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Diversity equity & inclusion

A more equitable, kinder law firm.

Over 100 years ago our founder refused to let other people’s expectations and prejudices define his life. We’re named after Lewis Silkin (b. 1889), whose determined rise from poverty and discrimination to become a solicitor, MP and Cabinet Minister inspires our ethos of bravery and kindness today.

As a hardworking young refugee, Lewis Silkin was offered a scholarship to Oxford University. He never got to go. Not because of anything he did, but because his school headmaster advised that a university education would be wasted on the under-privileged child of Jewish Lithuanian immigrants.

Yet he didn’t give up. His determination saw him move on from a job in the London docks to work first as a clerk, then a solicitor, then an MP – eventually becoming Baron Silkin, deputy leader of the House of Lords.

Our DE&I groups

We have eight DE&I groups within the firm (age, disability, gender, interfaith, lewis SilkOut, race & ethnicity, social Mobility, and wellbeing). The groups are made up of colleagues with an interest in or experience of the focus area, and their purpose is to raise awareness of the issues that they represent and contribute to our inclusive, empathetic and informed culture.

Age

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Age is a protected characteristic that we all have, and our needs as an employee vary depending on our stage in life. Our Age Group - the newest of our groups - exists to recognise this, learn from different experiences and raise awareness of these differences across the firm.

Disability

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The purpose of our Disability Group is to increase awareness of the issues and challenges faced by disabled people at (or wanting to join) the firm. It considers both visible and invisible disabilities, and focuses on enhancing the accessibility of our office spaces, maximising inclusion in our recruitment processes and signposting support for colleagues needing adjustments at work.

Recent achievements include:

Helping the firm get certified as Disability Confident and appointing our first Disability Champion
Acting as a point of contact for colleagues needing to discuss issues in connection with their disability
Creating a Reasonable Adjustments Disability Passport, providing certainty for employees and managers about agreed adjustments

Gender

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To attract, retain and progress all our people, gender needs to be central to everything we do. Our Gender Group helps us to understand the issues and challenges faced by different genders at the firm. The group supports our ambition to improve gender balance in our firm and in the wider legal industry. Group members also facilitate the sharing of personal experience, research findings and best practice within the firm to raise awareness of gender issues.

Recent achievements include:

Supporting the firm to avoid, wherever possible, all-male pitch teams or panels at events
Raising the absence of and helping to develop a dedicated policy to support colleagues who are experiencing the menopause
Writing guidance on implementing maternity coaching
Supporting our HR team in relation to the introduction of a progressive new Parental Leave policy

Interfaith

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As a firm, we recognise the importance of faith and religion in the lives of some of our colleagues, and established an Interfaith Group to bring together and strengthen relations between people of different faiths, religions and beliefs - and those with no faith but who are interested in the subject. The group connects colleagues of similar and different faiths for support and encouragement. The group aims to increase awareness and understanding of all faiths and beliefs across the firm.

Recent achievements include:

Establishing regular meetings and publishing regular internal articles and blogs
Marking Interfaith Week
Establishing a multifaith prayer room in our London office and using it to host monthly prayer meetings.

Lewis SilkOut

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Lewis SilkOut represents the LGBT+ community and their allies at the firm. In raising awareness and understanding of LGBT+ issues and experiences at the firm, the group is able to ensure the rights of this community are adequately represented and protected at Lewis Silkin. Lewis SilkOut also helps ensure that policies and practices do not prejudice or disadvantage people within the LGBT+ community.

Recent achievements include:

Founding member of the inter-law LGBT network group, LeGalBesT. Our continued membership ensures that the firm is welcoming and inclusive for all members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Championing Pride events in the cities where the firm has offices, centring our annual celebrations around Belfast, Manchester and London
Working with our Strategy Board to encourage all staff to include personal pronouns in email signatures. We have also ensured the functionality for Pronouns is available, understood and accessible for all people within the firm

Race & ethnicity

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Our Race & Ethnicity Group was set up to increase the number, visibility and experience of ethnic minority colleagues throughout their career at the firm. The group does this through monthly meetings, through creating and delivering events, and by helping to track and analyse progression data. The group also helps the firm support young ethnic minority people who want to consider a career in law.

Recent achievements include:

Launching our Solicitor Apprenticeship Scheme as part of our commitment to widening access to the legal profession
Helping to revise the firm’s Anti-Racism training programme
Organising ‘Breaking Barriers’, an annual event which is extremely well attended by colleagues. The events have explored the experience of Black professionals in private practice, and the experience of being mixed heritage, or of raising children of mixed heritage
Marking Holocaust Memorial Day, Windrush Day, Black History Month and Islamophobia Awareness Month on an annual basis

Social mobility

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Our Social Mobility group has a focus on supporting people within the firm and those wanting to join. The group focusses on identifying and remedying challenges faced by people from all socio-economic backgrounds within the firm, and ensuring our culture enables them to succeed in their careers with us.

Recent achievements include:

Establishing a partnership with The Sutton Trust, a charity which aims to improve social mobility and address educational disadvantage
Providing a nine-month Mentoring Scheme for students aged 16-18 whose schools are in areas of low social mobility. Our volunteer mentors meet regularly with their mentees and offer advice, information and resources about various career paths, whether related to university, apprenticeships or job experience
Using feedback from the Social Mobility Employer Index to identify areas we can improve the way we find, recruit, and advance talented employees from different socio-economic backgrounds
Organising virtual careers events for young people in areas of low social mobility around the UK

Wellbeing

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Our aspiration is that the wellbeing of our people underpins everything we do at the firm. The Wellbeing group design and implement initiatives to support this, works with our other groups to ensure that colleagues’ physical and mental wellbeing is considered in relation to the work they undertake, and seeks to further the culture of support and understanding within the firm.

Recent achievements include:

Implementing a time recording code for kindness, which allows our people to account for time spent on self-care or supporting others
Marking key events such as Mental Health Awareness Week and World Kindness day, and working with our other DE&I groups to support events which are relevant to wellbeing and mental health
We are signatories to the Mindful Business Charter and have a network of champions within our firm to drive good practice and act as guardians of the principles we have signed up to

More information:

Diversity equity & inclusion

A more equitable, kinder law firm.

Our DE&I groups

Age

Disability

Gender

Interfaith

Lewis SilkOut

Race & ethnicity

Social mobility

Wellbeing

Our diversity statistics and pay gap reports

Life at Lewis Silkin