Van Doorne

General

• Established in 2020: a DEI Committee with 12 members from various organisational levels. Since 2023, members have allocated time for DEI tasks. (This sets us apart in the Dutch legal industry; in general DEI committees run on voluntary work.)
• Since August 2023 we have had a full-time DEI Lead, sitting directly under the board, with a considerable budget to implement the DEI strategy.
• In 2024 we started with setting up Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) for the LGBTQIA+ community and young parents. We are exploring ERGs for the Asian community, the Muslim community, and older employees.

DEI Strategy and Annual Plan

In 2022 we were the first Dutch law firm to sign the Diversity Charter of the Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands (SER). In the Charter we committed to concrete goals for ethnic minorities. Earlier we signed the SER Talent to the Top Charter, focused on increasing women in leadership positions.
The four pillars of our DEI strategy:

• Awareness: Training on inclusive behaviour and microaggressions, with ongoing training and sessions and cultural events such as the lunar new year and Iftar.
• Recruitment Policy: inclusive recruitment policy with expert review and training for the hiring team.
• Soft Skills: integration of soft skills competencies in training and performance criteria.
• Measures to take away barriers for disadvantaged groups: we have, for example, a transition leave policy for trans people in place, and a prayer room for religious people. We also collaborate with the IMC Weekend School: students aged 10-14 from under-resourced neighbourhoods participate in introductory law classes taught by Van Doorne colleagues. Additionally, we have set up a volunteer program through NL Cares to give language support to newcomers in the Netherlands.

Founding member of DEI industry initiatives

 Since 2016: founding member of Stichting Forward, a foundation that promotes acceptance, recognition and visibility of LGBTQI+ people within the Dutch legal profession;

• Since 2022: partner of Stichting Bridges Network, a foundation that connects bicultural and/or first-time LLM students to bicultural lawyers to bridge the gap with large commercial law firms;
• Since 2023: founding member of Stichting Lequal, a foundation that promotes DEI (with a focus on bicultural professionals) within the Dutch legal profession.