Diversity & Inclusion

The Diversity and Inclusion Board, chaired by Karish Andrews one of our partners, champions the firm’s culture and is responsible for development and execution of the firm’s overall diversity strategy. Lucy Lewis, a key member of the D&I Board is the firm’s Values Partner and sits on our Strategy Board, responsible not just for delivery of our D&I objectives but also the challenging CSR objectives. The key strategic aims of the Diversity and Inclusion Board are:

• To create and maintain a workplace where employees can thrive regardless of their personal characteristics;
• To promote visibility and representation across the diversity strands (Gender, BAME, Social Mobility, LGBT+, Disability and Wellbeing, and Interfaith);
• To act as an advisory body for the firm on diversity issues, including drafting guidance and making recommendations to the Operations Board and the Strategy Board of the firm; and
• To develop and maintain recruitment processes that encourage and maintain a diverse workforce.

• We have signed the Law Society’s Women in Law Pledge and Lucy Lewis sits on the Law Society’s Women Lawyers Division committee.
• As part of our 2020 ‘Awareness to Action’ campaign we have implemented actions to show the proactive steps we as a firm will take to move towards gender balance and creating a more equal profession for all. Some of the actions are set out below.
• We have launched our Women in Law Pledge targets including no less than 45% female partners by 2027, gender balance in leadership and other fee earning roles and reducing our gender pay gap by no less than 40% from its 2019 levels by 2027.
• We have made changes to partner appraisals which include assessment against how each partner has promoted the firm’s culture and values, steps they have taken to advance D&I and the setting of a diversity related objective for the coming year.
• We have relaunched our LS menopause initiative to support women both within the firm and in the advice offered to clients, allowing people to share experiences and feel comfortable in asking for support.
• We have made a commitment to no all-male pitch teams or panels at events and to challenging the make-up of panels at external events our staff are invited to speak at.
• We have removed ‘Dear Sirs’ from all our templates and have introduced a set of gender-inclusive salutations.
• We have implemented maternity coaching, with meetings for managers and expectant and returning mothers.
• Our Strategy Board has committed to review our shared parental leave and paternity leave policies to consider how we might achieve greater parity with maternity leave and has looked into introducing a more formal career advancement/ pathway to partnership programme for women.
• In early 2020 we launched our ‘Women who shaped LS’ campaign, celebrating the achievements of the women (past and present) who have made significant contributions to the firm which Lewis Silkin has been, is and will become. We sponsored one of the First 100 Years | Celebrating Women in Law campaign videos in 2019 and partnered with Sainsbury’s, holding an event to support the campaign.

• In September 2020, we will be launching our Solicitor Apprenticeship Scheme. This is part of our commitment to widen access to the legal profession by supporting alternative routes to qualification. It is a significant commitment for us and means that over a two-year period a minimum of 15% of our training lawyers will be apprentices.
• 50% of applicants for our Solicitor Apprenticeship positions were BAME, and this number has stayed consistent throughout the recruitment process, which will conclude in July 2020. Our BAME and Social Mobility groups reviewed the assessment questions and mark schemes at each stage to ensure they did not pose any barriers to applicants from those backgrounds. We also featured profiles of BAME colleagues on our recruitment page to help attract candidates.
• On Windrush Day, two Lewis Silkin partners hosted a firmwide event: ‘An Open Conversation on Race and Racism’. This was a broad discussion with contributions from both partners and six other colleagues who each spoke very movingly of their experiences of racism.
• Members of our BAME group are currently working with our Learning and Development Manager to develop Ally Training which is due to be launched in August 2020. This will be compulsory, and all staff members must complete it before they are eligible to be considered for a promotion or pay rise.
• Ally training is in addition to our existing online Unconscious Bias training course for senior leaders, sessions on Appropriate Language for all staff, and online diversity training for all new staff. These training modules will also be updated to be more explicit on race issues and language.
• We have established a ‘reverse mentoring’ scheme for senior colleagues looking to increase their understanding of race issues. Our first mentoring pair met for the first time in June 2020 and we are looking to expand this to more pairings.
• We are currently analysing the proportion of BAME candidates applying for training contracts and the proportion that progress through the recruitment process and are discussing lack of BAME candidates directly with recruitment agencies.
• We use contextual recruitment and the Rare Vantage Tool for training contract and apprenticeship roles, and to source candidates for our annual Spring Workshop. This enables us to enter precise search criteria and to pinpoint specific candidates or candidate groups. We can “search” for candidates using a number of different filters including, but not limited to, ethnicity, gender, disadvantaged postcode and time spent in care.
• We are looking to set BAME recruitment targets for 2022 and 2025. We are looking closely at progression within the firm for BAME staff and will be publishing data on our ethnic pay distribution reporting later this year.
• We are considering the impact of Covid-19 and Lockdown on BAME staff in light of the disproportionate impact the virus has them. We are factoring this into our risk assessments for our return to the office.
• In September we will be launching our ‘One for One’ scheme to provide quality work experience to candidates from a socioeconomically disadvantaged and/or BAME backgrounds who may otherwise struggle to gain experience in law. We have longstanding relationships with several local schools and are working closely with them to source these candidates.

