Empowerment and skills transfer

Adams & Adams has long held the view that upliftment, transformation and empowerment of people from disadvantaged backgrounds can best be achieved by creating opportunities for such people to work and be trained within the firm. It is considered preferable that a full process of transfer of skills and expertise takes place which enables people so trained to join the professional staff of our firm, or to set up their own independent practices, or to find placement elsewhere.

The policy on transformation and empowerment in the firm has been embodied in a policy document and implementation structure of three sub-committees, each with a specific focus area and mandate working in accordance with timelines and reporting to our Transformation Committee, Management Committee and partnership to ensure that our goals are achieved. A black economic empowerment (BEE) charter for legal services is not yet in place, but work is in progress with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the Law Society of South Africa and other interested parties to finalise this. It will of course be necessary to align the rating criteria of the charter with the broad-based black BEE framework drafted by the DTI.

The partnership believes that the development of all staff to their maximum potential contributes mutually to the staff’s and partnership’s success and its policy is that it has a specific responsibility to provide development opportunities to those people who have been excluded from the mainstream of economic activity as a direct result of discrimination in the past.

It is also our policy to take positive steps not only to equalise opportunities within the firm for existing staff as well as for new recruits, but in fact to create special opportunities for empowerment. The firm thus actively seeks to identify and develop the potential of people from disadvantaged groups to promote the firm’s representativeness of the demographics of our country.

Being a firm specialising in intellectual property law, we do experience some difficulty in finding candidates from disadvantaged groups with technical qualifications and available to join the firm, particularly in the patent/engineering context. This has prompted the firm to initiate recruitment programmes, for example within the science and engineering faculties of universities, and to make available generous study bursaries (see below). The pool of potential IP practitioners is unfortunately small at the present time but we hope to increase the number of available people through various initiatives, eg our bursary scheme and other projects as set out below. We have no hesitancy in undertaking, as part of this, the training of previously disadvantaged individuals.

For instance, the intellectual property work undertaken by the firm for a major corporate client is predicated upon an existing arrangement jointly between Adams & Adams and Amos Khumalo Attorneys. Our original joint appointment commenced in October 2001 and has, from our perspective, functioned successfully. The trade mark portfolio work is shared between ourselves and Amos Khumalo and, as part of this, skills transfer in our specialised field has taken place and continues to take place.

As part of this appointment we undertook to train a black patent attorney. This was successfully completed during 2004, and the fully qualified patent attorney has been appointed by the Innovation Fund of the Department of Science and Technology. The firm has this year employed two further previously disadvantaged graduate engineers with a view to qualification as patent attorneys. A third previously disadvantaged engineer is also likely to join the firm later this year for the same purpose.

Transformation principles

The firm’s transformation policy reflects the partnership’s core values, namely:

• high quality standards in all aspects of our professional practice
• commitment to client care and development
• respect for the individual and regard for individual dignity
• absence of discrimination in all contexts of the firm including employment
• performance improvement through empowerment and team work.

The firm currently has four partners, three associates, nine professional assistants and 15 candidate attorneys from previously disadvantaged groups. The firm regularly participates in the project organised jointly by the Black Lawyers Association and the Law Society for the placement of black candidate attorneys, known as the Integrated Bar Project.

The firm is also sensitive to gender diversity, and has 14 female partners while currently employing 10 female associates, one female attorney-consultant, nine female professional assistants and 16 female candidate attorneys.

As part of an outreach programme in which it has participated, the firm has in the past provided secretarial training to deserving candidates from previously disadvantaged communities. The firm opened its own secretarial training school for the training of black legal secretaries in 2000, and the tenth group of trainees is currently being trained by a full-time trainer. Those excelling in the training course are trained further, focusing on more on-the-job training. Adams & Adams aspires to appoint secretarial staff from these trainees, and has done so.

Skills transfer through collaboration

Our prime policy in regard to training and upliftment is as set out above. Adams & Adams is also prepared to cooperate and work in association with other law firms, including predominantly black firms, where the opportunity arises or it is appropriate. In the context of skills transfer, we believe that the goals of transformation and empowerment can, in certain circumstances, be achieved by working with other firms in a manner to permit a transfer of skills and expertise to take place.

Instances of such collaborative initiatives and active working relations with black firms extend over many years and include collaboration with Naledi Chambers in Lesotho, E Makiwane & Partners in Umtata, Maluleke Seriti Makume Matlala Inc and its founding firms, Amos Khumalo Attorneys, and Ngubane & Partners.

Several Adams & Adams partners are also members of the Black Lawyers Association (BLA).

Empowerment through employment

The firm’s transformation policy is not confined to professional staff. Adams & Adams’ staff complement is currently made up of more than 37% people from previously disadvantaged communities as part of the administration and support staff, among them individual employees holding supervisory positions.

We believe strongly in the concept of promotion from within. We therefore focus on screening all staff within the firm with a view to promotion. We also believe that appropriate work-related skills training will enhance performance and develop broader advancement opportunities. For this reason the firm is actively involved in the implementation of the national skills development legislation and a skills development facilitator has been appointed. We have received a special award for our performance under the skills development legislation.

We are also actively involved with the structuring, accreditation and registration of the first two learnerships in the legal field under the skills development legislation, namely that for trade mark practitioners. One of the Adams & Adams partners is the project leader for this initiative.

The firm has a continuous recruitment programme in terms of which the science and engineering faculties of universities are approached to refer to us the names of students from disadvantaged groups who are interested in being trained as intellectual property lawyers.

Fair labour practices

Adams & Adams is committed to applying fair labour practices at all levels of employment.

Thus the partners of Adams & Adams are specifically committed to:

• ensuring that any discriminatory labour practices are identified and eliminated, including both direct and indirect discrimination
• ensuring that our premises and social practices are free from all forms of discrimination, both direct and indirect
• developing relevant policies and procedures to ensure the creation of opportunities for disadvantaged people in the fairest possible manner
• resolving concerns, correcting misconceptions and refining communication on an ongoing basis.

Social responsibility

Adams & Adams has always had an awareness of, and has assumed a social responsibility for, the need to uplift people and groups from less privileged backgrounds. Adams & Adams has accordingly over the years been involved in a variety of community oriented and upliftment projects, exemplified by the following:

• We make bursaries available to the dependants of our staff members, particularly those staff members from disadvantaged groups, for the purpose of secondary and tertiary education. Over the years many such bursaries have been awarded.
• We have for many years, from as early as 1981 in some cases, been making available study bursaries to South African universities for deserving law students. Adams & Adams is not prescriptive in the award of the bursaries; academic merit and financial need are criteria in identifying recipients.
• To promote the study of law, and to encourage and reward promising law students, Adams & Adams sponsors annual merit prizes at 19 universities.
• Recently the firm hosted nine scholars from Pretoria High School for Girls during the initiative of the Law Society of the Northern Provinces, in conjunction with Cell C, to host girls at secondary school level to a “day at the office” in the “Take a Girl Child to Work Day”. This was a most successful and enjoyable endeavour.

• The firm also took part in the “Attorneys’ basic legal advice” week, another initiative set up by the Law Society of the Northern Provinces wherein free basic legal advice was offered to the public in order to improve the public awareness and perception of attorneys in the province.