Elite universities preferred by Top 50 law firms

Dreams of greater social mobility in the legal sector suffered another blow as news emerged that over 80 per cent of trainees in top City law firms come from elite universities.

A survey of the top 50 UK firms and their approach to social mobility and diversity has once again highlighted the persistence of gender and social imbalances at the junior end of the solicitor profession and also in leadership roles.

Some 58 per cent of trainees at the firms surveyed are female, but that figure drops to 24 per cent at partner level. In addition, only 10 per cent of trainees were found to be black and minority ethnic (BME). That percentage drops to just 4 per cent at partner level.

Education remains one of the chief hurdles in opening up access to the profession, with the research finding that 19 per cent of trainees held a degree from a university outside one of the elite 24 Russell Group universities.

Cordella Bart-Stewart of the Black Solicitors Network (BSN) said: 'In the City the problem is retention. People do get into the firms now but they do not move up the greasy partnership pole - and they don't stay. The glass ceiling remains.'

There were, however, some encouraging signs in the research carried out by Jon Robins for Byfield Consultancy.

Almost all the firms surveyed have a formal diversity and inclusion policy in place, with 86 per cent carrying out unconscious bias training.

Simon Branigan attended a state grammar school and was the first member of his family to go to university before joining Magic Circle firm Linklaters.

'When I joined the firm in October 1998 it did feel like a very different place. Diversity, in all its aspects, was something that was never talked about. Social mobility was never discussed.'

In the report, Branigan says the firm is 'almost unrecognisable' today: 'When you walk around you see the international nature of this place. It feels like a bubble - even living in a multicultural place like London - but in a good way.'

Commenting on the findings, Gus Sellitto, managing director of Byfield Consultancy, said the message that diversity is important was finally getting through to the profession.

'It demonstrates law firms understand the importance of diversity and are experimenting with measures to bring about change,' he said. 'Not only do they use CSR initiatives to support diversity, some also venture into unconscious bias training and blind CV recruitment processes.'

Quotas and targets, though, remain controversial tools in achieving greater diversity in the profession, with only one in five firms surveyed employing them.

'It is no use expecting firms to self-impose targets. There has to be a stick,' added Bart-Stewart.

The results also show that disability and background rank lower on the pecking order for firms and businesses looking at diversity measures.

Judicial diversity

As was recently highlighted, diversity in the upper echelons of the profession fairs little better. Just one in five circuit judges are women; only 21 female judges sit in the High Court out of 108; and merely eight women out of 38 are in the Court of Appeal.

The Court of Appeal's Lady Justice Hallett remarked: 'Judges can only come from the legal profession, where the proportion of women at the top is disappointingly small.

'This picture sadly is not unique to the law - there are too few women newspaper editors, too few MPs and cabinet ministers, and not enough directors of FTSE 100 companies.'

Funke Abimbola, the managing counsel of Roche Products Limited, commented: 'Social mobility challenges and lack of diversity are some of the biggest issues facing the legal sector.

'From the most senior judiciary - there are no Black, Asian or Minority ethnic judges in the Court of Appeal or Supreme Court - to high street firms and universities, more needs to be done to push for access to this profession for all who are able.'

John van der Luit-Drummond is deputy editor for Solicitors Journal
john.vanderluit@solicitorsjournal.co.uk | @JvdLD