News - News - Law Society launches Diversity and Inclusion Charter

The Charter is a public commitment by legal service providers to develop and implement best practice on equality, diversity and inclusion - as employers, as providers of legal services, as purchasers of goods and services and in their wider roles in society.

The Charter's founding signatories, who also commit to the annual publication of the diversity profile of their UK staff and to collaborative action with other charter signatories, are comprised of 40 leading law firms.

Purchasers of legal services supportive of the aims of the Charter and keen to positively promote supplier diversity are also invited to adopt the Protocol on the procurement of legal services. The Protocol is a simple commitment to collecting and considering standard diversity information from any law firms tendering for work using a model questionnaire and founding protocol partners include BP, Barclays and HSBC, Birmingham City Council and the London Boroughs Legal Alliance.

Sailesh Mehta, Chair of the Society of Asian Lawyers and former BLD Lawyer of the Month, said at the launch: “This is the beginning, not the end.”
Linklaters and Eversheds sponsored the launch. The Chairman of Eversheds, winners of the 2008 Excellence Awards in Equality and Diversity, Alan Jenkins, said it was a great honour to commit to the Charter and he believed the Charter was “one of the most important pieces of work that the Law Society has done in recent times”.

Paul Marsh, the Law Society’s outgoing president, said the more signatories and protocol partners it secures, the more impact it will have for everyone and Lucy Dimes, BT’s Managing Director for Service Operations, said: “The measure of success is by the number of those signing up and those adopting the Protocol.”

Signatories of the Charter will:
•      Strive to achieve best practice in their recruitment, retention and career progression practices as employers.
•      Support the development of good diversity practice by collecting and sharing with other signatories examples of practical activities that contribute to progress.
•      Assign responsibility for meeting their Charter commitments to a named, senior level individual.
•      Work together to develop and adopt future protocols that support the practical implementation of the aims of the Charter.
•      Publish annually the diversity profile of their UK employees and details of their work on equality, diversity and inclusion.
•      Publish a joint annual report on the basis of a monitoring exercise to measure the impact of the Diversity and Inclusion Charter and its protocols. These reports will form the basis of regular dialogue with stakeholders, employees and clients.