Our people and diversity

'To attract and keep as large a share as possible of the best people, we should explore ways of enhancing diversity, flexibility in career planning and ways of working.'
Caroline Stroud, global HR partner, member of our diversity leadership team, CSR strategy group and community and pro bono committee

Our people are our most valuable asset and key to our ability to provide outstanding client service. There are many good reasons to take diversity seriously and broadening the diversity of our people is important to the success of our firm, since we recognise that diversity of cultures, backgrounds, nationalities and ideas improves the quality of our work and enriches our working experience.

We want our firm to attract, develop and retain a representative range of people in terms of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion and belief, age and disability. We are an international firm working for international clients and would like the people who work here to reflect and reinforce this diversity.

To this end, we work hard to ensure we recruit and advance people solely on their ability, to promote equal opportunities and to avoid discrimination and harassment of any kind. Central to this is our commitment to promote equality and diversity in our policies, practices and procedures.

We operate in a competitive environment where the demand for talent is higher than ever. We recognise that we must look for and nurture the best talent and we want to recruit from the widest possible pool to ensure we continue to provide outstanding service to our clients.

We also believe a diverse and inclusive workplace is enjoyable, stimulating and more likely to produce imaginative solutions to problems, both legal and practical.

Diversity training

Training is important to our diversity strategy, beginning with the induction of all new staff. Equal opportunities training is provided to all London staff, in addition to training for new partners, appraisers, interviewers and members of our human resources team. Two-thirds of our partners and other employees in London have completed diversity training. We plan to review our diversity training and introduce it to other offices over the coming months.

Setting our strategy

We have a new head of diversity and a new diversity executive. They are responsible for developing our diversity strategy within the framework of our diversity principles, in association with our global diversity committee, diversity partners in each jurisdiction, and London diversity working group chaired by our joint senior partner, and three London partners with responsibility for diversity.

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