‘We have yet to make significant strides in fostering systemic change for social mobility. Our focus around diversity and inclusion has only been for the past 15 to 20 years, while the legal industry has a history spanning hundreds of years. So, when we gauge the progress made in proportion to this vast timeline, it becomes evident that there is still much ground to cover. Nevertheless, the industry has made commendable strides in a relatively short span, and I believe it can continue its journey towards greater equity with increased support, more allies, and greater investment,’ muses Akil Hunte, a former CMS trainee and current chair of NRG Lawyers, an organisation that helps non-Russell Group students into the legal profession.
Despite the plethora of initiatives seeking to solve social mobility in the legal profession, the underlying statistics remain unpromising. According to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), 22% of all lawyers attend a fee-paying school compared to just 7.5% of the general population. While lawyers from a lower-socioeconomic background make up just 17% of the workforce, contrasted to 39% of the national population.
As Katy Hampshire, director of programmes at the Sutton Trust, notes: ‘In recent years, strides have been made to widen access to the legal sector. However, the sector is still one of the least socioeconomically diverse in the country, with barristers, solicitors and judges disproportionately coming from the same few schools and universities.’
Notwithstanding the gloomy data, momentum seems to be slowly gathering on the social mobility front. Schemes such as Slaughter and May’s social mobility targets and City Century’s solicitor apprenticeship initiative, have been making headlines in recent months, putting social mobility firmly in the spotlight. To assess the situation Legal Business spoke to lawyers from socially mobile backgrounds to discuss the obstacles they’ve faced, progress that has been made, and how to turn ‘nice to have’ programmes into systemic change.
Barriers to entry
‘Coming from a council estate, my experiences made it harder to see what success could look like for me or those around me. When I saw traumatic events like the Grenfell Tower Fire I thought dying in a fire was more likely than becoming a lawyer because I lived in a high-rise flat. When you live in an area with limited resources, and understand that people were getting killed, robbed, and stopped and searched, with limited progression in your schooling, you cannot see what your future could hold as a lawyer. When you have that sort of experience, you know the reality is you are not going to make it unless there is some sort of drastic intervention,’ one junior lawyer says, as they discuss barriers to entry into the legal profession.
‘One of the biggest barriers is knowledge. I went to a local state comprehensive, my parents were not university educated and left school at 14-15. I didn’t know what being a lawyer was.’
Lorraine Reader, DLA Piper
Historically an elitist club, the law still presents several major obstacles for socially mobile candidates to navigate as they try to break into the industry. ‘Its three major things: awareness, aspiration, and access,’ says Rachel Lidgate, a partner in Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF)’s dispute resolution practice and head of its social mobility programmes.
DLA Piper real estate partner Lorraine Reader, who is a member of the firm’s social mobility network, takes a similar view: ‘One of the biggest barriers is knowledge. I went to a local state comprehensive, my parents were not university educated and left school at 14-15. I didn’t know what being a lawyer was.’
This has practical implications for prospective candidates, who will be judged on their choice of subjects, extracurriculars and work experience at a punishingly young age compared to many careers. Those without guidance from parents with similar professional backgrounds, or adequate support from their schools can find themselves at a loss. As one junior associate explains: ‘I didn’t really have a strong parental figure who took responsibility for me when I was young. The main challenge for me was not having a responsible adult to say “if you’re interested in this, this is what you need to do, this is what you need to be thinking about”.’
These knowledge gaps are often the direct result of limited or non-existent access to professional networks, a common problem faced by socially mobile candidates. ‘I had no legal network, the only lawyer I had met before was a relative’s divorce lawyer,’ says King & Spalding associate Rosie Watterson as she recounts her entry into the profession.
Ian Bagshaw, formerly of White & Case and now chair of social mobility organisation Zero Gravity, explains how common this predicament is: ‘A lot of our talent arrives at university, and they don’t have a network or views on opportunities post university.’ Zero Gravity’s Into Work programme is trying to replicate the network candidates from higher socioeconomic backgrounds often have for its members. ‘What we are trying to do is build our community into a network so can provide peer-to-peer support for themselves and develop core skills like influencing and interviewing,’ he describes.
