Stephenson Harwood

Our vision is to be known as an inclusive and diverse firm, where all our people feel they can be themselves and thrive at work. Our people are our biggest asset. We want Stephenson Harwood to be a place where colleagues can do their best work in a team that values the unique contributions that they bring.

Our Belonging, Inclusion and Diversity strategy focuses on culture, leadership, talent management and recruitment. We partner with a range of organisations to help us to create the diverse and inclusive workplace that we strive to be. Partners include Stonewall, The Business Disability Forum, The Valuable 500, Aspiring Solicitors and Rare Recruitment, MyPlus Student Recruitment and Working Families.

Access to the profession

Our commitment to diversity and inclusion starts with young people, often long before they would come to work for us. We want to widen access to the legal profession, ensuring that young people who don't have networks in law have access to our office and our people and to remove financial barriers to the profession. Examples include:

• Our scholarship programme, open to students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, offers £15,000 per year to cover the costs of university fees and contribute to living expenses. Recipients will also be given a mentor from the firm, invited to insight days and employment workshop, provided with work experience, and guaranteed a place at an assessment centre for a training contract.
• Our Bright Sparks programme provides work experience for students in year 12 from lower socio-economic backgrounds. The programme includes workshops on writing CVs, interviewing, time management and developing a personal brand.
• We partner with The Stephen James Partnership on their Black Lawyers Matter and Best In Class programmes to provide mentors to aspiring Black lawyers and working class lawyers looking for personalised career support. The programme is a 12-month commitment, dedicating at least an hour a month to mentoring.

Inclusive recruitment

We work hard to reach diverse candidates, providing the support they need to apply for roles at the firm. Examples include:

• We use the Rare contextual recruitment system as part of our graduate selection process. The tool contextualises the academic performance of applicants, helping us to identify ‘stand-out’ candidates, regardless of background.
• We have also partnered with RARE to support all those involved in future talent recruitment to combat unconscious bias. We provide training through Hemisphere, a product that blends videos of real candidates at interview, animations, and interactive exercises to help interviewers gain an insight into their biases and what they can do to tackle them.
• We have implemented the 'offer an interview' scheme for all training contract and apprenticeship applicants, which allows disabled candidates to opt in to be interviewed if they meet the minimum criteria for the job.
• We've partnered with Aspiring Solicitors on our Black Talent Programme. The programme aims to increase the number of Black trainees attracted to, and recruited by, the firm. The programme supports Black students through providing mentors, skills development workshops, designated placement opportunities and guaranteed places on an assessment centre for a training contract.
• In 2024, we hosted our first disability open day, designed to attract disabled talent to apply for our training contract opportunities. The open day provided information about the strategy of the firm, our sector focuses, application hints and tips and how we are working towards ensuring that the firm is inclusive to disabled talent.

Fostering inclusion

We know we need to foster an inclusive culture, where all our people can be themselves and thrive at work. It’s about equality and opportunity, making sure that talented people can thrive and progress at Stephenson Harwood. All of our associates have a dedicated development partner, who has responsibility for supporting their development and career progression. We are focused on fair work allocation for all - we currently have structured work allocation pilots in four of our practice groups, with the aim of ensuring that the distribution of work is equitable.

Our D&I employee networks are for, and run by, our people. They support members in many ways, including creating a sense of belonging by celebrating diversity, connecting people across the business and working with the wider community.

In the UK we have the following networks:

• SHout (LGBTQ+)
• Stephenson Harwood Advancing Racial and Ethnic Diversity (SHARED)
• Mental health and wellbeing
• Gender equality
• Enable (Disability and neurodiversity)
• Social mobility
• Family and carers network
• Jewish network
• Muslim network