To deliver on our strategic ambitions and targets, we have a range of initiatives and programs. 

Hero

In 2021, 36% of our senior management committee members were women; 33% of our partnership committee members were women; 28% of our partners were women; and 73% of our newly promoted partners were women. 

Actions

  • We began an in-depth compensation gap analysis in 2018, and now do so on an annual basis as part of every year-end partner remuneration process. We conduct a robust review to ensure that we are paying women and men partners making similar financial contributions fairly and equitably.
  • We also conduct an annual pay equity analysis for associates, comparing similar seniority levels and practice groups. We share the results of our analysis with associates and offer opportunity for further discussion.
  • We launched a new program on sponsorship as part of our development program for women who aspire to partnership.
  • We introduced a tool to create transparency in how partners allocated work and partners can review their work allocation data by gender.
  • We reviewed our support for women transitioning to and from parenting leaves and implemented an enhanced process, coaching and resources.
  • We utilize first-round gender-masked applications for partnership and compare initial scores to decisions made at the end of the process.
  • We provided tailored unconscious bias training for our partner compensation committee, highlighting specific biases that can impact compensation decisions.
  • We utilize bias monitors during the remuneration process.
  • We provide targeted leadership development for women, including coaching, mentoring and sponsorship, and we facilitate and strengthen professional networking through our women’s networks and diversity, equity and inclusion committees.
  • We have a progressive Maternity and Parental Leave Policy, as well as a Maternity Leave Coaching Program for all women lawyers where they are paired with an external coach to individually support them in the transitions that come with maternity leave.
  • We encourage peer-to-peer networking and role modelling by storytelling through our WiN Network. The group is comprised of women and men at all levels through the firm and aimed at accelerating gender parity in the firm by creating a forum for discussion, networking opportunities and education and awareness.
  • Our Career Strategies Program (CSP) is a global modular development program for senior associates, aimed at creating a more gender-balanced partnership. It was the first of its kind in the legal sector and when launched internationally in 2010, and in North America in 2015. 
 

race equity

The focus of our Race Equity Strategy is to increase representation, ensure inclusion and create accountability for eliminating unconscious bias. Based on voluntarily disclosed demographic data, we know that at 25% of our people identify as racialized, almost 4% identify as Black, and 3% identify as Indigenous.  

While increasing representation of Black and racialized students and lawyers has been a part of our strategy for a number of years, our focus is also to increase the retention and advancement of Black and racialized lawyers with a goal of seeing more Black and racialized partners in the firm and in our leadership. It is a long-term strategy integrated into all of our people decisions and tracking and leveraging data to hold ourselves accountable for increasing representation, particularly at senior levels. Moving forward, we want to continue to work on identifying and addressing gaps in our race equity strategy, increasing racial diversity through recruitment, and better supporting and retaining racialized employees.

Actions

  • In 2020 we established our Race Equity Council (REC) that plays a consultative role with our Management Committee on our new race equity strategy. Our strategy has three focus areas, which  include: (i) increasing representation of Black, Indigenous and racialized people; (ii) creating accountability for eliminating unconscious bias; and, (iii) demonstrating and supporting inclusion both internally and externally to our firm. 
  • Our REC is working to establish targets and goals related to recruitment, promotion, retention, leadership and succession planning.  
  • We are creating accountability and eliminating unconscious bias by collecting and using data to audit, identify and address unconscious bias in our people processes, such as promotion, retention, work allocation and student recruitment nationally. 
  • We have developed anti-racism resources and expanded our unconscious bias training to include active anti-racism and micro-inequity training. All our lawyers are required to participate in this training and we also offer guidance to clients. 
  • We are collecting data internally across the full spectrum of diversity. This data helped us develop our diversity, equity and inclusion strategy and we now conduct an annual diversity and inclusion survey. We are one of the few Canadian law firms to publish our diversity data on our website.  
  • Our employee resources groups, Origins and the Indigenous Relations Network, support Black, Indigenous and racialized colleagues, to create learning opportunities and relationship building, and to advance key initiatives.

