As we go to press on Legal Business’ third annual ESG report, the data points gathered on firms’ ethnicity and gender diversity make for disheartening reading, not least because they are entirely predictable in their lack of substantive progress from last year.
In truth, the continued lack of engagement on diversity data as part of our ESG survey among many of the top 25 Legal Business 100 and top 25 Global London firms is wearing a little thin now.
The response rate among firms approached for gender and ethnicity diversity stats has again been woeful, with only 54% of those questioned bothering to respond, an increase so minuscule as to be effectively flat on last year’s 52%.
International firms have often cited the difficulty of compiling a reliable set of data points to measure ethnic diversity globally, and this is to some extent a fair defence. The term BAME can be an unhelpful acronym when applied to geographies as wide-ranging as the UK, APAC and the Middle East, and for those firms that did put their heads above the parapet, the results vary dramatically.
For context, the average proportion of BAME lawyers at those firms that submitted has increased 2% this year to 20%, the same growth rate as last year and which is also reflected in the number of BAME partners, now standing at 11%. BAME representation on the executive has seen a 1% rise to 12%, with Reed Smith having 50% BAME representation on its executive, the highest percentage among those firms that responded. Conversely, DWF, Eversheds Sutherland and Osborne Clarke (OC) record no BAME members in their respective executives at all.
Even as we accept the inherent trickiness of compiling such data, it is harder to understand why so many of the world’s highest-billing firms have not volunteered diversity stats, if only to answer the gender balance question. Among the surprising omissions in the responses are Allen & Overy, a firm that has always been among the most transparent in its gender diversity targets, although perhaps the firm is a bit tied up with more pressing things at the moment. Among many other US-headquartered firms, Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins neglected to respond, firms we might reasonably expect to have access to sophisticated data sets.
Those firms that did engage registered 52% female lawyers, exactly the same proportion as last year, while women make up on average 29% of the partnership, a slight 2% increase on last year. The figures tell a hackneyed story – that a relative dearth of women continues to exist at the senior end in the profession, with a 3% dip in the proportion of female executive members to 36% far from heartening.
There are some clear winners, with Irwin Mitchell pointing to both the highest proportion of female lawyers (80%) and the highest percentage of women in its partnership (54%).
Meanwhile at Simmons & Simmons, women account for only 29% of the total number of lawyers, while Mayer Brown and Sidley – in the UK only – share the lowest proportion of female partners at 19%.
However in Mayer Brown’s defence, it does shine in its 50% executive female representation, with DWF (46%) and Norton Rose Fulbright (46%, EMEA) not doing too badly on that score either. By comparison, Eversheds brings up the rear, with women only making up 20% of its executive.
And, as long as there remains this patchiness around gender and ethnicity reporting, progress will always appear depressingly sluggish. Perhaps we should move on for the time being and ask firms instead to stand up their social mobility efforts. We suspect the response rate to that will also be telling.