‘I haven’t seen progress like I’ve seen it in the last 18 months or so at any point in my career,’ proclaims Harold Brako, head of Addleshaw Goddard’s Manchester office. ‘It’s been fuelled by a number of reasons, not least the Black Lives Matter movement and George Floyd.’
In June 2019, when Legal Business last wrote about ethnic diversity in the legal profession, the world was a very different place. Theresa May was still prime minister, and most people would have guessed that Covid was some new media-sharing platform.
Back then, the legal market was exalting the virtues of sophisticated data intended to provide a more rigorous approach to improving diversity. The battle for representation among the graduate cohort was largely being won, but issues at the senior end remained.
What has changed? We canvassed opinion from across the industry to assess the current state of play.
It is undeniable that the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent resurgence of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement thrust issues of race relations to the fore. In a profession as global and people-orientated as the law, it was inevitable that its impact would be felt.
‘Five years ago, a lot of white lawyers would have said: “I’ve just never really thought about race.” You hear that much less now. The issue of race has become central to the public discourse.’
Raph Mokades, Rare Recruitment
As Raph Mokades, founder of graduate intake diversity search business, Rare Recruitment, says: ‘If you go back five years, a lot of white lawyers would have said: “I’ve just never really thought about race.” You hear that much less now because it’s hard not to think about it. The issue of race has become central to the public discourse.’
Brako agrees: ‘George Floyd opened people’s eyes and led to discussions that hadn’t happened before. In the legal sector, it made us all look at each other and look at our business models and, for firms that hadn’t already started to do something, put plans in place.’
Almost all partners interviewed by Legal Business highlighted events and initiatives put on in the immediate aftermath of the event. Others were able to recount examples of important conversations and epiphanies experienced by white staff. Pointing to long-term, tangible changes that came out of the BLM movement was less common. In part, this is because many law firms had already begun to instigate practices addressing racial equality, but it also says something about how more sustainable change is instigated.
Adds Mokades: ‘After George Floyd died, everyone said they were very sorry and had solidarity with black staff. That’s not insignificant, but it passes and is reactive. If you’ve got a dataset that is telling you you’ve got a problem, you’re obliged to be proactive and try to understand what’s happening.’
Crunching the numbers
The focus on data is key. Across the 50 or so firms surveyed by Legal Business, the average proportion of BAME lawyers is 18%. That may be a modest improvement on the 16% returned by last year’s ESG survey, but it’s hard to call that meaningful progress.
More worrying is the number of firms that failed to respond to the request for data at all. The response rate to Legal Business’ survey scarcely passed 50% (see table, below). There was a notable lack of response from some of the highest-billing firms in the world, including Kirkland & Ellis.
Among the firms that did manage to provide some data, there was some alarming variation. While Dentons may sit at the bottom of this table with just 6% BAME lawyers in its UK offices, and White & Case leads the pack with 36% (UK and US only), there will be others at either end of that spectrum.
‘The board is dealing with competing issues that affect the business, for example meeting budgets, risk and compliance, cyber security threats and regulatory compliance. It’s got to be presented to the board in a way that is tangible and practical.’
Ranjit Dhindsa, Fieldfisher
While the overall numbers only tell half the story, it’s still grim reading for black lawyers. According to Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) data, just 3% of lawyers across the UK have African and Afro-Caribbean heritage. The figure is slightly healthier in London at 5% but, given the higher proportion of black people in the capital (13%), according to the most recent government regional ethnic diversity research, this isn’t much to shout about.
By contrast, lawyers with an Asian background account for 12% of the City workforce, according to SRA figures. Even this may be too general an analysis; though not captured in SRA research, people from Indian heritage are known to be much better represented than those from Bangladesh, for example.
The difference in experience between groups has led some to call for the collective grouping of non-white lawyers to be put to pasture, to allow a more direct focus on specific groups. Says Chris Edwards, CSR and diversity director at Travers Smith: ‘Over the past two years, we have been challenging the use of the term “BAME” and how it often unhelpfully groups together people from minority ethnic backgrounds. You need to understand the needs of people from each community so that you can address them specifically.’
