Since the turn of the millennium, Africa has been a hotbed for foreign investment activity. As China’s ‘Go Out’ investment policy hit full stride and western investors sought new, potential high-return ventures in which to place their capital, the prominence of Africa as an investment destination has burgeoned.
Continue reading “The changing talent economy in sub-saharan Africa”
James Ratcliffe has a curious job – one in which art, argument and puzzle-solving come together across global jurisdictions to meet at the crux of the international luxury art market. Ratcliffe, who has a background in archaeology and commercial litigation, is general counsel and director of recovery at the Art Loss Register (ALR), a London-based private company that holds the world’s largest private database of lost and stolen art. Mired in criminality, old money, loss and recovery, this is a job made for the movies. Continue reading “In-house life: James Ratcliffe, art loss register”
GC: Can you tell me about the UN Global Compact and what ‘sustainability’ means for businesses?
Ursula Wynhoven (UW): The Global Compact is the UN’s corporate sustainability initiative. ‘Corporate sustainability’ in this context means the creation of long-term value by businesses in four dimensions: in economic, social, environmental, and ethical or governance terms.
Broadly speaking, the economies of Asia comprise the largest financial and population bloc in the world. Throughout the Global Financial Crisis, many of Asia’s strongest economies remained surprisingly resilient, thanks in no small part to the staggering growth rates China sustained throughout the period.
This Spring, GC magazine and RPC teamed up for a series of innovative events bringing provocative, and often downright maverick, business perspectives to an audience of in-house lawyers in London.
Australia and New Zealand are Oceania’s two largest economies and have strong links beyond a feeling of shared culture and geographical proximity. The two countries enjoy extremely close economic and trading ties underpinned by legislation including the 1983 Closer Economic Relations agreement, which allows for free trade in goods and services, while the 1973 Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement is an informal agreement allowing free movement of citizens between the two countries. Despite these connections, both economies have different vulnerabilities to the winds of global economic change.
Royal Mail is rather like Unilever House, the grand 1930s neoclassical Art Deco building it inhabits on the north side of Blackfriars Bridge. From a distance, it is impressive, monolithic, inspiring nostalgia yet leaving the observer with a twinge of concern about whether such an edifice can survive the ravages of the modern world.
Continue reading “Perfect panelling for the post-public post”
In order to make the survey representative of the UK economy, we collected responses from a variety of job titles, a cross section of industries and a range of small and large companies. The vast majority of our respondents (62%) are legal professionals: with general counsel, legal counsel and director of legal being the most prevalent job titles. The non-legal respondents in our survey sample had a good understanding of both their own legal department and the external legal services market – with respondents typically working within the c-suite or human resources.
As society is becoming increasingly aware of the need for diversity; companies seeking better results and an advantage over their competitors must have a workforce that reflects the progressive shift taking place in the wider market. Research has shown that diversity contributes to better corporate results, greater innovation, and increased profits, making companies with diverse teams and leadership better positioned to compete in the current market. It is not surprising, therefore, that an overwhelming majority of organisations in the UK have formulated diversity plans that draw upon an array of both proven and newly formulated strategies. To examine the success of both old and new approaches, we asked our participants how effective they thought specific strategies were for promoting diversity and inclusion within their companies.
Our respondents overwhelmingly saw leadership taking a role in championing diversity, and flexible working practices as the two strategies which produced the best outcomes. These two had the highest proportion of participants reporting great or high impact on the levels of diversity and inclusion within the organisation. In contrast, out respondents saw recruitment and promotion strategies – covering approaches including diversity talent recruitment, targeted talent spotting and leadership development, as well as the sponsorship or diversity programmes, and the use of physical and environmental accessibility, as the least effective. It is worth noting however that some of these strategies are quite progressive and may not have taken hold in many organisations yet.
To assess the wide reaching dimensions of diversity we asked our survey participants where they believe future challenges for diversity lie. Interestingly, the distribution of responses was similar across most categories, illustrating that the concept of diversity is not specific to one challenge or segment of society. Gender was the most prevalent area of focus for our respondents (21%), followed by social mobility (17%), ethnicity (15%), mental health issues (14%), disability (14%) and LGBTQA (8%). At just 2% of total responses, age was the most under-reported challenge, perhaps reflecting the fact that most companies are already highly diverse in that respect.
