The UK legal industry is definitely seeing a shift change towards improving its Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (ED&I) and the introduction to the UK of the Mansfield Rule in 2021 showed there was serious commitment to making improvements in some areas.
But the pace of change is slow. Mansfield only applies to senior leadership roles and there still requires change at early years and mid-career to make the radical changes required to achieve a fundamental change.
The survey of diversity in law firms carried out in 2021 by the SRA showed that in larger firms (50+ partners) significant differences in diversity still remain and are manifestly worse than smaller firms:
- Women are underrepresented at partner level in all firms, but more so in the larger law firms
- The proportion of partners from a Black, Asian and minority ethnic group are more than four times greater in one-partner firms,
- The largest law firms have a smaller proportion of disabled lawyers
- The largest firms have the greatest proportion of lawyers from a professional socio-economic background, and those who went to independent/fee-paying schools.
(source: https://www.sra.org.uk/sra/equality-diversity/diversity-profession/diverse-legal-profession/)
Many legal sector recruiters will still hear these statements from partners and hiring managers;
‘I only really want someone from Oxbridge, or at least Red Brick’,
‘I know I shouldn’t say this but…, I’d really like a woman. After all, they are much better at organising aren’t they’.
‘My school friend’s son would be who I want to employ’.
‘His accent would be off-putting for our type of clients’.
HR Professionals are working hard to drive transformation but in an industry which has traditionally been plagued by favouritism and attribution bias, there is much to do.
Education is an obvious way forward but again this takes time, so while you are considering other options, I invite you to consider how partnering with a Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) specialist such as ResourceBank can improve your ED&I.
5 Reasons Why Working with an RPO Can Help to Improve ED&I in a Law Firm
1. An RPO can help you create an external communications plan that promotes an ED&I culture.
Being able to communicate with your audience using non-gender specific language, with the right tone of voice and in an open and inclusive way will start your process in the right way and help to ensure you are not alienating the right candidates from the outset.
2. An RPO can help you build a culture of diversity and inclusion internally.
It’s all very well having a great message that’s attracting the right candidates, but you need the culture and values of those within the firm to match. It’s no good hiring great people if they are immediately put off by colleagues who have very different outlooks.
3. An RPO will reduce bias in their selection methods.
Any good RPO will have trained employees who are specialists in sourcing and hiring whilst removing the options for both conscious and unconscious bias.
4. An RPO should be able to assist you with designing of assessment scoring metrics which will allow standardised selection.
Designing assessments based on facts, taking away the gut feel and opportunity to affect hiring decisions based on outside influences will make sure your recruitment process gives everyone a fair and consistent hiring opportunity.
5. An RPO should have access to technology solutions which will assist with selection.
If you’ve not utilised an RPO before, or if there are questions that you wished you knew the answer to, then click here to access a free guide.
How We Can Help You
Whether it’s software that will assist with targeted or blind sourcing, or even providing educational background or examination adjustment then this can help you in achieving a balanced attraction and selection process.
A good RPO partner will work to understand each individual organisation’s goals and should be able to create a specific way to attract, engage, communicate with and convert the diverse talent each firm needs in order to reach its objectives.
ED&I is one of the most important focuses within the Legal talent acquisition industry, partnering with experts using innovative strategies and methodologies ensures your firm can reach a diverse range of high-quality candidates and ultimately hire the best people.
Here at ResourceBank we offer both full RPO services and smaller project assistance, so we’re happy to help you whether it’s an ongoing engagement or a shorter-term bulk project that needs a little extra help. For example, we’ve just finished assessing over 2,000 applications for a leading law firm’s early year’s programme. As well as improving ED&I, we managed the project faster and more cost effectively than they could themselves.
We’re flexible in our approach so that we can help where we’re best needed. If there’s a particular need or pain point in your hiring process currently, then please get in touch and we can discuss the options open to you.
As Client Partnership Director, Peter Murphy brings over 20 years of working to provide Legal and Professional Services organisations with access to talent solutions. Want to know more about Pete? Click here .