A tailored approach is surely the way forward, and networks and initiatives focusing on specific groups are now commonplace. The Society of British Bangladeshi Solicitors and Black Solicitors Network are two examples, but there is an increasing number of focused groups being established within firms.
Annette Byron, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer partner and member of its diversity committee, elaborates: ‘In the last couple of years, our UK Black Affinity Network has established a network of senior allies to make sure that conversations are happening within teams, that allyship is being shown and to help encourage data collection.
‘It’s about understanding distinctions between people. Even within the black community, there’s a difference between those of us from an Afro-Caribbean background, an African background, different educational experiences, and so on.’
Climbing the ladder
What has not changed in the last three years is the disparity between trainee intake and partner representation. Across the Global 100 and City law firms that responded to Legal Business’ ESG questionnaire, the average BAME representation among lawyers generally is 18%. By contrast, racially diverse lawyers account for just 10% of the partner pool.
This being so, it is unsurprising to hear people across the industry cite improving retention rates as the key battleground of the future. According to Georgia Dawson, senior partner of Freshfields: ‘It’s great to see improvement at associate level, but we should not get overconfident. Now what we are really focused on is making sure we’re retaining and then promoting that talent over the years ahead.’
Perhaps with this in mind, reverse mentoring seems to be flavour of the month, with several respondents lauding its effectiveness in opening dialogue between lawyers at different stages of their careers.
‘Reverse mentoring has been going well. The mentees, the people in senior management, are learning what life is like from the perspective of a BME lawyer.’
Jat Bains, Macfarlanes
‘Reverse mentoring has been going well. The mentees, the people in senior management, are learning what life is like from the perspective of a BME lawyer,’ confirms Jat Bains, Macfarlanes partner and champion of its race, ethnicity and cultural heritage staff network.
Internal progression is all well and good, but what about lateral hiring? In this regard, the common theme seems to be to put pressure on recruiters. Says Dawson: ‘When it comes to lateral recruitment, we’re asking recruiters for lists of diverse talent and there are a number of examples over the past few months where we’ve sent the recruiters back when they haven’t come forward with a diverse list.’
It is one thing for diverse lawyers to make shortlists, but are D&I considerations really going to get in the way of firms hiring the most profitable candidate?
Scott Gibson, director of legal headhunter Edwards Gibson, observes: ‘Today diversity still makes (almost) no difference to the lateral hiring of transactional lawyers, where the size of a partner’s book of business continues to trump all. However, in areas where skillset rather than following dominates – for example, corporate tax or financial services regulatory – law firms do appear to be making genuine efforts to hire diverse candidates.’
Gibson’s observations are reflected in the data. Statistics from the SRA show that, across the country, only 12% of corporate, financial and IP partners are non-white. Across the profession generally, it is 20%.
‘Clients want to know who is working on their matters. They want to see that some of the more senior people on the team are diverse.’
Heather Choi, Baker Botts
That is perhaps best seen as progress of a kind. How far it is reasonable to expect firms to put social justice before profit is an open question. Given the number of City players that unveiled record revenues over 2021, it would be wise not to be too understanding of the predicament.
Getting the point across
As much as we all would like the importance of change to be obvious to all, the way in which the message is communicated is still crucial: it’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it.
‘I wholeheartedly support the activists in this area, but there is sometimes a lack of understanding of how a law firm and its board work, and what they are having to deal with,’ explains Fieldfisher’s executive committee member and UK head of employment, pensions, immigration and compliance, Ranjit Dhindsa. ‘The board is dealing with lots of competing issues that affect the business, for example meeting budgets, risk and compliance, cyber security threats and regulatory compliance. It’s got to be presented to the board in a way that is tangible and practical.’
The obvious way to make a board take notice is to show how focusing on diversity affects the bottom line, and that will only happen when the people instructing firms are paying attention. Brako says: ‘Clients are all over this. I’ve attended client relationship meetings in the past that would have been predominantly about workflow, whereas now what you’re finding is a lot of these are about D&I.’
Scrutiny from clients is not limited to London. Washington DC’s Heather Choi, recently appointed Baker Botts’ first chief D&I officer, confirms the same is true across the Atlantic: ‘Clients want to know who is working on their matters. They want to see that some of the more senior people on the team are diverse, and they’re looking at hours on an individual basis, to really make sure that we’re giving meaningful opportunities on their work to our diverse lawyers.’