It has long been believed that in-house lawyers are professionals who have an unrivalled view of the company that they work within. Is it possible to combine their position, their extensive understanding of the law, in addition to knowledge of personal conduct to assist in developing an inclusive corporate environment? The vast majority of our survey participants believe that their legal team has a vital role to play in promoting diversity and inclusion. When asked to elaborate further, some thought that the legal department also has a guiding role in promoting diversity initiatives: ‘In the first instance, aside from HR, we are probably the department that best understands the subject legally so we’re in a great position to train and encourage understanding of this subject in others’.
Most of our respondents, however, felt that while legal has to contribute to diversity and inclusion actively, it does not have more of a role to play than other departments. Most of our survey participants responded negatively to the question ‘Are there specific initiatives that are unique to the legal department?’ This highlights the conviction of many professionals that while the legal department has to contribute to the diversity and inclusion vision of the company, these contributions should be within the framework of a broader corporate strategy.
It is becoming increasingly common when instructing law firms for companies to demand the same level of diversity that they encourage within their own companies: approximately 61% of our respondents believe that it is important to see a diverse team when instructing outside counsel. When asked about reasons for looking for diversity in law firms some respondents explained that they saw value in the variety of opinion and creativity that diversity brings.
One respondent stated that ‘social and age diversity can bring different viewpoints and mitigate the risk of “group think”’, while another professional said that ‘creativity is fed by diversity – people thinking differently and coming at a problem from a different perspective sharpens everyone’. On the other hand, some respondents felt that client knowledge, experience and competence are more important areas of focus when assessing law firms, with some even suggesting that too much focus on diversity may be counter- productive. One respondent opined: ‘It would create an artificial environment rather than the merit one needs from external teams. Selection should be “diversity blind” otherwise it will skew matters. Positive discrimination is never a great idea in my opinion’.
Finally, we asked our survey respondents to select the methods that they use to assess law firm diversity. The most commonly reported method was for clients to look for diversity and inclusion statistics of the whole firm, followed by inquiring about a particular diversity initiative. Less common methods were focusing on diversity and inclusion statistics on a specific practice area or specifically requesting diverse staffing on a particular matter or piece of work. Our respondents tended to focus primarily on diversity at any level rather than on partner level alone. Only 18% of our respondents did not assess law firm diversity.
These days, however, the landscape is not merely one of ‘greed is good’ and ‘may the best man win’. Increasingly, today’s companies have to show a good balance sheet aligned to ethical and fair business practices and policies which maximise their earning potential with all tenets of society. This is not only for investors and shareholders, for whom ethical and social responsibility issues are much more of a priority than previously, but for customers, who vote with their feet and wallets and for whom the power of social media can make unfair practices abundantly evident, as well as for existing and potential employees.
For our respondents and interviewees in this report, who constitute in-house lawyers and business people from a wide cross-section of leading global companies, diversity and inclusion simply makes good business sense. Internally it is about having access to the best range of talent. Externally it’s about being able to appeal to the widest customer base and reflect the personal reality of one’s customers. Both of these intersect quite heavily; Raphael Mokades, founder of Rare Recruitment, the first diversity-focused recruiter, summarises it thus:
‘There are four benefits, broadly speaking. One is the market: for example, if you are selling a hair product for black women, you wouldn’t have only white males on the team. That approach is no good, because you have to understand the market. Talent is another: if you think talent is evenly distributed and you don’t hire women, then you are missing out on 50% of the talent. Another benefit is reputational: it makes people feel good about the firm they work for, which is good for the company. It keeps people being productive and it makes people happy to procure from you, such as governments, clients and companies. The other is legal benefits, because you are much less likely to get sued by an aggrieved minority person if you can prove their being aggrieved has nothing to do with their minority status.’
