Delivering diversity for legal departments

摘要

Public private and third sector organisations are increasingly realising that diverse teams bring many benefits. However, much more needs to be done to ensure diverse teams in many sectors and professions. Within the legal field, for example, recent surveys have found huge disparities between the number of women and black and minority ethnic (BME) solicitors holding senior roles within private sector firms. A recent Law Society report found that only 23.2% of women solicitors held partner roles. The society's most recent research paper on BME solicitors found that only 21.5% are partners. A Law Society pay survey earlier this year also identifies the problems women and black lawyers experience in achieving equal status with white counterparts within the profession. For lawyers working within local government delivering diverse teams on the basis of merit at a senior level give resulting benefits for the councils, individual solicitors and for the communities in which they work. Having recently completed a campaign to secure top legal talent for a large London borough, we found that by encouraging women and BME applicants to put themselves forward for senior positions, whilst helping all candidates to demonstrate their skills and abilities in the best possible light, a diverse top team was secured. The team was unique: although it was a local government legal services team, it was structured along a private sector model, with three leading 'partners', with each having a deputy. The appointed team included three men and three women, with five from BME backgrounds and one who was white. The team's three partners are equivalent in pay to equity partners in small and medium-sized private firms.