The Legal Practice Council (LPC), in defending the Legal Sector Code (LSC), told the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, that South Africa’s legal profession today still bears the imprint of an exclusionary past and that the numbers are a testament to this.
The LPC is one of the parties opposing the application by four of the country’s top law firms, who are asking the court to overturn the sector-specific B-BBEE framework for the South African legal profession gazetted by the Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, Parks Tau, in September 2024.
The application was brought by Deneys (formerly Norton Rose Fulbright), Bowmans, Webber Wentzel, and Werksmans.
The LPC said in court papers that by the applicants’ own admissions, the country’s largest commercial firms remain approximately 72% white-owned.
According to the LPC’s statistics of 2025, there are 34,967 attorneys. Of these, 13,398 are African, 1,923 are Coloured, and 3,266 are Indian. Black attorneys total 18,587, which translates to 53.16% of attorneys. In gender terms, LPC statistics show that in 2025, 18,971 are male and 15,996 are female.
The LPC stated critically that black women, across all racial categories, remain grossly underrepresented. There are only 5,172 black women attorneys in the country. This means that black women constitute just 15.2% of the entire profession.
White practitioners, particularly men, continue to dominate positions of ownership, influence, and economic power in the legal profession, the LPC said.
It stated that these statistics demonstrate that the generic B-BBEE codes are wholly inadequate. Despite their Level 1 B-BBEE ratings, the applicant firms retain overwhelmingly white ownership and leadership.
According to the LPC, the only plausible explanation for this paradox is that the Generic Codes set the bar too low, allowing firms to achieve high compliance levels without undertaking meaningful transformation.
The Johannesburg Society of Advocates (JSA), which has joined the legal proceedings as a friend of the court and stands neutral in the legal challenge, meanwhile, also painted a bleak transformation picture.
Advocate Kate Hofmeyr, acting for the JSA, illustrated how the Code, if implemented, may affect advocates, particularly through incentivising changes in briefing patterns.
The JSA is the largest bar in South Africa, with over 1,200 members. They are all subject to the referral system, meaning that they may only accept briefs from attorneys (with limited exceptions). This unique structural feature of the profession has significant implications for transformation efforts and access to work opportunities, she said.
Hofmeyr explained that the JSA’s membership has undergone demographic changes over the last three decades. As of late 2025, 55% of the JSA’s members are black, and 39% are women.
“However, these numbers belie the stubborn inequalities that remain at the Bar, as is evident at the level of senior counsel and in the high attrition rates among juniors,” she said.
Of the 238 senior counsel at the JSA at the end of 2025, 171 were white, of which 148 were white men. There were only 45 black silks, of which 37 were men. There were only eight black African women senior counsel.
Attrition statistics reflect that black juniors continue to leave the Bar in greater numbers. Over the last five years, 406 junior counsel (with more than one year of seniority) left the JSA. Of these, 272 were black junior counsel; of which 108 were black female junior counsel.
The attrition rates among juniors in the first four years of practice were particularly high, with 142 juniors departing between 2020 and 2025, of which 85% were black juniors.
Hofmeyr said the JSA has adopted a host of internal initiatives to promote transformation among its members and to boost retention rates.
“However, there are limits to what the JSA can achieve in a referral profession, where advocates remain almost entirely reliant on attorneys for work.”
She told the court that these facts present the backdrop against which the aims of the Code must be assessed.
zelda.venter@inl.co.za