Companies will express this in different ways depending on their business model and to what extent they are customer-facing versus B2B. The wider the potential customer base, the greater the imperative truly to embrace diversity. Multinational consumer goods company Unilever is a clear example of this. Its Gender Balance Plan is a key focus for the company, but the basic rationale goes back to the fundamentals of what the company does. As general counsel, Ritva Sotomaa explains: ‘Two billion people use our products every day but women are our main consumers as, in regards to our products, the majority of the buying decisions are made by women. It is business sense to make sure we reflect that.’
or media company ITV, the strategic imperatives have been there for a long time. As one of the main TV channels in the UK, there’s an imperative to reflect the cultural diversity of the UK. But for a number of years, media companies like ITV have also been trying to combat the perception of the media in general as a playground for the rich and privileged.
‘It was really like pushing an open door,’ explains legal director Barry Matthews, ‘because we are progressive in the field of diversity as a matter of course.’ Matthews has been instrumental in setting up the Legal Social Mobility Partnership (LSMP), an initiative which promotes social diversity and opportunities for less-privileged students to access careers in law and this fits in nicely with other initiatives already underway at ITV. ‘There has been the criticism of the media for a number of years that it is filled with those who can afford to intern for free. We have an award-winning apprenticeship programme across all of our business areas and have committed to diversity across the piece through our social partnership initiative and commitment to the living wage. Hence when we started the LSMP, there was already a strategic will to promote diversity.’
Diversity also has a solid strategic case from a legal point of view, as Michael Coates, head of UK legal at Shell, told us ‘The legal issues Shell comes up against cut across legal systems and jurisdictions, so we need people to understand how these systems operate over multiple countries. Having diversity… is a clear business driver for us.’
Most of us are well aware of the business case for diversity. There are a number of research pieces which clearly show diverse organisations are more successful; and that people are more productive and loyal to their organisation when they can be themselves at work. Research also shows that diverse teams are only successful when they are led and managed well.
As the world’s first truly global law firm, Baker & McKenzie is inherently diverse. Our client base typically comprises large multi-nationals and blue chip organisations, who value our ability to adapt to different cultures, our innovation and the diversity of thought we bring. We believe a diverse workforce is a stronger workforce and better placed to meet the needs of our clients and the communities we operate in.
Inclusion and diversity are core strategic objectives for Baker & McKenzie. Our approach includes a positive stance to inclusive leadership and active education and engagement of partners and leaders across the firm with a focus on hiring, nurturing and retaining diverse talent.
Part of what this means is taking diversity and inclusion away from the notion of ‘being nice’ and giving it some teeth that makes the stakes higher. For our interviewees focused on initiatives, what was driving their companies’ involvement was the fact it could come down to basic key performance indicators and profit and loss, as well as market perception. Those key issues for 21st century businesses make diversity and inclusion a fundamental issue and can therefore drive top-level engagement, which all interviewees agreed was pivotal to truly ensure the success of initiatives.
For Tim Hailes, Managing Director at J.P. Morgan and a long-time advocate of LGBT issues, this is the key driver for his own efforts and that of the banks.
‘I am keen to ensure that we focus on the fact that we firmly contextualise this in work, about the success of the bank, to help people fully contribute and succeed in their jobs, attracting talent; it is not about being especially “nice” to gay people or supporting worthy causes that have little to do with the day job. There are many things out there that people can support in their own time, but where this has a material impact for J.P. Morgan is in the context of the business.’
And that is not merely reflecting the reality of their consumer base, but increasingly for companies, it is about doing things differently and innovatively. To do that, ‘group think’ definitely has to be avoided to allow diverse experiences and diverse identities to become part of a creative and innovative drive. Funke Abimbola is general counsel for UK and Ireland at pharmaceutical company Roche. In an area like pharma which constantly pushes the boundaries, diversity of thought is the end game. ‘If you have more diverse thinkers, then you will be problem solving in a very different way, across all disciplines. We are a very innovative company at Roche and the challenge is to remain innovative, because this is a crucial part of drug discovery – we need innovation at every stage and innovation only happens if people look at a problem in a different way’.
