News - News - Take Diversity Seriously or Lose Work

The Lawyer magazine had its first Diversity in Law firms conference in London yesterday. Attendees, speakers and panelists included partners and Heads of HR of some of the top 100 law firms.

The real highlight of the conference, chaired by Robert Halton, DLA Piper’s Global Head of HR, was the Client Panel session facilitated by Peter Cooke of Covington & Burling. The Panelists were Tim Proctor, General Counsel of Diageo plc; Rosemary Martin, Company Secretary and General Counsel of Reuters; and Jane Anne Thomas, Assistant General Counsel of the Bank of Montreal. The clients were unanimous in agreeing that diversity is a key issue and emphasised the importance of tapping into the wealth of talent and, according to Tim Proctor, “no race or gender has a monopoly on talent”. Rosemary Martin went on to state that some law firms have failed to secure work from Reuters solely because of their lack of diversity.

The keynote speech was delivered by Bridget Prentice, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs at the DCA. who confirmed the huge importance of the issue of diversity. On the DCA’s progress report on increasing diversity in the legal profession, she described as “appalling” that only 19 of the top 100 law firms have responded to her request to publish their diversity data and their equality and diversity policies on their web sites by the end of March 2006. That even then only 34 have responded some four months after the deadline. The original 19 law firms that responded were: Eversheds, Field Fisher Waterhouse, Herbert Smith, Lawrence Graham, Norton Rose, Olswang, Bircham Dyson Bell, Charles Russell, Freshfields, Allen & Overy, Berwin Leighton, Paisner, Clifford Chance, CMS Cameron McKenna, Cripps Harries Hall, DMH Stallard, Slaughter and May, Trowers & Hamlins, Ward Hadaway and Weightmans.