Recruiters slam Eversheds' demands for diversity
An Eversheds plan to launch an alliance forcing recruiters to tackle diversity has ignited a row as recruiters argue that the blame for the lack of diversity in the law lies with law firms.
Eversheds' demands for diversity" class="inline_image inline_image_left" src="/pictures/web/images/12339_Wilson.jpg" />An Eversheds plan to launch an alliance forcing recruitment agencies to tackle diversity has ignited a massive row as recruiters argue that the blame for the lack of diversity in the profession lies squarely with law firms.
At The Lawyer’s Diversity in Law 2008 conference last month, Eversheds head of diversity, Caroline Wilson, warned that recruiters were “getting away with murder” by not monitoring race, gender or sexuality, but now the recruitment industry has hit back.
Glass Consultancy’s Jonathan Glass argued: “The only candidates able to be introduced by legal recruiters to their clients are qualified lawyers. If this target market is not a diverse one, that is due to the recruitment systems put in place by the law firms themselves.”
Eversheds is under pressure from Tyco, one of its biggest clients, to increase its number of female partners and lawyers from ethnic minority backgrounds.
It will receive a sixfigure bonus if it meets diversity targets set by thecompany. One senior recruiter slammed Wilson’s comments as “absolutely insane”.
He claimed: “Eversheds is caught up in all this because of Tyco.”
Wilson admitted that the diversity drive had gathered pace because of the influence of companies such as Tyco.
She said: “Our clients are asking us. We now have to ask our supply chain to take diversity seriously.”
Pinsent Masons HR director Jonathan Bond said he expected most agencies to regard it as a positive step. He said: “Traditionally recruiters did not demand this information from candidates.
“If our clients are asking us to do something, that is sufficient incentive [for recruiters] to do it.”
Clifford Chance diversity manager Sarah Twite also said she would consider signing up to the scheme.
But headhunter Nick Woolf of Sainty Hird & Partners said: “Law firms need to look at themselves.”
The problem, Woolf argued, was that firms needed to hire employees from a broader academic base, rather than focusing on those from traditional universities.
Wilson said: “The supply [of staff ] has been short over the last few years while law firms have been expanding. That’s about to change. Everyone is reining in and now the shoe is on the other foot.”
To read more on the Eversheds diversity row, click here. Or read about the FTSE100’s call for diversity click here, and for more on diversity in the law click here.
Readers' comments (125)
Anonymous | 10-Jun-2008 10:39 am
Recruiters slam Eversheds' demands for diversity
Nick Root says that candidates voluntarily provide race, gender, ethnic etc. information and it is stored anonymously. So what? The pressure to compete the form is there, even if latent. I for one don't believe that such information does not play a part in HR recruitment decisions. As a white, middle-aged person I certainly feel discriminated against.
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Always worried | 10-Jun-2008 10:47 am
Discrimination - in favour of men
To Margaret Holda Roberts - do you think that two wrongs make a right here? I agree that he profession has long been dominated by men. But I also believe that is changing, admittedly not fast enough for some. Looking forward to payback only serves to entrench attitudes, surely?
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A. Reader | 10-Jun-2008 11:01 am
Diversity monitoring
Can monitoring really make any difference on its own? Unless it is accompanied by positive discrimination, diversity statistics are nothing but just that: statistics.
However few if any organisations are prepared to embrace positive discrimination except perhaps on gender lines (see poster below), knowing full well that this alienates hard-working people who happen not to be from a minority group, and that positive discrimination is an insult to people from minority groups that have succeeded entirely on their own merits.
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Sol Icitor | 10-Jun-2008 11:05 am
'Tackling' diversity
Further to some of the previous posts, I would like to know what Tyco/The Lawyer/Eversheds mean when they refer to 'tackling diversity'.
Presumably this means the firm having to hit some sort of target about the number of lawyers from different minorities it has - which necessitates positive discrimination. If that's not the case, I'd like to hear the firm say it.
