Supporting a diverse profession

Diversity challenges in the legal sector

In 2010/11

12 per cent of practising solicitors are from black or minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds
49 per cent of BME solicitors are based in London, concentrated in small and high street practices
46 per cent of practising solicitors are women
At entry level, 63 per cent of entrants are women and 20 per cent are from BME backgrounds

Pay gaps - on average

BME solicitors earn 18 per cent less than white counterparts
Female solicitors earn six per cent less than male counterparts

Diversity Monitoring Protocol promotes professional inclusion

Over 190 firms have signed up to the Law Society's Diversity and Inclusion Charter which helps law practices to improve diversity and accessibility in the workplace.

We have worked with the profession to establish a Diversity Monitoring Protocol providing a framework for monitoring diversity characteristics. The protocol provides a unified measurement of diversity in the profession for firms, and allows clients to assess a firm's diversity against the profession's standard.

The Equality and Diversity Committee's major project for the year has been the publication of research on career progression barriers for lawyers from diverse backgrounds. This report and its themes provide a focus for the wide-reaching work with firms and individual solicitors in the coming months.

'Making our firm more inclusive and diverse is important to us: however achieving this across the profession as a whole requires collaboration. While the Charter is an important statement of commitment, the annual report is a chance to showcase what progress is actually being made.'
Jane Masey, HR policy and diversity manager, Allan & Overy LLP

Diversity Access Scheme

Social and economic barriers to becoming a solicitor have been a continuing theme for the Law Society. The Diversity Access Scheme is an important vehicle to explore and help to overcome some of these obstacles.

Diversity Access Scheme ambassador and general counsel at Barings Sandie Okoro has helped attract increasing support from firms. With more of the profession supporting our efforts to widen access and support people from a range of backgrounds to successfully become a solicitor.

This year the Diversity Access Scheme gave 24 bursaries to students to enable them to undertake a Legal Practice Course, an increase of 16 from 2009/2010.

Minority Lawyers Conference

The bi-annual Minority Lawyers Conference, organised by the Law Society in April 2011 in conjunction with the Bar Council and ILEX, focused this year on six main themes:

judicial appointments
personal and career development
human rights
alternative business structures (ABSs)
emerging markets
access to justice

The Minority Lawyers Conference included a dinner and awards ceremony to recognise the achievements of black and Asian lawyers in the profession. The awards went to:

Razi Shah - Against all odds
Daniel Bazuaye and Sandie Okoro - Encouraging BME lawyers
Mohammed Khan - Advocacy in the face of diversity
Kuljit Lally - Embracing change

Working to support our regional members

This year the Law Society's regional managers worked with members based in the regions and Wales to represent solicitor needs and ensure that local issues remain a priority for the Law Society. The regional teams also develop relationships with local law societies and other key stakeholders.

In 2010/11, some of the ways we helped our regional and Welsh members included:

roadshows to help support legal aid practitioners through government changes. With the support of local practitioners, we were able to highlight the very real consequences of the proposed changes to civil legal aid by providing a regional and Welsh overview of the devastating results for both legal aid firms and their clients.
Held fringe meetings in Birmingham at party conferences to enable solicitors to lobby key stakeholders.
establishing regional equality and diversity networks in Newcastle.
developing Legal Sector Alliance networks in the regions to reduce members carbon emissions.
breakfast meeting for the Bank of England governor Mervyn King, organised by the Wales Office.
joint meetings with the London Stock Exchange in Manchester and Leeds to look at future structures and alternative financing.

Our work in Wales

The Wales Office monitors legislation made by the National Assembly on behalf of the profession across England and Wales. The diverging legislation is creating a distinctive jurisdiction which will become a core issue following the referendum on direct law-making powers. The Wales Office offers services, information and training across all devolved subjects to solicitors in England and Wales.

Strengthening relationships in the City

The Law Society's senior relationship manager develops ongoing relationships with City and the top 100 firms. Some of this work in the past year included:

co-ordinating the contributions and views of our members for submissions on the draft SRA Handbook, outcomes-focused regulation, harmonisation of EU contract law and the proposals from the interim report of the Independent Commission on Banking.
promoting greater access to the profession with focus issues such as:
- diversity
- mobility
- corporate social responsibility
- education
- training, and
- funding.
raising awareness and support among City and top 100 members on important issues facing the wider legal sector, such as access to justice.

The Legal Breakfast series of thought leadership events brings together business leaders from the City legal profession with potential partners, investors, policy-makers and high-profile speakers to debate the construction of a successful and sustainable corporate legal business sector for the 21st century. The events contribute to an emerging understanding of the public policy and business strategies required for growth in the sector and inform the Law Society’s position as the voice of the profession. The legal breakfast series aims to be the leading forum for developing new thinking about the way major corporate law firms do business. The series is designed to explore topics of interest in a way that advances debate on a subject while engaging and challenging both legal and non-legal audience perspectives.

Supporting solicitors to enter the judiciary

This year has seen three solicitor judges appointed as the presidents of chambers in the First-Tier Tribunal:

Nicholas Warren in the General Regulatory Chamber
Colin Bishop in the Tax Chamber
Michael Clements in the Immigration and Asylum Chamber.

The Law Society hopes this will encourage more solicitors to consider careers in the judiciary. We have continued to lobby for a judicial appointments process which ensures that solicitors have proper access to judicial appointments, and is represented on the Judicial Diversity Taskforce, which is overseeing the implementation of the recommendations in the Neuberger report on judicial diversity.

Some of the ways we supported solicitors seeking to enter the judiciary in 2010/11.

We provided education and insight on the Judicial Appointments Commission's (JAC) selection exercise. With the JAC we produced a video of a role play exercise to familiarise solicitors with this key part of the assessment process.
We produced a video in which two experienced judges gave their opinions on JAC candidates performance in the assessment. The films have been viewed over 1300 times since they went live.
We commissioned courses for solicitors applying for judicial appointments and organised a series of 'meet the judges' events across the country.
We worked with the Junior Lawyers Division to encourage recently qualified solicitors to think about a judicial post as a long-term option.

Find out more about our work to support solicitor judges