This sentiment was echoed across our interviewees and respondents to our survey. To be truly competitive, creative and innovative, companies need to avoid group think. Companies need to stay relevant and to demonstrate that relevance in a global market place which is by default diverse and not homogenous. Channel 4’s Prash Naik points to the innovative and creative benefits diversity of thought produces:
‘By recruiting from a more diverse group you will get people who think in different ways and who challenge convention. That brings different commercial opportunities and, potentially, more innovative ways of working. That has to make long-term commercial sense.’
For those who are still not convinced, research shows that more diverse companies are more profitable; even if your motives are purely Gordon Gekko-like greed, it still makes strategic sense. A 2015 McKinsey survey showed that ethnically diverse companies, were 35% more likely to out-perform against their national industry median average than non-diverse companies and gender diverse companies were 15% more likely to outperform by the same metric. (McKinsey & Company: Why Diversity Matters, 2015).
While initiatives are obvious ways for companies to show their support for diversity and inclusion and to really drive it, some might argue the open visibility of role models and successful role models are just as vital and, in some cases, may be even more important.
Successful role models can be the first sign to diverse candidates that it is possible to succeed in their chosen industry and can therefore be important in allowing candidates to act on their dreams before they may even know about the existence of particular initiatives or schemes. Role models who are authentic and for whom their own identity is indivisible from their success in their career send a powerful message.
Tim Hailes was one of the first openly gay men in investment banking in the UK. For him the power of what role models do cannot be underestimated.
‘Visible role models communicate powerfully that you can be successful and that being who you are is a non-issue.’ In J.P. Morgan this fact is very powerfully driven home by the overall group general counsel Stacey Friedman being openly gay.
The very existence of role models may not be enough if role models are not achieving success. Miranda Brawn started her career in investment banking and then trained part time to be a barrister and now works in-house for Daiwa capital. ‘For myself, being a mixed-race female with a career in a male-dominated industry has definitely been inspiring for others from diverse groups to go out and strive to have a successful career.’ She continues: ‘It is important for people to see themselves reflected in the people who make decisions and have careers in occupations that may interest them. For some people, their role model will not be a person who looks like them, it will be someone completely different who inspires them.’
Role models are critical. We know that for our junior associates, it is important that they can look to the top of our organisation and see people they can relate to – or those they wish to emulate. Some hold true to the ethos that you can’t be what you can’t see. We have found that millennials particularly want reassurance that it is possible to balance work and home life. They want and expect to see senior figures who have found ways to strike that balance.
Some of our senior figures do not naturally see themselves as role models. But in response to a growing need, we have become more proactive in celebrating success and in reaching out to senior figures to encourage them to share their own career journeys. We have sought to highlight role models in a range of ways; as mentors in our female mentoring circles scheme, as speakers at inclusion and diversity events and as bloggers in our series of inclusion and diversity blogs.
Sandie Okoro, general counsel at HSBC Global Asset Management, whose identity as black, female and working class, is inspiring on many fronts, says it is about ‘telling the truth of your story.’ For Okoro it is as much a sense of being true to yourself in not putting up barriers. ‘It’s hard to succeed in legal full stop. Ultimately there are as many barriers as you put up yourself; you can put up being female and black as an excuse or use it as a weapon of defiance.’
Interestingly, for a number of our interviewees, role models were seen as better than mentors due to the inspirational edge they give in inspiring people to live their dreams. Kristin McFetridge, chief counsel, portfolio products and standards at BT, runs the telecoms company’s mentoring programme in the legal team, but personally feels that role models play an even more crucial role than mentors. ‘I think they are critical. If you gave me a choice between a mentor or a role model, I’d have a role model. I don’t think anything can come close to looking at someone and saying, “I can be that person”.’
Lesley Wan, corporate counsel at Lloyds Bank, is the only lawyer on Lloyds’ inspiring role models programme. To her, role models build the blocks to get you to the place where mentoring can begin, but crucially, it is role models which allow you to make the most important initial steps into a new challenge. This is of personal as well as professional importance:
‘You can observe their traits and characteristics and decide which of those traits or characteristics you may want to embed and adapt to suit your needs and personality as you see fit. It’s like a form of informal mentoring without necessarily being mentored, and you get to pick and choose what you want to take away with you.’
But for many, role models equate champions, and having a visible figure at the helm is integral to truly embracing a culture of diversity in a way that is more meaningful than just box-ticking.
