Disability inclusion in law firms and legal teams
No matter how big or small your firm, in-house team or organisation, you can make a positive change to improve disability inclusion and accessibility.
Creating an inclusive environment for disabled people will only benefit your organisation.
Disabled people are often loyal, hard-working and experienced problem solvers. By excluding them, you will miss out on talent.
You will have disabled clients if you work in private practice, so many of these points will also be relevant to them.
Legal obligations
Employers have statutory obligations under the Equality Act 2010.
Employers can be vicariously liable for discriminatory behaviour if they cannot show they have taken all reasonable steps to prevent it.
Practical considerations
This guidance aims to improve understanding of barriers faced by disabled people and suggests steps to embed disability inclusion into your policies, procedures and culture.
Some of the suggested actions in this guide may take time.
Budget, resourcing and support structures will differ depending on the type and size of an organisation.
You may not be able to adopt all the recommendations but make a start with just one.
In smaller organisations, there may not be a dedicated HR team or manager.
One person may also be performing many roles. So, there may be references to personnel, systems or policies that do not exist within your organisation.
In this case, consider whose responsibility that function is, or whether it needs to be outsourced.
If you do use external providers, consider how proactive they are in improving disability inclusion for you.
For an explanation of terms used in the guide, explore our guide to disability terminology and language.
Bear in mind some neurodivergent people and others do not identify as disabled, but may still meet the legal definition of disability.
First steps for disability inclusion
Start conversations about disability
Evidence suggests people find it difficult to talk openly about disability.
Make sure your organisation provides leadership in this area to encourage a more open culture.
This could include talking about it in team or leadership meetings, sharing an article or personal stories or arranging a webinar.
If you do not already have a staff network run by disabled people, encourage colleagues to set one up. Provide genuine support and allow them time to do this work.
Explore opportunities to join with other organisations such as a local law society or our Disabled Solicitors Network.
Do not make assumptions
Do not assume that by doing work on mental health and wellbeing you have addressed disability in its entirety.
It’s also important to recognise that disability presents differently in each individual.
Use inclusive language
There are many words, phrases and acronyms that appear when talking about disability.
These often change depending on the context of the conversation.
Fear of saying the wrong thing should not stop work on inclusion. Most people will forgive slips, but it is good to know some basics.
Explore our guide to disability terminology and language.
Provide physical accessibility information
Share accessibility information for your premises on your website. This should include potential adjustments for people visiting in person.
For an example, see the travel and access information on our website.
If you do not have a website, you can send the information directly, including plans and photos.
Consider digital accessibility
Consider turning on all accessibility features on your technology and software as a default, and requiring a strong business reason to turn these off.
For example, you could turn on transcripts and captions in MS Teams.
Train your staff on how to use these accessibility features in available technology and why these are important.
Explore our guide to beginning your organisation’s digital accessibility journey.
Senior level engagement
Disabled people are under-represented in the legal profession, particularly in senior roles.
16% of the UK workforce declared a disability in 2023, compared to:
- 6% of solicitors
- 5% of partners
Consider how people in senior positions can drive disability inclusion and support disabled people-led staff networks.
Provide genuine support and allow all participants time to do this work.
Explore opportunities to join with other organisations such as local law societies and our Disabled Solicitors Network.
Encouraging senior personnel to be open about their lived experience and barriers helps address stigma and fear of sharing.
But be aware of placing undue pressure on these people to act as role models.
If you don’t have any disabled people in senior roles, ask yourselves why?
Current promotions criteria and processes may not sufficiently take into account reasonable adjustments.
Potential candidates may require more encouragement, guidance or mentoring.
Consider introducing a reverse/reciprocal mentoring scheme, where junior disabled staff members mentor senior colleagues.
If you don’t have any disabled people in senior roles, appoint an identifiable and well-trained ‘disability champion’ in a senior position to:
- encourage mentoring and role models
- argue for allocation of resources
- provide leadership on organisational disability matters
When giving out and assessing work, it is important that senior leaders consider if agreed reasonable adjustments are properly accommodated.
When planning office developments or refurbishments, consider accessibility early in the design stages and consult with any staff network and/or accessibility consultants.
When procuring technology, read our guide to beginning your organisation’s digital accessibility journey.
Reasonable adjustments
Encourage discussions about reasonable adjustments
Consider asking ‘what adjustments would help you realise your full potential?’ in all recruitment, onboarding and appraisal conversations.
Make sure staff involved in recruitment and appraisals know how to respond to the answer or how to follow up with the person being interviewed or appraised.
Make sure your staff are aware of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) guidance on commonly accepted reasonable adjustments.
An individual might need a reasonable adjustment not in this list, but it’s a good place to start.
It can prompt a conversation about how to best support an employee.
Establish a point of contact to discuss reasonable adjustments.
Make sure everyone is clear on who that is, including potential applicants and clients.
