Gatehouse Chambers property and probate silk Brie Stevens-Hoare KC on coming out, fitting in and how the profession needs to continue to push back against toxic narratives
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. Continue reading “Big Law’s diversity stats remain uninspiring – time to revisit the problem of social mobility”
Australia’s leading legal training outfit is to team up with a major US player to enter the UK market ahead of a radical but controversial shake-up of the framework for training solicitors in England and Wales. The College of Legal Practice has today (27 November) launched as a new entrant to the vocational training sector to build courses geared to the incoming Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE), the biggest overhaul in the UK’s legal educational regime for a generation.
The College – a wholly-owned subsidiary of The College of Law Australia and New Zealand – will partner with US education provider BARBRI on the initiative, an attempt to challenge the effective duopoly of solicitor training in England and Wales. The move is touted as harnessing a more dynamic approach to training under the new regime, which abolishes the requirement for two-stage vocational training to usher in more flexible routes to qualification. Continue reading “Foreign giants combine to enter UK training market as radical education shake-up looms”
A group of 65 general counsel (GCs) spanning major companies from the UK and Europe has collectively signed a letter urging law firms to improve their diversity efforts.
Among those to have lent their support to the statement are Shell GC Donny Ching, Vodafone group GC Rosemary Martin (pictured), Unilever’s chief legal officer Ritva Sotamaa, Anglo American group GC Richard Price and BHP Billiton group GC Caroline Cox. Continue reading “In-house leaders sign letter urging law firms to ramp up diversity efforts”
The sheepish evasion now emanating from the once-lauded social mobility project PRIME is an abject lesson in what ethically ails the modern profession. Flashy initiatives, heavily promoted and then… nothing. Because the truth is that large commercial law firms confronted with all manner of social dilemmas have developed an increasingly unhealthy reflex response of reaching for gestures to give the facsimile of action with at best minimal focus on tangible results.
As you can see in Thomas Alan’s piece this month, the lack of rigour and quantifiable results emerging from PRIME, the most celebrated response to a social affairs issue to ever emerge from the commercial UK profession, is an ominous sign for an industry that purports to be getting more progressive. Continue reading “Comment: PRIME and the rise of law’s tick-box diversity ‘solution’”
Thomas Alan assesses the initially lauded, now forgotten social inclusion initiative
‘Forgive my ignorance, can you tell me what you mean by PRIME? What is it exactly?’ asks one partner at a top-25 UK law firm, a partner charged with responsibility for overseeing apprenticeships at a firm with membership to that same cross-industry group. Continue reading “Whatever happened to PRIME? – Drift sets in for once lauded diversity project”
The sheepish evasion now emanating from the once-lauded social mobility project PRIME is an abject lesson in what ethically ails the modern profession. Flashy initiatives, heavily promoted and then… nothing. Because the truth is that large commercial law firms confronted with all manner of social dilemmas have developed an increasingly unhealthy reflex response of reaching for gestures to give the facsimile of action with at best minimal focus on tangible results.
As you can see in Thomas Alan’s piece this month, the lack of rigour and quantifiable results emerging from PRIME, the most celebrated response to a social affairs issue to ever emerge from the commercial UK profession, is an ominous sign for an industry that purports to be getting more progressive. Continue reading “PRIME and the rise of the tick-box ‘solution’”
In a landmark for the legal industry that nevertheless raises some uncomfortable truths, the number of working female solicitors in England and Wales has exceeded men for the first time according to new figures.
Reflecting the decades-long influx of junior women to the profession, the total number of women lawyers in the world’s second largest legal market is now 50.1% of the UK’s 139,624 practising certificate (PC) holders, and 48% of the 93,155 solicitors in private practice. Continue reading “The future is female – women lawyers outnumber men in UK as the in-house boom continues”
Have we reached peak aspirational employer league table yet? From the perspective of the legal industry we certainly should have, given the trend in recent years for the profession to turn up with improbably high rankings in a proliferating range of ‘best employers for…’ tables.
Were an alien to descend to earth and judge the industry on the basis of these rankings they would conclude that the profession had cracked social mobility, gender diversity, gay-empowerment and quality of life… all the while generating a tonne of money. Continue reading “Comment: The answer to law firms’ social ills is not another league table”
Were an alien to descend to earth and judge the industry on the basis of these rankings they would conclude that the profession had cracked social mobility, gender diversity, gay-empowerment and quality of life… all the while generating a tonne of money.
Continue reading “Answer to law firms’ social ills is not another league table”