A more cynical commentator might conclude that, for all the moral posturing we see from firms these days, it is just the age-old necessity to keep clients sweet that is driving substantial change. But to do so would perhaps undervalue the genuine desire for change among much of the profession.
‘It’s doing a disservice to law firms to say that pressure to do better is only coming from clients,’ suggests Edwards. ‘That particular pressure is increasing but so too is the pressure from our own people, and I’d like to think that everybody understands the moral imperative.’
Said imperative seems to be accepted even by those at the very top of the profession. Says Latham’s private equity partner Kem Ihenacho, global vice chair of Latham’s private equity and investment funds practice: ‘What was really refreshing for me when I took on this leadership role was to see how important D&I was to the leadership across the firm. There is constant communication with our executive committee about the progress we are making and what more we can do. The tone from the top and how that’s communicated around the firm is so important.’
Ultimately, there is no reason why the business need and moral case cannot co-exist. When it comes to driving change in a profession typically resistant to modernisation, a horses-for-courses approach seems sensible, as Hogan Lovells partner Christopher Hutton puts it: ‘The first reason to do it is because it’s the right thing to do. If that doesn’t persuade you, then clients seeing it as the right thing to do will.’
In this together
An almost unanimous view among interviewees was the importance of collaboration across the sector. Bains summarises: ‘It’s important that firms are willing to share best practice with one another and so if somebody has a good idea that works well in an organisation, everybody else is brought up to speed through collaborations like Legal CORE. There will always be some firms that are perhaps a little bit behind others, and that really helps them to catch up. We’re trying to do it for the greater good rather than jumping to the usual lawyer competitiveness around talent.’
His point about some firms needing to catch up certainly rings true, given the disparity across the different firms that responded with diversity stats. In an industry where the protagonists typically do not play well together, a need to pull together may be seen as inauspicious. Nevertheless, the sector does appear to be casting off old habits. Legal CORE is one such example, but hardly a week passes without a new inter-firm initiative being announced. The pro bono project to launch the Black Equity Organisation, which involved Allen & Overy, Ashurst, Clifford Chance, Freshfields, Herbert Smith Freehills, and Slaughter and May, is the latest of these, having been unveiled in late May.
‘There is constant communication with our executive committee about the progress we are making and what more we can do. The tone from the top and how that’s communicated around the firm is so important.’
Kem Ihenacho, Latham & Watkins
Helen Ouseley, head of D&I at Freshfields, sums up the general mood: ‘I’ve seen more collaboration across the legal profession and beyond, which I’m super pleased about.’
Now that the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic is beginning to fade, it leaves behind a corporate world irrevocably altered. Commuters of three years ago would scarcely recognise the largely deserted Central Line on a Friday morning now. Stephenson Harwood’s recent infamous announcement that lawyers can work from home indefinitely in exchange for a 20% cut to their pay cheques, though met with derision, is at least an acknowledgement that the world has changed. A sustainable equilibrium between home and office work must be reached.
What does this mean for diversity in the profession? Clearly the new-found flexibility has the possibility to usher in a new era of inclusion and acceptance, as we embrace different lifestyles and working practices. On the other hand, it could just retrench old prejudices.
Dhindsa highlights the danger of taking one step forward and two steps back: ‘Home working is a game changer. I would not like to see statistics showing people from different heritage – and often poorer backgrounds – are working at home more frequently because they can’t afford to travel and the ones who are in the office are getting the more interesting work, as well as more mentoring, coaching and sponsorship opportunities. It’s both an opportunity and a challenge. This is now going to create a whole new landscape we need to think about as law firms.’
But however flexible working changes the profession in the long term, there is a danger that deep-rooted issues persist. Comments Mokades: ‘There is a fundamental problem with the law firm business model. Everybody I know would prefer to staff a matter with one associate working insane hours than two associates. Even if you could take all the racism away from the legal profession, there are still embedded factors. One is that families from different backgrounds make certain demands on family members and working 100 hours a week might not be compatible with that. So, with the current business model it’s hard to have a partnership that is as diverse as your training pool.’