For all of our interviewees it is gaining profile and traction within organisational leadership that are key. Indeed, as exemplified by PageGroup, Channel 4 and Unilever, what can be most important is visible champions or role models who are not diverse. The UN’s HeForShe campaign is a high-profile example of this, recognising that gender inequality affects both genders and that change cannot be effected unless those who are perceived to be part of the problem also become the solution.
However, for some, this produces a discomfort which could be described as appropriation, if, as one source commented, it just becomes about ‘the dominant groups once again giving their side of the story and leaving no room for the diverse voices.’
It seems that striking the balance between championing by non-diverse leaders and making sure there are diverse leaders to be role models needs to be the goal. This also means that companies need to ‘walk the talk’ and be seen as being authentic, which were two strong themes which came up in our interviews. The ‘box-ticking’ approach, on the other hand, is something our interviewees were all sensitive to and had first-hand experience of.
In our quantitive survey of 250 in-house lawyers in the UK, agile or flexible working was perceived to be the most effective tactic in increasing diversity and inclusion.
Interestingly, this is beginning to be seen as a more effective way of working for businesses overall because it is more focused on outcomes. Indeed, many of our interviewees spoke of a more outcome-focused point of view as being transformational across the business, not just for diverse employees.
Much of this is changing the way we conceptualise work. Joan C Williams argued in her 2010 book Reshaping the Work-Family Debate that there is a mismatch between the workforce and the workplace that is fuelled by out-of-date societal norms and is one that can disadvantage men as much as women. Increasingly, flexible or agile working is seen as a solution across the organisation, and not merely a panacea to working mothers.
Barclays offers ‘dynamic working’ programmes across the bank. The name itself has also been key in reflecting a focus on an outcome-based model and trying to dispense with the notion of different forms of working as a somewhat lesser variant of the accepted norm.
Indeed, companies are looking to redefine the normal in regards to working anyhow. Sandie Okoro’s London-based legal team in HSBC Asset Management works flexibly as a matter of course and in setting up the legal team it was one of the core building blocks that reflected the way the wider asset management team is working. Okoro explained to us that making this an issue for everyone, not just certain groups, was key: ‘I structured my team in such a way that everyone can work two days a week from home. Most people take up that flexibility, and men are as keen on it as the women – it helps with work/life balance issues. Interestingly, when I recruited for my team, men were very keen on flexibility and this was something they hadn’t seen elsewhere.’
Looking at work differently becomes an issue of talent management more generally and one that gels with the different way of working increasingly associated with millennials or Generation Y. It is also a part of the general realities for companies that need to cope within a global and technologically open economy where the 9-5 rules no longer apply and disaster can strike at any moment through a number of different channels.
Technology has had a transformative effect in this regard on working practices across the board. But this has obvious benefits for those with caring responsibilities, particularly parents. Early years childcare is still overwhelmingly the responsibility of women and it has therefore had a dramatic effect on women’s ability to work at all, let alone to advance within their professions. Despite more women than men entering the profession in the UK since 1993, according to The Law Society, women are still not advancing into partnership and leadership levels at law firms in anything like the same proportion.
Traditionally in-house legal teams have benefitted at a certain stage in lawyers’ careers from the ability to be more flexible around working hours. For that reason, many in-house teams have noticeably higher demographics of female lawyers, including in senior roles, than most law firms do.
The focus on different ways of working, which many of our in-house teams and the companies where they work are using, has meant that the statistics in-house for some companies are dramatically different from law firms. For many of the in-house lawyers we spoke to, this is because of the focus on outcomes not hours, as Kerry Phillip, legal director at Vodafone told us:
‘I concentrate on the output, which means where you’re doing your work is not important; what is important is what you are delivering. Vodafone’s technology really helps here because we all have laptops and we all have mobiles. We hot desk…in the UK you can print documents at any of our locations.’
This has had obvious results on who works for Phillip as she has 50% split between men and women in her team, which includes part-time workers, job sharers and remote workers. The team has had three listings in the Power Part Time run by Timewise and as she comments, ‘That’s just fantastic recognition that you can have a senior, responsible job while not working traditional full-time hours.’
