The Black Solicitors Network (BSN) is to launch a new City arm, as leading law firms continue their drive to attract a more diverse selection of new recruits.
The BSN, which has more than 5,500 members across England and Wales, is setting up a new group dedicated to private practice and in-house solicitors in London.
The launch has the support of City firms such as Linklaters, which is hosting next month’s launch of the networking group.
Webster Dixon joint founding partner and BSN chair Michael Webster said: “This will help provide networking opportunities as well as information and support. Our mission is to promote retention. Attrition rates are higher for ethnic minority solicitors.”
The BSN move comes as increasing diversity and boosting applications from non-traditional backgrounds becomes a more pressing concern for top City firms.
Several firms have recently kicked off specific recruitment drives, including Allen & Overy, which has increased the percentage of its UK trainee intake coming from ethnic minority backgrounds to 24%, up from 17% two years ago. Trainees now also come from 56 universities, up from 40 last year.
Linklaters has brought in an external diversity specialist to assist its learning and development team.
Webster added: “People recognise that there is no identikit of a commercial lawyer out there and firms have good initiatives to bring in people from different backgrounds. There needs to be a cultural change — it is not just about getting people into the profession, it is about them making partner and staying there.”
The Law Society has also introduced measures in response to the lack of diversity within the profession. Last month it launched a black minority ethnic forum, bringing together the leaders of groups including the BSN, the Association of Muslim Lawyers and the Society of Asian Lawyers.
Additionally, together with BT and the Society of Asian Lawyers, it is working on a diversity charter for the legal profession. The charter, which will set out best practice standards for law firms, already has the support of a number of FTSE 100 companies and is due to be published over the next few months.
Simmons & Simmons projects and diversity officer Mary Gallagher told Legal Week: “More and more firms are waking up to the benefits of a diverse workforce. It is also about inclusion. People need to feel like they are welcome and that they belong.”
Are law firms' diversity policies making a difference in the City? Click here to have your say.
I think it's great that all these firms are making an effort. But why is it such hard work to find diverse people? Why don't the HR team responsible for employing a largely diverse security and catering team swap with the HR recruiting team looking for diverse trainees? Easy.
Will there also be a WSN?
There already is a WSN - it just doesn't go under that name.
Yup, its called the Law Society.
Aren't we just in danger of partitioning the profession by setting up so many smaller sub-groups? Black solicitors, LGBT solicitors, women solicitors, differently-abled solicitors, Christian/Jewish/Muslim/Hindu solicitors, left-handed solicitors, celibate solicitors, northern solicitors, welsh solicitors....
The fact that we're all trying to level the playing field becomes meaningless if special interest groups claim to be the only ones who can represent the opinions of people who have only one other characteristic in common with one another. I find the implication rather patronising that my interests (as a woman) could only be represented by another woman - because clearly we're all identical. Surely it is the same for solicitors who happen to be black?
Is their blackness their defining quality? Do 'black solicitors' really have more in common with each other than with anyone else?
I work as an associate in a magic circle law firm and am an ethnic minority. Anecdotally, it seems a very ethnically diverse place and I feel there is no discrimination at work, nor in recruitment.
I am a fee earner in a magic circle law firm and an ethnic minority too. In as much as I don't feel any discrimination, i'll have to agree that this is laudable. It brings to the forefront the fact that there are still issues in the attrition and retention of ethnic minorites in law firms and gives them the opportunity to do something about it.
Most of us out in the real world, certainly in high street firms, know how tough things are these days. Survival not diversity is the keyword for most us us. It's a shame though that minorities feel the need to band together to further their interests. This is not the way for anyone to make progress. Throw yourselves heart and soul into the host culture, then doors will open. Go on, try it.
To the last poster, I'd say your comments are verging on very dodgy territory, racially. Of course white people band together, it's just that it's usually called networking. There's nothing wrong or strange about black lawyers forming networks to support each other and perhaps collectively further their careers. The white guys have been doing it for ages.
To the person who posted their comment on 5 Sept under 'anon'...Do you mean like in the days of slavery? Maybe that's what you're referring to... yes? We threw ourselves heart and soul into the host's culture and and look where it got us. Is that what you mean? Yes indeed, that was the real world and, no thanks to comments and opinions like yours, still the real world!
We'll all be lucky to have jobs in five years' time, let alone worry about diversity or special interest groups.
Much recruitment has stopped, particularly in property and related fields. Many of us - black, white or whatever - will have to accept reduced expectations in pay and prospects. So let's please pull together to meet the challenge. We're all of us in this together.
It is becoming worrisome, this 'every man to your tribe' phenomenon. I, however, will add the unwritten and unofficial dislike for the minority lawyer compelled to take this unfortunate approach. Why is it not good enough for a lawyer to be duly regarded for his competence and never for his race? I'm a black Nigerian lawyer who believes that joining a tribe of lawyers under than the state or country Bar or practice section should be discouraged. Very soon the Muslim lawyer will reason differently from the Jewish lawyer, but our profession does not have room for the basic elements of a simple contract to be varied. Law applies across the board and across tribes, therefore it just doesn't makes sense to think one will get any advantage from belonging to a tribe of lawyers. A good lawyer that keeps on being good will eventually gain the deserved professional recognition, no matter what his race, and the same goes for a bad lawyer. We all must be subject to the same standards and we must all rise and fall by the same standards.
I think this is good, as this could encourage people from all walks of life and ethnicities to work in high-profile jobs.
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