Sarah Nicholson, an associate within the corporate practice at Linklaters and a member of its social mobility network, shares a similar perspective. Having benefited from an unofficial mentor at university, she is keen to ensure that those networking opportunities do not occur on an ad hoc basis. ‘Those encounters shouldn’t be left to chance. That’s why we run the MakingLinks Scholarship, each scholar is allocated a mentor at the firm for 12 months. My mentee won a training contract at Linklaters in the summer, I’m really passionate about it because I really benefited from someone putting their neck on the line for me,’ she explains.
Socially mobile candidates also frequently balance additional demands on their time compared to peers from more privileged socioeconomic backgrounds.
‘You’re having to juggle all these balls: extra curriculars to pad out your CV, a job to pay the rent, and studying to get the grades you need for your future career. The legal sector has come a long way in terms of supporting social mobility but ultimately it’s much easier to get great grades if you don’t have to worry about your finances. This can be overlooked which puts some aspiring candidates at a disadvantage,’ Watterson says.
‘People will assume all the people at an elite firm came from a very privileged background and they self-select out before they get there.’
Uzma Hamid-Dizier, Slaughter and May
Reader agrees, explaining that these challenges should be reframed and contextualised: ‘If you’ve got a single parent or a sick parent, if you’re looking after younger siblings, or working to put food on the table, you’re learning a huge amount. It’s about being able to reframe some of those skills to show how this makes you a good lawyer – the juggling, the resilience.’
The exalted image of the legal industry, particularly when it comes to the city elites, can also be off putting for socially mobile candidates. Slaughters’ director of responsible business and inclusion Uzma Hamid-Dizier notes: ‘There’s a lot of research that shows people are intimidated by cultural background. People will assume all the people at an elite firm came from a very privileged background and they self-select out before they get there.’
Sadly these fears are not always unfounded. As we researched this piece, interviewees bought up several instances of discrimination related to their socioeconomic background. ‘I distinctly remember one open day at a very large City firm where, when another candidate heard my accent as I started speaking, visibly looked horrified and walked away from the group we had been standing in,’ says Jacob Miller, a trainee solicitor at Travers Smith and member of its social mobility group.
‘That experience definitely knocked my confidence and made me wonder whether I was doing the right thing in chasing this particular career,’ he adds.
Obstacles to progression
Once socially mobile lawyers enter the profession, they can still encounter additional barriers in their career. Several interviewees spoke of a feeling of otherness or lack of self-confidence. ‘For me, it has to be the lack of shared experiences. It is harder to engage in conversations and form bonds with colleagues (and potentially clients) when you don’t have much to add to their conversations about, for example, their preferred holiday destination, hobby or beverage,’ explains Polly Richard, a disputes partner at Travers Smith and co-chair of its social mobility group.
Clifford Chance (CC) litigation partner Claire Freeman shares a similar perspective. ‘Discussions about the arts made me feel out of my depth, and so did the use of Latin, particularly by the barrister profession,’ she says.
The impact of this sense of otherness should not be underestimated. ‘I had working class peers that just didn’t get to the point where they could become partners. They psyched themselves out by thinking this is too hard; I don’t see a role model; or I don’t see a path for someone like me,’ Jacky Kelly, co-head of Weil’s global structured finance and derivatives practice, explains.
Access to an appropriate support network continues to be an issue once lawyers enter the profession. However, finding one can prove challenging. Miller comments: ‘Unfortunately, we aren’t yet in a position where we can presume that everyone around us is clued up on social mobility and would understand why they are being asked things that to others seem obvious, so unless and until we get to that position, being able to pick out the right people to speak to is a huge factor in progressing.’
Despite these challenges, it is crucially important for socially mobile lawyers to build a network to support their progression. ‘A lot of progress once you’re employed in those businesses becomes about the networks you create and the way you act within the building. Ultimately, there’s a lot of micro issues our talent needs to get over because they’re not used to that kind of environment, so there’s an element of imposter syndrome,’ Bagshaw explains.
This network can help candidates fine-tune skill gaps and navigate the complex hierarchies of a corporate office. ‘There’s things that will require refinement, not fundamental change,’ Bagshaw adds. However, he is quick to point out that socially mobile candidates have many additional skills: ‘They bring high resilience, high work ethic, and high determination to succeed.’