From our experience, diversity initiatives have the most impact when driven from the top and when they offer practical actions and tangible results.
In London, we have seen long term, sustainable change to BAME representation in our trainee and associate population. This was achieved through gaining strong management endorsement and making simple, practical changes to our hiring process. Our interventions ranged from introducing name-blind CVs and broadening the diversity of our interview panel through to introducing mandatory unconscious bias training. The BAME representation in our trainee ranks has moved from 3% in 2006 to between 20 and 35% for the last seven years.
Globally, the introduction of aspirational targets for gender diversity prompted a real shift change across the firm. Our targets not only aim to increase the gender representation within our partner population, but also to ensure that women are represented in firm and office leadership roles and committees. We have rolled out strategies both globally and at a local level to ensure we are developing and retaining female talent, and that our leaders are taking responsibility and ownership for achieving a better gender balance.
Our Global LGBT Initiative aims to ensure that every Baker & McKenzie office provides a safe space for LGBT colleagues to be themselves at work, regardless of the local climate. The initiative combines practical support ranging from bi-annual “affinity calls” and a global LGBT listening ear scheme with a robust policy stipulating a zero tolerance approach to bullying and harassment based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Perhaps most importantly, our approach has been led from the top, with our firm chair communicating our stance on LGBT equality to all staff across our global firm.
In our range of interviews, mentoring is happening via both formal and informal channels to promote diversity. In fact, mentoring may be one of the easiest ways for an individual to get involved informally. In a 2010 survey for Harvard Business Review it was reported that 59% of companies that replied offered formal mentoring programmes, suggesting it is an initiative that has gained a lot of traction. It is also very impactful. A 2011 report by the Center for Work- Life Policy (CWLP) in the US stated that people who are mentored achieve more promotions, higher salaries, more career satisfaction and even report being less stressed than those who lack such guidance.
However, a number of our interviewees who were experienced mentors advise that setting definite boundaries and expectations is key in having a successful mentoring experience.
Sandie Okoro, who mentors both formally and informally, feels that it’s important to let the mentee set the pace of the relationship but to also make sure it works for the mentor. Setting out limits, such as an initial time frame for the relationship, ensures the mentoring does not become too draining.
Interestingly, she also feels that as a mentor, highlighting failures and what can be learned from these is as important as highlighting the successes:
‘You have to be as open and honest about things that didn’t work for you as much as things that have worked. What makes a success sometimes is the ability to pick yourself up and keep going on.’
One of the key challenges in starting any diversity initiative is identifying and clearly articulating the challenge and it’s implications. Without this, it is hard to establish a business case and to gain the support of leadership.
Some of our most successful diversity initiatives started with data – whether that was the representation of women in leadership roles in our firm, or the proportion of LGBT staff choosing not to be out at work.
While it might sound like a cliché, what gets measured gets done and in order to plan an effective diversity initiative, a key place to start is data.
Getting the match right between mentor and mentee can be one of the biggest pitfalls and something that needs care and consideration as with any significant relationship. Kristin McFetridge, who runs BT’s legal mentoring programme, told us: ‘The hardest part is matching someone with the right mentor. We’re revamping the questions we used originally, because they didn’t ask the right things and a lot of matching came down to gut feel. As a company-wide initiative we’re looking at a mentoring-matching programme, which will work like a dating app. If someone doesn’t connect with their mentor, despite all the will in the world, it will be fruitless.’
In our survey of in-house lawyers, mentoring and sponsorship were seen as less impactful than role models or championing of diversity initiatives from management. However, with sponsoring in particular, there was a high level of respondents who stated they had not seen this initiative in action. Conversely the amount of respondents who stated the importance of management buy-in and the need for targeting candidates was much higher.
Formal sponsorship seems to be less advanced in the UK than the US. However, research undertaken there by groups such as CWLP, Harvard Business School and Catalyst does suggest that sponsorship is much more effective than mentoring in producing long-term engagement and satisfaction via recognition and promotion which were often inspired by sponsorship or advocacy from more senior colleagues or managers. An interesting consideration though is whether in some cases, the championing of diversity and inclusion by senior managers and mentoring initiatives may be informally blending in the UK into something more akin to advocacy.