Explore best practice examples and how to implement these in our guide to reasonable adjustments in organisations.
Make sure reasonable adjustments are recorded and securely stored
Keep a securely stored record of individuals’ reasonable adjustments. This can be useful when line managers change.
Consider adopting a voluntary ‘passporting system’.
This provides a continuous record of adjustments agreed between an individual and their line manager, so they don’t have to continue to explain.
Read our impact story on supporting workplace adjustments at BCLP.
Embed reasonable adjustments in your policies and processes
Make sure you have a reasonable adjustments policy.
Look at your HR policies, processes and practices to check whether reasonable adjustments are appropriately factored in. These may include:
- sickness absence
- appraisals
- bonus calculations
- performance management
- promotions criteria
Legally Disabled? found reasonable adjustments were rarely, but should be, applied to these processes.
For example, performance should be assessed once agreed reasonable adjustments are in place.
Consider creating a separate policy for disability leave.
Some people may need extra time off to attend medical appointments during working hours. Think about whether your policies address this.
You could record absences connected with a disability differently. For example, by adjusting the number of days of absence that trigger further action.
Regularly monitor requests for adjustments while making any business changes.
An increase in requests should be viewed as positive and evidence that people are more confident to self-identify as disabled.
Make sure you have disabled people in mind every time you review your key policies.
Recruitment and progression
Unconscious bias may be preventing talented disabled people entering or reaching their potential in your organisation.
You may need tailored advice to understand how your current processes and practices might disadvantage disabled applicants and employees.
Consider the extent of the disability knowledge gap across your different business areas.
This is not just an HR and diversity and inclusion issue.
Job descriptions and advertisements
When reviewing job descriptions, consider what is essential for the role versus what is desirable.
This will open up the role to a wider pool, including disabled candidates.
Consider the benefits of imaginative job design. Play to people’s strengths: rip up the standard job description if necessary.
Consider offering job sharing and think about how disabled people add value to your organisation.
If your premises are inaccessible, consider offering the option to work from home and remote supervision.
When advertising jobs, consider the language you are using to avoid bias.
Be as specific as possible. For example, rather than saying ‘good communication skills’, specify what is actually required.
Consider where you advertise roles. How proactive are you in reaching out to and encouraging disabled applicants?
Read our impact stories on:
Processes and criteria
Make sure your processes and criteria for all recruitment stages are disability friendly.
Check they’ve been prepared with disabled individuals in mind and consider making reasonable adjustments part of these procedures.
Think about:
- accessibility of online recruitment forms and processes
- disability inclusion training for anyone involved in the recruitment process
- biases in processes and criteria. For example, word of mouth and recommendations
- whether certain assessments are required for a role. For example, group exercises
Recruitment agencies
Legally Disabled? research found disabled people being filtered out by external recruiters before their CV was provided to the hiring employer.
Consider reviewing the recruitment agencies you use.
You should ask for evidence that agency staff have appropriate disability training and encourage a diverse pool of candidates, including disabled people.
Recruitment schemes
Introduce recruitment schemes that actively target talented disabled candidates.
You could consider reserved spaces for disabled people as a group.
To increase the number of disabled people with a particular impairment or condition, consider using positive action: for example, internships and non-qualifying work experience
You could also offer part-time training.
Our Project Rise aims to increase the numbers of organisations offering part-time training.
If your premises are inaccessible, consider offering the option to work from home and remote supervision.
This widens the talent pool by removing barriers for some disabled people.
Career progression
Providing a coach, mentor or other appropriate support for disabled people to develop their careers could be needed.
Evaluate your use of technology to prevent unconscious bias and make sure disabled colleagues can use it.
Explore our guide to beginning your organisation’s digital accessibility journey.
Disabled people should be provided with appropriate reasonable adjustments to help them reach the established job criteria.
There may be times when a disabled candidate cannot meet the criteria or target because of their impairment or adjustments made.
If so, the criteria may need adjusting.
Employers often worry about making adjustments because of costs or disruption.
But most adjustments are simple, easy to implemment and inexpensive.
Many of the Legal Neurodiversity Network’s recommendations for optimising retention and career progression are easy and cheap to implement.
Consider Access to Work for support with funding adjustments. For example:
- funding for adjustments to interview processes
- alterations to work tools and environments for disabled staff working in the office and from home
Small organisations are unlikely to have to contribute to these costs.
It is good practice to ensure funding for reasonable adjustments is provided from a central budget and ring-fenced.
This is so money doesn’t have to be taken from department budgets.
It will help address the misconception that disabled people are expensive to employ.
Where adjustments are expensive or disruptive, you may still have a legal obligation to provide these.
Career progression
You may need tailored advice to understand how your current processes and practices might disadvantage disabled applicants and employees.
Unconscious bias may be preventing talented disabled people entering or reaching their potential in your organisation.