Often it comes down to the concept of polish. That elusive mixture of confidence and cultural capital, cultivated by an expensive education and parents with an FT subscription. The imperative therefore should be for firms to help socially mobile candidates bridge the gap. Nicholson explains how Linklaters has looked to identify training needs as part of its social mobility efforts. ‘For example, comprehensives often do not have the resource to focus on some of the softer skills such as public speaking,’ she explains.
Another development area might be networking. ‘I’m from the North-East, where everyone is stereotypically very friendly. However, targeted training helped me think about how strategic I am being when I’m networking in a room. It’s about universally sharing careers advice that other people may receive from parents or family friends,’ she adds.
How firms deliver feedback is another element to consider Nicholson suggests. With rigorous and frequent appraisals par for course in the corporate world, learning how to interpret and deal with criticism can be a challenge. ‘One thing we do as a network is to talk to members about how to deal with it. If you’ve got that tendency to think you are an imposter it can be difficult dealing with constructive feedback,’ Nicholson says.
RARE Recruitment’s managing director Raphael Mokades highlights another issue with how law firms deliver feedback. ‘Firms will recruit people from quite difficult backgrounds, who may crash and burn and not get kept on at the end of their training contract,’ he explains. ‘If you don’t teach people, or make expectations clear, people aren’t mind readers. For example, if your supervisor says it would be really nice to have this done by the morning and the trainee doesn’t know this means it needs to be done by the morning at the end of their seat, they will get a crappy review.’
These unwritten rules and expectations can prove to be stumbling blocks for socially mobile candidates and can take a while to get to grips with.
A further challenge for firms to consider is making sure that on a practical, tangible level their offices feel inclusive. Tiernan Brady, global director of inclusion at CC, comments: ‘You cannot make the presumption that people will presume the firm is inclusive. You must actively, constantly demonstrate it because everyone who came into the office today came in from the real world, and the real world has socioeconomic barriers.’
‘It’s not good enough to think we are good in our head; you must be actively inclusive. A value you keep in your head is a secret,’ he adds.
Moving forward
So how can firms make their workplaces more inclusive? One recurrent theme throughout our interviews was the issue of visibility. ‘There’s that famous quote “you can’t be what you can’t see”. This is particularly pertinent in this space given, unlike some diversity strands, social mobility is not visible,’ says Richard.
‘You cannot overestimate how impactful it is for more junior people in the firm to have visible role models.’ Cat Greenwood-Smith, Freshfields
To tackle this several firms have utilised their social mobility networks to encourage colleagues to share experiences. The results have been revelatory for members.
‘I never really thought about my background at the firm till people started sharing their stories. I started to realise how it had affected my self-confidence. I thought when I joined that I had weaker academic and sporting skills, and I felt my English language skills were weaker,’ Freeman says. Nicholson adds: ‘As a junior member it helps you believe in yourself, that imposter syndrome falls away.’
Some stories have caused surprise, particularly when those sharing them were more senior colleagues, and white or male. Slaughters corporate partner and chair of its social mobility working group, Andrew Jolly, notes that: ‘For a few years now, we have run a series of “Who do you think we are?” sessions across the whole business where people talk about their backgrounds. Our impressions about many of our colleagues’ backgrounds is often not at all reflective of the reality.’
This experience is echoed by Linklaters’ global head of corporate and its social mobility executive champion Simon Branigan. ‘It’s really important for senior colleagues who come from less privileged backgrounds to share their stories to help bust some of the myths and assumptions people make. People’s assumptions about me and my own background are invariably not accurate. My dad was a car mechanic for most of his working life and my mum worked part time in a bakery,’ he adds.
Many now wish they had shared their experiences sooner. Branigan notes: ‘I was a bit naive as to the importance people from similar backgrounds to mine place on having visible role models. For years, I was not very open and honest about telling my own story – not through embarrassment or shame, simply that I didn’t think anyone would be interested or care. I now realise that was wrong.’
Bagshaw takes a similar view: ‘For a long time, I wasn’t as authentic in relation to my background as I should have been. When I was applying for jobs, people asked me to give examples of my resilience. I’d give some story about my university football team but if I had said I had to get up at 5.00am in the morning before school to work on the market three times a week, that says more about my resilience.’
Freshfields’ Cat Greenwood-Smith concurs: ‘I didn’t go to a private school. I’m the first and only person in my family to go to university. I spent many years disguising my background because I thought that was necessary in order to fit in and progress. As I became more senior at the firm, I realised that it was important to accept where I came from, be vocal about my journey and celebrate how I got there, both for myself and others.
