Eversheds heads effort to increase diversity
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Eversheds has teamed up with City rivals and three recruitment firms to tackle the issue of diversity in legal recruitment.
Caroline Wilson
The initiative, spearheaded by Eversheds, will see 11 firms work with recruiters First Counsel, Taylor Root and Shilton Sharpe Quarry to gather diversity statistics so as to monitor access to the UK legal market.
This comes a year after the firm sparked a row with recruiters over who is to blame for the lack of diversity in the legal profession (The Lawyer, 9 June 2008).
As part of the joint project recruiters will ask candidates to complete a standard questionnaire relating to diversity data when registering. The information provided will then be collated and used by law firms as they seek to promote diversity.
Eversheds head of diversity and corporate responsibility Caroline Wilson said: “It’s easy to pay lip service to the importance of diversity. We wanted to take action and work with other firms because it’s crucial to the whole legal market.”
Wilson added that the information gathered would be a valuable tool for firms and recruiters in the future, with the data provided painting a clearer picture of the range of people seeking careers in law.
“It will take some time before sufficient data has been collected to be analysed and be useful for firms,” added Wilson. “But this is a long-term project that will benefit the legal market as a whole.”
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Readers' comments (13)
Anonymous | 1-Sep-2009 10:45 am
If law firms keep looking for students who have done well at school from the age of 5, they will not end up with much diversity. It is after all only a certain type of person who was that focused on their career as a child!
Also, a girl from a minority ethnic community might not have received any encouragement at all, when she was a child, to pursue a career. Accordingly, she may not have excelled at school. That does not mean she would not make a great lawyer - on the contrary.
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Lynn Searcy | 1-Sep-2009 10:13 pm
Its very very very easy for firms to pay lip service to diversity and that's all most of them do. I'd like to think that this time will be different but history speaks for itself....
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Katherine Everard | 2-Sep-2009 2:27 pm
It is worth noting that past editorials of Eversheds and its diversity proposals and achievements have not mentioned anything about disabled students/trainees/solicitors but has been more focussed on ethnic diversity achievements. Once again disability is the FORGOTTEN and IGNORED aspect of diversity. WHEN are firms going to consider disabled people??
Katherine Everard (past Chairperson of Law Society Group for Solicitors with Disabilities - now LDD)
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Anonymous | 3-Sep-2009 0:41 am
I'm a little confused by this- at my firm there is no shortage of lawyers of Asian and "Oriental" descent.
Plenty of diversity already from where I'm standing.
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Anonymous | 3-Sep-2009 3:44 pm
What a joke - considering the first to be axed from the Eversheds Leeds Property in the phase 1 of redundancies were the only 2 non-white lawyers!!!!!!!!!!
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Brian | 3-Sep-2009 6:20 pm
Having worked in private practice for almost 10 years, I honestly do not believe for a second that there is any discrimination within law firms on the grounds of skin colour.
I do not know a single one of my colleagues who would make any distinction between a black/white/asian candidate at an interview.
I think the real "diversity" problem is not so much race, as it is social class. There are several black lawyers in my department (City firm), but they mostly come from the quintissential privileged background- private school all their life, followed by a top uni.
The truth is, that it certainly makes it more difficult for those who haven't come from such a background (educated parents, private school etc) to feel at home in a City law firm.
Distinguishing on the basis of ethnic background/skin colour however, and trying to increase the amount of people from ethnic minorities in law firms is totally the wrong way to go about things.
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David | 4-Sep-2009 7:34 pm
Brian, how do you arrive at the conclusion that blacks and others who come from underprivileged backgrounds wont feel at home in a city firm? It is this stereotypical attitude by city firms that underprivileged background means you are not good enough for city which needs change. I feel insulted when people have opinions about people they have never given a chance.
This initiative is just a deliberate ploy by the city to be seen to be doing something.
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Anonymous | 7-Sep-2009 3:39 pm
Does any of this debate consider opportunities for those with disabilities? i assume not!!!!
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Kathy | 9-Sep-2009 5:42 pm
I am an unemployed minority attorney from the United States. I did attend private school, and I possess a law degree from a top American and French law school. I speak and write French fluently, and I speak some Spanish.
Lawyers and judges alike have said that I am an excellent lawyer. I'm married and stable. What's the problem now? Now I'm told that, after accomplishing all that, I'm too old and too expensive.
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Anonymous | 9-Sep-2009 9:04 pm
Brian is right. Diversity is a laudable objective, but firms should hire the best qualified candidate - in an insanely competitive market and sky high fee rates clients deserve the best service possible, and it should come from the best lawyer without reference to race, creed, sex or other. This initiative sounds like a filter which will inappropriately exclude qualified candidates on precisely the grounds it purports to be championing.
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