Lovells rolls out new diversity initiative at London schools

Adding to a different problem

I must admit that I do not know the details of this scheme. However, it seems to me that to simply "encourage young people from a wider socio-economic background to enter the legal profession" is not going to help access in a way that matters. If you are attending an average to below-average school, and have a disadvantaged background (e.g parents uninterested in education), ON AVERAGE attempting to pursue a career in law will only lead to disappointment regardless of how motivated you are. Where private school children are expected to achieve As as standard, state schools expect little more than a C. As they will find out, this makes a huge difference when it comes to finding a job later.

Adding more diverse graduates with weaker grades to the list of applicants for the limited places available after private and Oxbridge educated graduates take the majority of top City jobs is bad for everyone (except law schools).

Better would be: career advice at an early stage (for example stressing the importance of not choosing 'soft' A-levels if wanting to pursue such a career) and other information allowing them to make informed career choices as opposed to simply pedalling a career in law to those students in which law firms will later have no interest.

Miss Havisham -20 Jan 2010 | 17:28

cynical

My issue with this scheme is that they're not motivated by any real desire to make law firms more representative, but are just an HR/CSR box-ticking exercise. Black - tick. Asian - tick. Underclass - tick. Rundown area in east London - tick. Kids who speak like Dizzee Rascal - tick. What would be far more meaningful is going to comprehensive schools in average working and middle class areas where the kids are bright but otherwise unlikely to succeed in a City career because the careers advice is rubbish (I know this from having gone to a state school myself), expectations are lower and their parents, while interested in education, are not the upper middle class/private school sorts with professsional/City connections. These sort of kids could really benefit from these types of schemes and exposure because they have the intelligence and the interest but need the exposure, connections, a confidence boost and a steer in the right direction. But going to a suburb of Watford or Huddersfield doesn't quite have the same appeal for these diversity managers as a Hackney hellhole - where, let's be realistic, the kids are not going to make it at Freshfields.

cynical -20 Jan 2010 | 18:46

Give Hackney kids a chance!

"Cynical" - Please check your facts before going off on one.

For a start, none of the places mentioned in the article are in Hackney.

Secondly, what do you know about what Hackney kids are capable of achieving? I live in Hackney and my kids go to a local school. I take exception to your suggestion that kids from Hackney could never "make it at Freshfields".

Everyone connected with the school is working their socks off to motivate the kids and raise their aspirations and interest from employers of all shapes and sizes is a really important part of this. There are some extremely bright and talented kids who absolutely could make it at a City law firm given the chance.

Finally, just fyi, Alan Sugar, Michael Caine, Steven Berkoff, Phillips Idowu and The Rt Hon. Lord Justice Stanley Burnton - to name but a few - made it from Hackney so I for one won't be betting against a kid from Hackney making it big in a City law firm.

Indignant -21 Jan 2010 | 09:53

cynical

The facts are these: 92% of the population goes to state schols, 8% goes to private school. The 8% is way over-represented in City careers like law so there is an understandable and commendable desire to try and make professions more balanced and representative. I applaud any effort to do that. But these diversity schemes (and it's not just the Lovells one, it's many of them as far as i can see, including my own firm's) take it to the extreme and go to schools in the bottom slice of that 92% - typically schools in poor parts of inner London near the City. But forgetting that there's a huge chunk of bright middle class kids who go to state schools either because their parents don't believe in the concept of private education or who can't afford it, who would really benefit from these schemes. These kids are just as bright as private school kids, often more capable, but don't have the confidence and the connections that a fee-paying education often provides. The problem is that these schools are in ordinary towns and suburbs over the country, not necessarily a few miles from The City of London, and the kids are just as likely to be white and middle class as black and poor. The underlying problem is that diversity initiatives in the corporate world have traditionally tended to focus on race because it's an easier subject to tackle and ignored the far more relevant issues of divides in state/private education and social class.

cynical -21 Jan 2010 | 11:23

Cynical - I was educated at a suburban (but quite rough) London comprehensive. I am a white male from a middle class family but from a working class Irish background. I am now a lawyer working in the City. I agree with everything you have said. You are spot on. There are so many of my old school mates who could have achieved so much more if they had been given a push in the right direction and possibly been given a few contacts. This is not primarily a racial matter. Lots of my colleagues at my old firm were Asian and public school educated and I put them in exactly the same camp as the white, old boy network.

Tim -22 Jan 2010 | 16:19

don't be cynical, cynical

Cynical, I like your evaluation of the key diversity challenges for the legal industry, especially in London. The educational apartheid that exists in the south east of England is a major social issue, much more so than in other parts of the country. However I do applaud what Lovells are doing as an honest attempt to raise the awareness of kids as to what a career in law can mean. Clearly this isn't going to bring about fundamental change. Until that happens, cynical, keep the flame burning.

mature reflector -22 Jan 2010 | 16:57

Completely Agree with Cynical

Thanks Cynical.

I have been waiting a long time for somebody to make that very good point.

All of these diversity initiatives seem to be the new fashion. Constant headlines about who's doing what - but are they actually making a real difference?

Encouraging kids from extremely poor backgrounds, going into some of the poorest schools in the country and rubbing it in just how good a career in law is, is not going to help these kids fund their way through university, self-finance the LPC (and possibly the GDL) and develop the 'City jargon' in order to socialise with the dominant elite already in the profession.

I illustrate your point about the middle classes:

I am white, lower middle class, the first in my family to go to university, but from a fairly average background. I went to a poor state school with zero careers guidance and recently graduated from an ex-poly, of which I attended as a result of the poor A-levels I achieved. When I started university and looked into these so called diversity schemes, I was surprised at the lack of support for people in my situation.

Despite never having met a lawyer and virtually zero contact with professionals, I was not eligible to take part in these diversity schemes because I was not an ethnic minority, and was not in one of the worst schools in one of the worst areas of the country!

What support and guidance is there for people like me?

101 -22 Jan 2010 | 17:50

Ethnic minority average class

I agree with much of the above comments.
I am black and female so for firms that is two boxes ticked, but I am not from the poorest end of London and never have been so fortunate as it does seem like you need to really have struggled to tick the diversity box. That said, I have been through a diversity scheme with some City law firms - one that is very well known and extensively screens students before offering places. In fact I found that I went through a more rigorous application process with this scheme than the other students on the same vac scheme had gone through when applying directly to the firm. My problem is showing how my race has set me back, which it hasn't to be honest - my parents and siblings are all very well educated and have progressed to senior positions in their careers, but not in the legal profession. What was holding me back was - as rightly stated earlier - inadequate careers advice when I was in high school, and lack of contacts in the profession to let me know what it really takes to make it, and for work experience opportunities. It wasn't until I did my A-levels at a good comprehensive school that I realised just how much more focused and driven the students were, having received extensive careers advice and assistance from year 7 until year 13. Diversity is essentially about equal opportunities and should focus less on race and more on what opportunities a person has had access to. It just so happens that many students from ethnic minority backgrounds fall into that category and are significantly under-represented in the City.

Work-in-progress -26 Jan 2010 | 16:57