Networks are used by a number of companies we interviewed to provide a tangible platform within which those groups can raise issues that are important to them and via which the company can demonstrate how serious it is about the initiatives pertaining to that group. The existence of official networks and also the related ally groups are a tangible awareness- raising tool within corporates to show that these are demographics that matters and need to have a voice.
That inclusive aspect is key to the power of networks but it is a two-way street allowing voices at the grassroots to be heard, but also showing that those who need to are listening. As Alison Gaskins at Barclays explains in regards to their very active network programmes: ‘It is not about the job title because everyone needs to feel responsible. That’s where employee networks step in, because people are deciding for themselves what works. It becomes an inclusive approach.’
One of the issues that many companies struggle with is ensuring the pipeline of credible diverse candidates. For many in-house teams the pipeline is still mostly private practice law firms and the issue can be trying to fix someone else’s problem. While arguably many law firms are making sterling efforts in promoting diversity and inclusion, the viewpoint from the in-house lawyers we spoke to was that it was at best a mixed bag and at worst, merely lip-service without credibility.
This means that for in-house legal teams there are two major solutions, neither of which are short on effort. Firstly, teams can try and bring on their own in-house legal trainees. This is often seen as a good way for diverse and non-traditional candidates to enter the profession. Our in-depth interviews with BT, ITV and The Guardian, all of which have legal teams of varying sizes, showed they have done this successfully. However, it still relies on the goodwill and co-operation of law firms to provide some of the training seats.
As a law firm, our people are our greatest asset. Ensuring we continue to evolve in a changing world means converting the diversity in our talent pipeline is critical.
We carefully review people data on a regular basis by diversity strand, to identify any particular themes or trends based on recruitment, progression and attrition. As a call to action to improve female representation at senior levels, we were one of the first firms to introduce global targets for gender diversity. We regularly review progress against these targets on a firm-wide, local and departmental basis.
Can diversity only be achieved by the generations coming through? No. Law firms have been taking great strides for a number of years now to ensure greater diversity at entry level. We have a responsibility as a profession to support, develop and ultimately promote that diverse talent.
The other route is via lobbying law firms to be more proactive around their pipelines and working with them on initiatives that do that, and a number of the companies we spoke to for this report are involved in this. ITV and BT both work on the PRIME social mobility initiative alongside a number of large law firms with the aim of encouraging more social mobility in the profession.
Social mobility remains a significant issue in the UK legal profession. According to our research this is due to a range of factors, such as an inadequate pipeline of viable candidates and the issue of self-deselection from the career path before application for training contract or even before university.
There has been a habit of focusing on particular universities and grades in the selection of candidates, and traditionally most candidates who did not attend The Russell Group or Oxbridge were deselected for any law firms’ criteria automatically. Another factor has been the lack of visibility of social mobility role models. In some cases, people have had to make a tangible choice to identify as socially mobile as it may not be outwardly visible or identifiable. This issue has historically been further compounded by the fact that by the time socially mobile candidates ‘make it’ they may feel the pressure, either actual or perceived, to fit in and hide their roots.
One of the recent significant advances in this area is the adoption of contextual recruitment by many law firms to avoid the arbitrary list of diverse talent via a fixed set of criteria of grades and university choice. Instead, contextual recruitment looks more holistically at the candidate’s achievements via the context of both personal and educational factors.
A huge issue in regards to pipelines is making sure that candidates don’t self-select themselves out. As Barry Matthews of ITV comments, in the cohort of young people in the Legal Social Mobility Partnership (LSMP), a significant amount of focus has been developed to consider issues of confidence and resilience, often via the use of sports and performance psychology training.
As Matthews told us, if a socially mobile candidate is unsure of their career choice anyhow, and then receives a rejection from a training contract application, they may consider it just proof they should not pursue a career in law. A more socially affluent candidate who knows people in the legal sector will probably know that this is part of the process and just move into the next application. This is where, as pointed out by Sandie Okoro in regards to mentoring, teaching about failure is as important as teaching about success.