Procurement protocol

Statement of commitment to the Protocol on Legal Procurement

As signatories to this protocol we will demonstrate our commitment to promoting equality by adopting practical measures in our role as purchasers of legal services. We wish to engage with suppliers who take active steps to follow good practice in recruiting, developing and managing staff that help to widen opportunities for minority and other under-represented groups. Accordingly we will:

• Conduct procurement processes in an open, fair and transparent manner to promote best practice in equality amongst our suppliers.
• As part of the selection process for suppliers of legal services, we will collect and consider the information that is captured by the model questionnaire.
• Ask suppliers for key indicators of their commitment and progress in implementing effective equality policies and take those into account in the supplier selection process. 
• Support actions by our suppliers to safeguard equality and promote diversity and inclusion among those with whom they engage, including when instructing counsel or within partnership projects.
• Review and monitor the equality, diversity and inclusion work and performance of any providers, contractors or businesses we use, to ensure that they are meeting acceptable standards. This can be on the basis of annual reports produced by providers of legal services.
• Adopt procurement policies that give a clear commitment to equality of opportunity, to tackling discrimination and disadvantage and to promoting diversity and inclusion.

Benefits for Protocol partners

• Demonstrate leadership and drive change
• Support supplier diversity with simple practical action
• Help with assessing supplier commitment and performance
• Access to case studies, tools and resources
• Annual impact reports from the Law Society

Protocol review

We have been exploring how the protocol is working in practice and might be enhanced to meet the needs of in-house teams procuring services. Earlier this year we commissioned research to understand how signatories currently use the Protocol to drive diversity and inclusion change within legal firms.

Key findings identified by the research were:

• protocol partners believed that any diversity and inclusion improvements needed ongoing tracking and wanted to see some form of centralised measurement and tracking
• flexible working uptake was viewed as a critical indicator of significant change within firms
• legal firms are still not recruiting (and retaining) enough BME lawyers
• purchaser of legal services are increasingly moving towards selection (and de-selection) decisions based on sustained diversity improvements and initiatives

We have used the review's findings and recommendations to amend the protocol and ensure that it is even more relevant and useful to providers and purchasers of legal services.

Download the full report (PDF, 4.2mb)

List of Protocol Partners

Registration

To sign-up as a Protocol Partner email: inclusioncharter@lawsociety.org.uk

For further information see the Diversity and Inclusion Charter homepage.