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anonymous | 10-Jun-2008 11:31 am
tackling diversity
Re comment by Bobby Smith: interesting point which I think reveals a lot about the legal profession. It would be hard to doubt that numbers of minority students being offered training contracts. Not offering contracts to bright young minority graduates would be a big no-no, and recruitment brochures lacking glossy photos of their diverse trainee group would be quickly picked up on.
However, at the firm I trained at, those who did not stay on after qualification were overwhelmingly those trainees from a minority background.
Some were not offered jobs on qualification, but there were also relatively many who simply chose not to stay. Why? Not fitting in, realising that to advance will mean having to be twice as good as white male solicitors, sometimes encountering overtly racist attitudes are but a few of the reasons.
It's one thing (for the Shed) to start recruiting lots of solicitors from minority backgrounds; it's another to change the workplace environment into one where they will stay and flourish.
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Anonymous | 10-Jun-2008 11:56 am
Eversheds is totally hypocrytical
It is 100% Eversheds own fault - they are stuck in their ways and it is the firm and the lawyers who are prejudiced against ethnic minorities. One of the very best at diversity is Herbert Smith or Clifford Chance, but for Eversheds to complain about recruiters is a joke.
On times when I have forwarded international CVs through to Eversheds they have been rejected. Eversheds should take a long hard look at itself as it is one of the most backward, un-PC firms in the City.
There is no problem with the international firms, so maybe Tyco should look to do business elsewhere as the Magic Circle firms and top international practices certainly do not have a problem with diversity.
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Bobby Smith | 10-Jun-2008 12:09 pm
Recruiters slam Eversheds' demands for diversity
I believe that much of the problem with diversity boils down to the fact that the vast majority of those lawyers involved in the recruitment process are recruiting in their own image.
THEY are white, middle class and public school-educated, and as lawyers tend to be risk averse, they are recruiting the same. This not only leads to many minority and female candidates 'failing at interview,' but also keeps the environment that the rest have to work within as an extension of the rather clubby public school and white, male-dominated firms we see today. Solution? Have a look at the complete lack of social mobility in this country to begin answering that.
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Cameron David | 10-Jun-2008 12:23 pm
'Complete lack of social mobility'?
Re the post at 12.09, while I agree with most of what Bobby Smith says, the 'complete lack of social mobility' you describe in Britain is not the case in London, at least - my doctor is Asian, my dentist Greek, my (wealthy) plumber Polish and my head of department an Anglified Indian... true, they're all male, but none of them are white and only the head of department is public school-educated.
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JT | 10-Jun-2008 12:37 pm
Oh the whinging......
'Payback for women.... racist.... sexist.... hire less whites.... conspiracy...discriminate 'positively' to make up for it....' I'm sick of hearing it frankly.
It's hard to get a TC! Yes, for white men too.
It's hard to make partner. For white men too. Do you REALLY believe there's a big conspiracy to keep the profession white and male? That's laughable. There are more whites in the profession because - sad but true - state education is in rag order. There are far more middle and upper class white people, so more whites in public school. They get better marks, so end up in academic professions like the law. As for women, many have kids. Many stay at home, some go part time. Neither make partner. Those who do, try and balance which is difficult. Some make it. Many don't. The end.
None of which obligates a money-making business to make up for the regrettable fact of society/biology.
Now stop complaining and get back to work. You’ll never make partner gassing on thelawyer.com.
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Posh(ish) white bloke | 10-Jun-2008 12:48 pm
Education education education
I spent four years at a public school in the early 1990s (long story). Naturally it had a lot of kids from well-off families, but by no means were these the only ones: there was also a lot of people who were either entirely or partly assisted with their fees by the state, after qualifying for funding on academic grounds.
Many of those kids are now associates and some even partners in City law firms - despite most of them not being white. Another is a doctor, one an architect and several have senior jobs in business. What this shows to my mind is that education is the most important thing for career progression - not being white.
However the assisted place scheme has since been abolished by... the Labour government. Three cheers for New Labour!
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