The ‘work associates to the bone’ model, long favoured by Big Law, shows no signs of abating with firms generally preferring to ratchet up starting salaries rather than take work-life balance seriously. At least some are now being honest about it: Hogan Lovells recently disclosed that would-be partners are expected to work at least 2,400 hours per year (around ten hours per day) to be considered for promotion.
While this mentality endures, progression in City law is always going to come at the cost of social and community engagement. The expectations different communities have of their members can vary, and so it is inevitable that people from some groups will find the demands of a legal career easier to accommodate than others. The result is that, while firms continue to pay lip service to lawyer wellbeing, claims of diverse people being able to bring their ‘whole self’ to work are destined to ring hollow. LB
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Ethnicity
| Firm | Lawyers (% BAME) | Partners (% BAME) | Executive (% BAME) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Addleshaw Goddard | 7 | 5 | 11 | |
| Allen & Overy | 26 | 12 | N/D | UK only |
| Ashurst | 22 | 11 | N/D | UK only |
| Baker McKenzie | 20 | 8 | N/D | UK only |
| Clyde & Co | 12 | 4 | N/D | |
| CMS | 13 | 5 | 6 | |
| Debevoise & Plimpton | 23 | 14 | N/D | US only |
| Dentons | 6 | 10 | 8 | UK only |
| DWF | 12 | 3 | 0 | |
| Eversheds Sutherland | 14 | 9 | 0 | UK only |
| Fieldfisher | 16 | 9 | 17 | |
| Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer | 22 | 7 | N/D | UK only |
| Goodwin | 27 | 14 | 18 | |
| Gowling WLG | 14 | 9 | 21 | |
| Herbert Smith Freehills | 28 | 11 | N/D | London only |
| Hogan Lovells | 21 | 12 | 44 | UK and US only |
| Latham & Watkins | 18 | 20 | N/D | |
| Linklaters | 26 | 13 | 0 | UK only |
| Mayer Brown | 13 | 7 | 0 | UK only |
| Osborne Clarke | 10 | 3 | 0 | |
| Pinsent Masons | 10 | 3 | 0 | |
| Simmons & Simmons | 18 | 11 | N/D | UK only |
| Slaughter and May | 18 | 8 | 11 | London and Brussels only |
| Squire Patton Boggs | 20 | 14 | 23 | Partner data is UK and US only |
| White & Case | 36 | 22 | 14 | UK and US only |
| Averages* | 18 | 10 | 11 | * of those firms responding |
Gender
| Firm | Lawyers (% Female) | Partners (% Female) | Executive (% Female) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Addleshaw Goddard | 60 | 31 | 44 | |
| Allen & Overy | 47 | 27 | 32 | UK only, except executive (global) |
| Ashurst | 51 | 25 | 47 | UK only |
| Baker McKenzie | 57 | 31 | N/D | UK only |
| Clifford Chance | 49 | 22 | 23 | As of May 2021 |
| Clyde & Co | 50 | 26 | N/D | |
| CMS | 63 | 35 | 45 | |
| Debevoise & Plimpton | 52 | 27 | N/D | US only |
| Dentons | 53 | N/D | 33 | UK only |
| DWF | 60 | 24 | 39 | |
| Eversheds Sutherland | 55 | 29 | 20 | UK only (except executive) |
| Fieldfisher | 67 | 28 | 33 | |
| Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer | 53 | 27 | N/D | UK only |
| Goodwin | 43 | 28 | 35 | |
| Gowling WLG | 48 | 31 | 29 | |
| Herbert Smith Freehills | 56 | 29 | 34 | |
| Hogan Lovells | 47 | 27 | 46 | |
| Latham & Watkins | 42 | 22 | N/D | |
| Linklaters | 50 | 27 | 42 | UK only |
| Mayer Brown | 42 | 23 | 28 | |
| Osborne Clarke | 57 | 26 | 50 | |
| Pinsent Masons | 70 | 29 | 40 | |
| Simmons & Simmons | 44 | 25 | 22 | |
| Slaughter and May | 48 | 24 | 78 | |
| Squire Patton Boggs | 42 | 23 | 48 | |
| White & Case | 41 | 22 | 43 | |
| Averages* | 52 | 27 | 39 | *of those firms responding |