Bristows LLP

We are really proud of our long-standing positive attitude, commitment and approach towards inclusion and diversity at Bristows.

We were the first city firm to appoint a female Joint Managing Partner (well over 20 years ago now) and the third woman to hold this position is currently in post. We work hard to maintain the culture where women and lawyers from all backgrounds or minority groups thrive and succeed. As a firm and as individuals we do all we can to treat people fairly and with mutual respect, whether they are colleagues, clients or suppliers.

This commitment enriches our work and our working lives, and we believe it has played a key part in our success over the years.

Here are some examples of our current and ongoing commitment to diversity and inclusion:

• The firm is a long standing signatory to the Law Society’s Diversity and Inclusion Charter, the IP Inclusive Charter and the Armed Forces Covenant
• Our Inclusion Group is headed by three partners and has an active, diverse membership from all areas of the firm. Every year we review our Inclusion Plan for the firm, implemented through the Inclusion Group. We report progress against the plan to all staff every year at the AGM
• We have had an LGBT+ and allies network within the firm for several years – the Turing Network (4% of the staff, including some of our partners, identify as LGBT+)
• We work closely with Aspiring Solicitors – an organisation dedicated to assisting people from underrepresented groups in their efforts to join the legal profession
• Our graduate recruitment team use the Rare contextual recruitment system to support applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds who may otherwise be overlooked in the recruitment process
• 25% of our full equity partnership are women and half of our senior management team are women. In 2020 we opened a firm-wide channel to discuss and share all relevant issues and information, with the launch of the firm’s Women’s Network
• Our internal partner promotions have had a 50/50 gender balance for the past several years and expect this to continue
• We are signatories to the PRIME initiative, aimed at improving access to and socio-economic diversity within the legal profession. We also work with various further education careers services to support and encourage STEM students
• The firm joined the NOTICED network in 2022 – an inter-firm network focused on the experiences of ethnically diverse people in the legal sector.
• We are members of Stonewall’s Diversity Champions programme and the inter-firm LGBT network LeGal BesT, which supports our work in LGBTQ+ inclusion
• The firm’s Working Families and Carers network offers a space for people with caring responsibilities to support each other and feed into the firm’s family-friendly policies and ways of working