‘You cannot overestimate how impactful it is for more junior people in the firm to have visible role models.’
One recent headline-grabbing initiative in the social mobility arena is Slaughters’ announcement that it would be setting social mobility targets for 2033.
The firm hopes to engineer real change through its targets and worked extensively with the Bridge Group to curate the necessary data to underpin its ambitions. ‘You need the robust data analysis because if you are serious about meeting your targets you need to ensure you understand the causes and drivers,’ Hamid-Dizier says.
During the interviews for this piece, respondents were cautiously optimistic about Slaughters’ targets and the use of targets more widely to improve social mobility. ‘The devil is in the detail. The targets will work at Slaughters as it has done it intelligently and diligently,’ summarised Mokades.
Bagshaw adds: ‘Whether you achieve them or not, the fact that you pinned them to the wall and pointed your business in the right direction is a massive step forward.’
‘The fact that Slaughter and May did it is a double win because it is so respected as a business and the quality of its lawyers is so high. That will have a ripple effect through the industry,’ he concludes.
Another key initiative, gaining momentum across the industry, is the use of solicitor apprenticeships as an alternative route to qualification. The recently launched City Century Solicitor Apprenticeship Initiative is spearheading the charge, although several major firms have already introduced them over the years.
Again, the consensus appears optimistic. ‘It’s really positive. It’s going to change things for people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds as it removes one of the main barriers, which is the cost of going to university,’ Reader says.
Branigan adds: ‘I’m really excited about it and about the talent that has joined our firm. Eight people have joined so far, and the questions they have asked me already show just how impressive a group they are.’
‘I also work with other professions, and I do think lawyers are more cognisant on this issue and care about it more than other similar professionals.’
Raphael Mokades, RARE RecruitmentLawyer name, Firm
However, that is not to say that the concept is without its issues. One is the potential creation of a two-tier system separating socially mobile candidates and those from a higher socioeconomic background. ‘It will be of vital importance, as there are more apprentices in the industry, to ensure that they are treated on an equal footing to their “traditional training” counterparts,’ Miller explains.
‘If this were not the case, it would risk entirely undermining the apprenticeship route to qualification and undoing all the fantastic work that has gone into improving access to these in the first place,’ he adds.
Another element firms will need to consider is how they will adapt to assessing a markedly younger talent pool. ‘Law firms really need to adapt to how they recruit and assess solicitor apprentice candidates – the difference in development between a school-leaver and a graduate student is quite significant and firms need to reflect that in their assessment processes,’ says Robert Powell, Weil’s director of pro bono and corporate responsibility.
Again, it will come back to the issue of whether firms are reaching out to a wide enough range of candidates and seeking individuals outside of their traditional recruitment pools. One tool firms have found useful in this regard is social media.
‘Social media has improved our capacity to reach people,’ says Lidgate. ‘Due to the pandemic we had to move all of our recruitment online and we had really positive results through doing that from a diversity perspective, which is in part why we have set up our virtual internships,’ she adds.
Her colleague Laura Kendrick, an associate in the HSF’s corporate real estate team and member of its social mobility network, agrees: ‘I had never considered leaving my village. I would have been terrified to come to London and it’s expensive. Virtual events that reach out to people outside of London are really important.’
Helen Ouseley, Freshfields global head of diversity, inclusion and wellbeing, agrees: ‘Firms should engage with young people through new and creative ways to highlight how the legal industry is an accessible and worthwhile profession. It should speak to the next generation through channels that are familiar to them, through greater use of technology, social media and virtual programmes.’
While momentum appears to be building on the social mobility front, accountability is needed if systematic change is to be achieved. ‘I also work with other professions, and I do think lawyers are more cognisant on this issue and care about it more than other similar professionals,’ Mokades explains.
‘Why? The structure helps, it’s a partnership, your name is above the door. The other thing is if you’re a lawyer you believe in the rule of law, and law is based on justice. If something is unjust, it’s very unusual to find a lawyer who says they don’t care,’ he notes.
However, Mokades adds that there is a less altruistic push factor at play: ‘Lawyers are also really competitive, I’m not saying they’re all angels.’
It is time for the profession to put that competitive streak to good use. LB