Consider the extent of the disability knowledge gap across your different business areas. It is not just an HR and diversity and inclusion issue.
Evaluate your use of technology to prevent unconscious bias and make sure disabled colleagues can use it.
Explore guidance on beginning your organisation’s digital accessibility journey.
Disabled people should be provided with appropriate reasonable adjustments to help them reach the established job criteria.
There may be times when a disabled candidate cannot meet the criteria or target because of their impairment or adjustments made. If so, the criteria may need adjusting.
Employers often worry about making adjustments because of costs or disruption. But most adjustments are simple, easy to implement and inexpensive.
Consider Access to Work for support with funding adjustments.
For example:
- funding for adjustments to interview processes, and
- alterations to work tools and environments for disabled staff working in the office and from home
Small organisations are unlikely to have to contribute to these costs.
It is good practice to ensure funding for reasonable adjustments is provided from the central and ring-fenced.
This is so money doesn’t have to be taken from department budgets.
It will help address the misconception that disabled people are expensive to employ.
Where adjustments are expensive or disruptive, you may still have a legal obligation to provide them.
There may be some useful tips in our guidance on becoming a solicitor as a disabled student.
Flexible working and wellbeing
Many disabled people welcomed more regular home working that came about during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Home working may be a reasonable adjustment.
Some organisations have flexibility as the norm, unless there is a business need not to.
Ask yourself and your clients whether in person contact is absolutely essential.
Consider hybrid ways of working to add balance.
The law on reasonable adjustments takes precedence over any flexible working policies.
Remember that someone’s reasonable adjustments at home may not be the same as they are in the office, so two workplace assessments may be needed.
Many disabled people find home working liberating, but do not assume that all disabled people want to work from home all the time.
There are many reasons they may prefer to work in the office, such as:
- people’s barriers make remote working more difficult
- feeling isolated at home
- preferring to work from hard copy documents
- household circumstances
Wellbeing and mental health
Regularly check in on people’s wellbeing and mental health when they are working remotely.
Do not underestimate the power of a senior person or business owner sharing their own strategies, as this can empower others. For example, making sure to get fresh air every lunch time.
Employers are responsible for health and safety whether people are working from the office or home. Carry out regular risk assessments.
Engage with disabled people to make hybrid working inclusive.
Think about meetings and technology.
Consider whether attendees in the office should virtually join meetings to be more inclusive of those working remotely.
Accessibility requirements
When arranging virtual meetings and events, ask people if they have accessibility requirements, just as you would for an in-person event.
For example:
“We are committed to making our events as open and accessible as possible and ensuring attendees have the best experience.
If you require any additional support to attend the event or any accommodations based on disability, or health condition, please let us know below or contact X for further support.”
Consider starting meetings at 10 minutes past the hour or finish 10 minutes before, to give people a break before their next meeting.
Use technology to mimic in-person interactions as much as possible and encourage external IT suppliers to incorporate necessary technology.
Sometimes one piece of software can conflict with another. For example, chat box messaging can interfere with screen readers.
Managing that conflict needs to be dealt with carefully, in consultation with the individuals affected, including discussion of potential back-up solutions.
Some people will not be able to access some facilities or participate in discussions if the set up is not right.
For example, sharing a document on screen during a group exercise may exclude those who are visually impaired.
Provide documents in advance of meetings to enable them to be adapted.
Consider the full range of communications tools available.
Instant messaging can allow for faster, more open interaction and avoid adding to email inboxes.
Delegating work when both people are not in the office will give you time and space to:
- address any unconscious biases such as proximity bias, where you treat those who are physically near you more favourably
- encourage fair allocation of work and opportunities
Check the EHRC guidance on hybrid working for disabled employees.
Resources
Disabled people’s organisations within and outside law can provide specialist advice:
Key organisations:
- Business Disability Forum
- Disability Rights UK
- Disability Wales
- Disability Action Northern Ireland
- Inclusion Scotland
- Inclusion London
- City Disabilities
- Scope
- Evenbreak
- Leonard Cheshire
- Legal Neurodiversity Network
- trade unions
Although not always disability-led, many impairment/disability specific organisations have guidance for employers:
- RNIB
- Action on Hearing Loss or Hearing Link
- Connevans
- MS Society
- National Autistic Society
- Spinal Injuries Association
- Tourette’s Hero
Statutory guidance can be found through:
- Access to Work
- Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)
- ACAS
- the Health and Safety Executive
- devolved administrations
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has also issued guidance.
To receive the latest news from the Law Society:
- sign up to My Law Society
- click ‘Disabled Solicitors Network’
About the Disabled Solicitors Network
This guidance has been developed with the support of our Disabled Solicitors Network.
The Disabled Solicitors Network promotes equal opportunities for disabled people within the legal profession.
Anyone can join, whether or not you identify as disabled. You do not have to be a qualified solicitor.
Learn more about the network