Women's Day Special | BW Legal World Dialogue With Zia Mody | Founder and Managing Partner | AZB & Partners

BW Legal World initiated a Dialogue of Change in view of the International Women’s Day 2021, to bring real and enduring change one conversation at a time. BW Legal World in association with BW Businessworld hosted 50 women in law on March 06, 2021, at its virtual conference titled Gearing up for India@75: What Women Want—A BW Legal World Dialogue with Women Leaders in Law.

Here’s an edifying dialogue between the BW Legal World Managing Editor, Ashima Ohri and Ms Zia Mody, Founder and Senior Partner of AZB & Partners and one of India's most formidable corporate lawyers. The recorded conversation focusing on the need for more diverse and inclusive workplace policies is available here.

Here’s the transcript of the BW Legal World Dialogue with Ms Zia Mody:

Do organizations in India need more diverse and inclusive workplace policies that take into account gendered responsibilities and the realities of a woman’s life cycle that includes marriage, childcare, family care and other necessities.

So I think the answer is obvious right and I've been saying this for many many years. I think that things have improved actually if you talk about awareness and recognition. I think it's all to do again with talent. I think that the war for talent is constant. And women as I always say hold up half the sky. And so what would be the point in letting women go without at least some sort of sensible conversation.

I think what happens is there's still a lack of effective communication.

Everyone knows that when a woman is getting married or having a baby. There are issues in her life, in terms of timing, flexibility, a little bit of coordination. She's busy multitasking, not only physically but mentally. At that time, I think what happens most times is. She's afraid to go and ask what she wants.

And typically, a male HR or a male boss doesn't know how to start the conversation. So my advice for organisations has always been that don't wait for the woman to come and tell you that she's going, and then say oh we could have done this or we could have done that. Preempt the situation, be proactive, Reach out to women who you know are going to go through these issues in their life cycle and talk to them about what their issues are. Each one has different issues. And frankly, they're not all that difficult to resolve as humans. 

What are the invisible barriers to leadership roles for women and how do we course-correct the situation?

A lot of organisations face the issue of retention of women because everybody is comfortable in hiring you in numbers to start with but they drop off very quickly and the statistic that I often give is that there's an organization that says that India leaky pipeline is the women, and 48% of our women, drop out from the workforce. So, at any point in time. If 100 Women have joined the workforce, you're talking about 48 Women who have left it. Can you imagine if we regained even half of that what that would do to our GDP, right? So I think that the way to do it is to make it incumbent on middle managers and their bosses to retain women as part of the KRAs.

So, you have to explain why women left.

And you have to explain why when you started your year with a certain percentage of women. Why is the percentage dropped beyond a certain point?

Now the minute you're called upon to answer why each woman left.

You are going to make the effort to retain them more. And this applies to men and women.

As you should be rewarded as a middle manager for being able to offer flexible solutions in order to retain these women. 

And all this experience should keep getting fed into HR department.  This will help in creating better policies and HR managers across organizations should start sharing what have been their victories and losses in terms of experience. That's the way you do it.

In your opinion what is the most important change that we require today as we march towards our 75th year of Independence?

We need to educate our girls. I'm a Bahai by religion and our Prophet says if you have money to educate one child, educate the girl child because she's the mother of future generations. Right. And so, it becomes very important for us to focus on something which may be two generations can change. It won't be immediate. 

Can you imagine if every girl child got the same opportunity, 

How much more passionate they would be about staying in the workforce. See a lot of it also is you and I are sitting here and a lot of our women in the audience have in a way been privileged. 

we've all fought our battles but we've been privileged right, we've been privileged in a way, we haven't had to take a job that we really hate, only because we had no choice but to make the meal ticket at home.

We've, we've had parents that have supported us, Married women have husbands that have supported them. But there so many women who don't have choices. Right. 

How do we open up that pipeline? It can only happen through education because that brings awareness. That's when the girl child realizes that there is a world out there and I can be a part of it.  So I think education is the key.

What would be your biggest strength as a woman and a lawyer that has driven you throughout your career?

I think the older I get as a woman I get to be a bully with my clients. I often tell them what I have to say without basically worrying about what they will think because I know they know it's in their interest. 

Over the years, what I have gained is a good combination of EQ and IQ. Most of us are smart, smart, that's why we are where we are.

However, it is our ability to relate to people that makes us special in our interactions. EQ is important for me for various things. It makes me read the room properly. And I don't have to keep fighting for every point. I've learned how to trade effectively, I can negotiate. 

EQ is much more available to women. Men can learn from us.  Men with EQ are unstoppable.

So I think that's really what's been my strength. 

Being a lawyer or a judge doesn't automatically insulate a person from biases and misunderstandings. We are all plagued by unconscious or implicit biases unknown even to ourselves and judgments like skin-to-skin or asking the rape-accused if he would marry the victim of sexual assault set the subtext for this question. Where is the problem, and how do we bring the winds of change?

 I think the change starts at the dining table and educating generations.

One way to crack the mindset of many men, which I do sometimes is if they have any comments like will she be able to do this or not

I just ask the question, - What would you do she was your daughter? 

How would you like her to be treated when she is this age, and in a workplace like this. Is it possible that you would expect your daughter to be given a chance? If possible, would you like her to be offered some flexibility? 

Would you like her to be packed off home just because she couldn't give you the 2 hours extra at a certain time?

The penny drops very quickly. When you bring it home to somebody’s heart.

And the good part is that this generation of fathers are far more invested in their daughters. They are proud of their daughters. They want their daughters to have good jobs, good profiles. good CVs.

I know I get many phone calls. My daughter really wants to come and intern with you. They are pushing for the girls. And I know that that pushing doesn't stop. It carries throughout.

If parents are invested n the girl’s career that's 50% of the battle one. And the last 50 has to be the husband and the mother in law. 

If you could change one thing in the Indian legal ecosystem today, what would it be and why?

I think that the real issue for us is the backlog and pendency of cases. And I think that some of the Supreme Court judges like Justice Chandrachud are so vested in trying to change that technologically. That really is when we can say that we have achieved maturity because you just can't have the sort of backlog of cases where everybody's waiting for justice. So we need more judges, more brick and mortarboards, more technology to enable proper hearings. 

Another aspect is that the government is the biggest litigant. 60 plus percent of the cases are by the government. The government could also streamline, where it wants to appeal and  when it doesn't want to appeal. That's another way you can resolve issues.

Your message to the women and lawyers of tomorrow.

I've always said find the thing that makes you passionate because that's the thing that will make you stay.

Find what gives you enjoyment in your life, the thing which will overcome all the headaches and irritations that we have to go through as women. Once you have your passion, you will persevere. All the very very best.

Disclaimer: 

The automatic transcription has been lightly edited for a better reading experience. Some names and parts of the transcription may carry inadvertent errors that we are in the process of editing. Thank you for your understanding.