassment problem. It has a retaliation, governance, and talent-retention crisis. And women lawyers are responding.
Research from the Canadian Bar Association shows that women leave large law firms and private practice at higher rates than men, signaling systemic failures around flexibility, workplace culture, and career progression. In Alberta alone, 57% of female lawyers left private practice within their first five years, compared with 49% of men, with burnout, limited advancement, and lack of flexibility cited as key drivers. Despite reaching near parity at the entry level, women remain significantly underrepresented in senior leadership roles; another indicator of where the profession is losing talent.
Rather than mass complaints or public firings, women lawyers are challenging a more insidious and enduring problem: workplace cultures that tolerate bullying, intimidation, and gender- or race-based retaliation under the guise of professionalism. And they are doing so not by staying silent. But by leaving and thriving.
What has changed is power.
Historically, law firms controlled the narrative when women departed under difficult circumstances. Leaving meant risking one’s reputation, references, and future prospects. The unspoken message was clear: speak up and you will be labeled “the problem.”
Today, that control over careers has shifted in favor of individuals. Through independent practices, referral networks, and increasingly sophisticated boutique firms, women lawyers are achieving reputational and economic independence without institutional permission, building their own reputations, networks, and client bases. Firmly settled on secure perches, women are free to tell their own stories, find community, and counter attempts to quietly erase or discredit them.
The result is not just visibility, it is leverage.
As a co-founder of a boutique business law firm based in Vancouver, I see the downstream effects clearly. Women lawyers are not leaving the profession, they are leaving traditional firm structures that refuse to modernize. Clients are following them. Without public scandal or mass exits, this moment in the legal profession may not seem significant on the surface. But that calm appearance belies the strengthening undercurrent of women lawyers exercising choice, leaving environments that no longer serve them, building credible alternatives, and proving that silence is no longer the price of success.
Lavinia Latham’s journey reflects this shift. After leaving a traditional firm environment in 2024 in Toronto, Lavinia built a practice grounded in human rights, equity, and leadership. As an employment lawyer, workplace investigator, corporate trainer, and advocate for systemic change, she is redefining what impactful legal careers can look like. Her work dismantling barriers and advancing inclusive workplaces illustrates that women lawyers are not simply exiting environments that fail them, they are creating alternatives.
Consider Sophie Purnell, who spent nearly four years “blending in” at her workplace before experiencing a racially discriminatory incident. After raising concerns internally, she describes facing a targeted campaign of race- and gender-based harassment, including demeaning, infantilizing remarks. Rather than retreating into silence, Sophie filed a human rights complaint and spoke publicly about her experience.
Her message was simple: you are not alone, and those who do not support you now were never going to support you later.
Sophie has since founded a successful employment law firm representing women facing abuse and discrimination at work.
Employment lawyer Kathryn Marshall, whose practice focuses on workplace harassment and bullying, has seen this shift firsthand. After speaking out about bullying in her own former workplace, she built her career outside traditional structures and is a founder of her own leading employment firm. Through social media, she has cultivated a practice centered on empowering women to challenge abusive systems.
“For decades,” Marshall said, “the legal industry relied on fear to hide mistreatment. That fear is losing its grip. This kind of courage creates a ripple effect.”
This matters, not just culturally, but institutionally. Recent surveys by Canadian law societies and legal regulators show persistent rates of harassment and discrimination, particularly affecting women, racialized lawyers, and those early in their careers. At the same time, firms are facing increasing scrutiny from clients, recruits, insurers, and regulators who expect modern governance, accountability, and psychologically safe workplaces.
The shift is already underway. The only question is which institutions will adapt and which will be left behind?
Aneka Jiwaji is Co-Founder and Counsel at Jiwaji Law, a top-tier women-founded & led boutique law firm. As lead of the firm’s barrister practice, she is an award-winning commercial litigator with experience across regional, national, and international firms, as well as the British Columbia Securities Commission and a leading B.C. litigation boutique. She advises on complex commercial, securities, and regulatory disputes, and has worked on precedent-setting cases shaping B.C.’s legal landscape. Aneka is also recognized for her advocacy on the evolving role of women in law and the future of the profession.