• We analyse the social mobility demographics of our workforce across a number of measures recommended by the Social Mobility Commission. We make this information available here. 
• We have widened access to all roles at Lewis Silkin by introducing Apprenticeships.
  
  • We hire Solicitor Apprentices. We are committed to hiring two Solicitor Apprentices every other year. All stages of the recruitment process for our Solicitor Apprenticeship scheme are strength-based, rather than experience-based, recognising that candidates from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are less able to access work experience in our sector. Candidates can draw from all areas of life to answer the questions, e.g. through family, caring or community responsibilities. Applicants also received detailed application guidance at each stage so they know what to expect and have an equal chance to prepare and score well. We run a comprehensive training programme of soft skills for when our apprentices join us each September and support them with a broad network of supervisors, mentors and buddies to support their transition into work and ensure they are able to achieve their full potential.
  • We also hire apprentices in a range of other roles in the business, including finance, IT, marketing and innovation. We take the same approach in relation to recruitment and the support we provide.
• As part of our PRIME commitment we offer work experience placements for students from less privileged backgrounds who might otherwise not have the opportunity to access careers in the legal world. We consistently exceed the requirement to provide 50% of the number of Training Contract places we have in equivalent work experience places and have run between four and six placements a year since making the commitment. Lewis Silkin partner Lucy Lewis also sits on the board of PRIME.
• We use the Rare Contextual Recruitment System for our graduate roles, which uses big data to help us identify candidates with the greatest potential. The system compares the economic and social circumstances of applicants to produce contextual data on every candidate, allowing us to spot exciting talent we might otherwise have missed, and ensure we build an even richer and more diverse staff population.
• We recognise that Covid-19 has made it much more difficult for young people to access work experience and career opportunities. 
• We carry out virtual careers events in social mobility ‘cold spots’ across many areas of the UK. We provide follow up support and guidance to young people interested in pursuing a career in the legal industry. We also use our position as advisors to many large employers in various sectors by encouraging our clients to take part in our cold spot outreach events. We are advocates for social mobility.
• We run a mentoring programme with four schools across the country. It was launched in 2020 in response to school closures in the pandemic, and aims to help students aged 16-18 build confidence, raise aspirations and develop employability skills they need to step into the workplace or go to university. Our mentors come from across the firm and support students with a range of career aspirations, not just those interested in a legal career. 
• From summer 2022, we will be awarding two prizes to individuals who have attended our cold spot events. These will be awarded to those individuals who write the best essays covering two different areas of law. 
• We have delivered virtual sessions to students in years 9-11 as part of the PRIME Cold Spots Project. 
• In April 2020 we began a year-long charity partnership with XLP, a social mobility charity working across London to support and improve outcomes for young people from underprivileged backgrounds. Our partnership included fundraising, pro bono support and volunteering.
• We are committed to entering the Social Mobility Foundation’s Social Mobility Employer Index each year. We were ranked 59th in 2020 and 34th in 2021. We value the feedback we receive and have a team dedicated to implementing the changes recommended.
  

• Lewis Silkin is a founder member of the inter-law LGBT network group, LeGalBesT and regularly takes part and hosts group events.
• We are committed to ensuring LS is a welcoming and inclusive space for all parts of the LGBT+ communities, and mark events such as Bi Visibility Day and Trans Day of Remembrance in addition to our annual Pride event.
• We encourage all staff to include their personal pronouns in their email signatures. Including pronouns in email signatures helps to normalise the practice of sharing pronouns and is a great way to be an ally to the trans and non-binary communities. We also hope that this will help us to avoid assumptions about colleagues’ and others’ gender identities.
• We are spearheading a firm-wide review of all precedent documents and policies to ensure they are gender inclusive.
• We are recommended by Mermaids as a firm experienced in advising on the discrimination issues faced by the trans community and we provide support to trans individuals facing discrimination.
• We work to ensure that our recruitment and application processes and our office spaces are welcoming to and inclusive of the LGBT+ communities.
• We are implementing an internal Transitioning in the Workplace policy.
• Last year we celebrated Pride with a film club and social which focused on re-igniting our sense of community, something truly needed after the year and a half we’d all had. It was a brilliant opportunity to celebrate with our colleagues and we look forward to hosting more events to mark other significant dates in 2022.

• We are certified as Disability Confident. As part of our commitment we work with Mencap to provide two annual work experience placements within our Facilities team.
• We are reviewing the findings of the Legally Disabled report, which focused on career experiences of disabled people within the legal profession, and the recommendations for short and long-term changes.
• In 2019 we launched #ThisPlaceMinds, focusing on mental wellbeing for our staff and our clients, to help foster workplaces that build a culture where people can talk openly, knowing they will be met with support and understanding.
• We have an internal Wellbeing group to lead the #ThisPlaceMinds initiative internally. We have a series of blogs on our intranet, some authored and some anonymous, where people share their thoughts and experiences.
• During the Covid-19 lockdown, the Wellbeing team have issued weekly updates to provide training and suggestions for mental health during this challenging time.

• Established in early 2020, the Interfaith group is the newest of our Diversity Board strands. Upcoming initiatives include an article in our internal wellbeing newsletter, organising for an interfaith day in November and establishing Faith Strands so people of different faiths can connect.