Richard Fisk, winner of the Private Practice DE&I Champion of the Year award at the Legal 500 ESG awards earlier this year, had never planned to leave fee-earning work and pivot to working full-time on pro bono and DE&I.
Now senior pro bono and inclusion manager at Addleshaw Goddard, at the start of the pandemic Fisk was enjoying his work as a real estate lawyer when he was asked to undertake a 12-month secondment with the pro bono and DE&I team.
‘It was scary because I had worked so hard to become a lawyer,’ he said. ‘But, I thought, it’s only 12 months.’
Three months into the role, however, Addleshaw Goddard’s chief people officer called Fisk up to tell him the board were impressed with his work, that they wanted to do more work in the DE&I space, and that they would like him to stay permanently. ‘It was a massive piece of sponsorship from the board,’ Fisk says. ‘For them to do that unprompted was a really powerful message for me.’
‘Having senior leadership showing up is what makes it authentic. If that wasn’t there, I probably would have made some different choices.’
Six years on, he acknowledges that his role sounds abstract to most people. ‘I wear two hats at the firm,’ he explains.
With his pro bono hat on, Fisk was in charge of delivering over 10,000 hours or £6m worth of free legal work across a range of sectors last year. Meanwhile on the DE&I side, his personal focus within the wider inclusion team, is disability, social mobility, faith and LGBTQ+ inclusion.
Fisk himself wasn’t open about his sexuality when he joined the firm as a paralegal in 2013. There was nothing particularly bad about the legal sector’s inclusion efforts at that time towards LGBTQ+ people, he recalls, ‘but minoritised groups just weren’t bringing that part of themselves to the workplace, it was just “crack on with the job”.’
Two years in Copenhagen on a client secondment helped him gain the confidence to be more visibly out and accepting of his identity. ‘I was 28 when I moved back and I’d not had a conversation with my parents or my family.’
‘The best moments of my job are when an individual will come out to me for the first time, or when someone discloses a disability or condition’
On his return, Fisk began getting more involved in the firm’s LGBTQ+ communities. ‘Weirdly,’ he says, ‘it was the firm through its support of events I became involved with that helped me become more comfortable in my identity.’
One early event Fisk and his colleagues organised was a brunch in the Leeds office before the annual Pride march as a way to encourage people to attend Pride and feel that there was a community to support them.
From that first brunch seven years ago, the firm has built a wider community, including allies, that aligns with the theme of 2026 Pride which is ‘Many Voices, One Front.’
‘Partners that aren’t part of the LGBTQ+ community began to ask whether they could use the day as an opportunity to simply bring their kids into the office,’ Fisk explains, adding that this is almost the point of the event. ‘We have different activities and their kids enjoy coming in so it is a way of making it more inclusive for people.’
While Addleshaws has made a number of changes during Fisk’s time in DE&I, such as introducing contextual recruitment for training contracts, it is the more personal aspects of the job that Fisk enjoys most. ‘The best moments of my job are when an individual will come out to me for the first time, or when someone discloses a disability or condition they might have; being the person they come to is the most precious gift someone can give me.’
The attitude of the firm’s senior leadership that sparked Fisk’s change in career path, continues to empower him in his role. ‘They invite me into the room to ask my opinion on things,’ Fisk says. ‘It shows they respect me but also DE&I.’ He adds: ‘For me, this is always a stamp of approval and it is super important that we get that.’
Does Fisk ever want to return to fee earning work? ‘Yes,’ he says jokingly, ‘I’d love a break, because this is really hard.’
