The recent reporting of Helen Clifford’s case against her former firm for alleged constructive dismissal has again drawn attention to issues of diversity and ethnicity in the legal profession.
Former Partner, Ms Clifford, has alleged that that the firm, McMilian Williams, was run by an ‘old boys’ club’, comprised of predominantly white, middle-aged and middle-class men, determined to remove those who did not fit in. Ms Clifford noted this project had been dubbed as ‘Project Snowflake’.
The Law Society’s Diversity Profile of the Solicitors’ Profession Report 2015, published October 2016, noted that 75.7% of all practising certificates were issued to solicitors of White/European decent and 48.7% were issued to a persons claiming to be of christian religion. Only 11.1% of Partners came from BAME backgrounds.
Therefore, is “Project Snowflake” a sector wide issue?
As a direct example, my firm is in a city where the BAME population amounts to 16.9% of the general population. Yet in a firm of 54 employees, there is 1 (one) BAME employee.
The Law Society’s Diversity Charter was established in 2009 to help firms and practices in their commitment to diversity and inclusion. By July 2018, 490 firms and practices had signed which represented over a third of the profession in England and Wales.
(Only one third – what about the other two-thirds then?)
The Law Society has boldly claimed that “Change is Coming” to the profession and that diversity and inclusion initiatives are having an impact on the makeup of the profession. By 2017, solicitors from non-white British Backgrounds had increased to 27% which is an indicator of some positive change.
(It also refers to the increase in women in the profession, with 62% of all solicitors in signatory firms being women – https://legallass.law.blog/2019/09/18/how-times-have-not-changed-much-at-all/)
However, the updated statistics are noticeably silent when considering the number of Partners from BAME backgrounds. Not all good news maybe?
Interestingly in September 2019, Evershed Sutherland UK much publicised their target for 14% of its UK team, including Partners, to be from a BAME background by 2022. The figure is currently 11.85%. The firm also intend for BAME employees, currently amounting to 5.33% of its Partners, to increase to 10% of its UK partners by 2025.
In the four years since the Law Society’s Report was published, it is disappointing that international law firms such as Eversheds, with all their recourse and influence, are still publishing targets to achieve rather than details of their successes in this area.
So what are firms doing to achieve those targets?
The Equality Act 2010 introduced positive action provisions, under which it is not unlawful discrimination to take special measures aimed at alleviating disadvantage or under-representation experienced by those with protected characteristics such as age or race. As a result, some firms are using targeted recruitment to meet diversity targets and Human Rights Firm, Leigh Day, have this month (September ’19) advertised specifically for candidates from ‘Afro-Caribbean or African heritage’ to train as solicitor apprentices.
Therefore it seems that whilst the statistics have shown some increase in diversity in the legal sector since the publishing of the 2015 Report, the continued publication of aspirations to meet diversity targets by multinational law firms, shows there is still much more to be done.
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Legal Lass 