Responsible business

Diversity & inclusion

We are committed to building a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture where our people can be themselves when they come to work. It's part of our core values as a firm.

"Man and woman talking while holding files and a coffee.

We believe that a diverse workforce and inclusive culture drives innovation, enabling us to deliver the best experience to our people and clients. Our value of "Be Yourself" means our people are encouraged to drive change.

We make sure that this is part of real-life at the firm by treating everyone fairly and equally from our recruitment processes to career development, progression, recognition and reward.

We are working to equip our people with the tools they need to live our values and be the best they can be. Some of our initiatives include:

  • Our dedicated Inclusion Committee champions inclusive behaviours and culture across the firm.  The committee delivers education and awareness raising campaigns throughout the year with a focus on LGBTQ+, race and ethnicity, women and disability.
  • Our trained Allies Champions, who help to embed a speaking up culture across the firm.
  • Our reverse mentoring programme, which brings together colleagues with different levels of experience and helps them to understand different perspectives.
  • Our broad learning curriculum, which includes respect at work and unconscious bias training.
  • Our performance system that encourages regular 360-degree feedback and career conversations.
  • And our Values Awards, where, through nomination, we publicly recognise individuals who live the values in the firm.

We also continue to introduce a range of policies and processes to support our people and give them the flexibility they need to balance their work and home life. These include an agile working approach, leave for fertility treatment, pregnancy loss and dependant care, parental coaching, a wellbeing hub, and many others.

We are focused on developing our talent pipeline so that career development is clear and available to all.  Whether a lawyer, part of Business Services or a partner, development is essential to enabling our people to develop their skills and drive their own careers.  It is key to living the value of "Be Yourself" and to our growth as a firm.

We are also part of Meritas and LAW, two international law networks, and participate in global initiatives, such as the Black Lawyers' Forum and Women's Leadership Congress.

We are members of the Business Disability Forum

Our membership provides us access to toolkits and expert advice on how to make our firm a better place to work. We are committed to filling any gaps and making changes where necessary. We use Business Disability Forum resources to gain an understanding of how to attract more diverse people and hold ourselves accountable for continuing to do so.

Business Disability Forum logo with text creating a disability-smart world together.
Woman holding coffee cup with both hands.

Race Fairness Commitment Charter

We are signatories of the Race Fairness Commitment: a pledge to strive for racial equality within the legal sector by adopting a data-driven approach to ensure fair and inclusive recruitment, development, career progression and pay practices.

Our pledge

Digital pronouns

We have introduced pronouns in email signatures as gender is not always obvious. Those that use pronouns in their signatures remove the guess work and communicate to the recipient that they too can be themselves, one of our core values.

Man and woman in discussion, woman holding pen.