BlackNorth Initiative

We were one of the founding law firm signatories to the BlackNorth Initiative in the summer of 2020. Under the Initiative, we pledge to put greater efforts into creating more racially diverse teams, expand unconscious bias and anti-racism education, and work through the BlackNorth Initiative to attract and retain talent from the Black community. Our Canadian Chair, Walied Soliman, is a member of BlackNorth’s board of directors.

  • In February 2022, we started a four year partnership to contribute $100,000 to the BlackNorth Initiative and related projects.
  • In March 2021, NRFC became one of 12 Canadian law firms that have collectively committed $1.5 million to the groundbreaking Black Future Lawyers Program (BFL), providing operational funding to BFL over the next 10 years. BFL provides support and engagement opportunities to Black undergraduate students who envision a career as lawyers. It was formed by the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in January 2020 in collaboration with the school’s Black Law Students’ Association, its Black alumni, and the greater legal community.  
  • The firm’s Global Charitable Initiative (GCI) for 2021 focused on fighting racism and championing social justice, and our global efforts raised over USD $300,000 for related charities. Canadian efforts supported three charities, including (i) Desta Black Legal Action Fund, (ii) Youth Empowering Parents, and (iii) The Indian Residential School Survivor Society (IRSSS).
  • In 2020, we have expanded our outreach to, and support of, organizations such as: Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers; Black Law Students’ Association; Calgary Black Chambers; Canadian Association of Black Lawyers; Black Female Lawyers’ Network; South Asian Bar Association of Toronto; and Black Future Lawyers.

Our main focus on Indigenous Peoples is on reconciliation through understanding, respect and inclusiveness, as well as attainment of Progressive Aboriginal Relations certification.

We began our Progressive Aboriginal Relations (PAR) journey in 2022 to formalize our ongoing commitment to building and growing purposeful and meaningful relationships based on respect and trust with Indigenous Peoples, communities, and businesses. This was one of the key recommendations of our  Indigenous Relations Network, which focuses on building relationships with our Indigenous communities and providing education and awareness of Indigenous culture internally. As of March 2023, we completed the first year of our PAR journey and have progressed into our second year. 

We are guided by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action to further reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples. We commit to:

  • listening and learning about the unique cultures and histories of Indigenous communities in Canada, and particularly in regions where we work and live;
  • building Indigenous cultural sensitivity and knowledge to ensure an inclusive workplace;
  • retaining Indigenous-owned businesses as our suppliers and vendors, where available;
  • increasing Indigenous representation by attracting, retaining, and advancing talent in our organization;
  • supporting and building long-term relationships with Indigenous organizations; and
  • dedicating pro bono services to Indigenous communities, individuals, and organizations.

 

  • We are committed to creating an inclusive environment for our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI+) people.
  • We have developed and implemented LGBTQI+ inclusive policies and resources, including toolkits to help managers understand the experiences that an LGBTQI+ team member may face and the support they can offer.
  • Our LGBTQI+ and allies network, Pride, celebrated our ten year anniversary in 2022 and focuses on fostering an inclusive and supportive environment for all people within the LGBTQI+ community, both within our firm and among our clients. Pride contributes to our diversity, equity and inclusion agenda by encouraging the recruitment, retention and professional development of LGBTQI+ talent, providing guidance on LGBTQI+ inclusive policies and identifying opportunities to participate in volunteering and pro bono initiatives which support the LGBTQI+ community. Pride has also helped us to develop and strengthen relationships with clients through their own LGBTQI+ networks. 

Trans inclusion policy

  • We support the right for everyone we work with to define their own gender identity and expression, as reaffirmed in our policies such as our dress guidelines.
  • We also recently introduced the option of displaying one’s gender pronouns of choice on personal profiles in our various systems applications like Outlook and Microsoft Teams.
  • In addition to a policy supporting individuals transitioning, we also created a trans-inclusive guide to ensure a supportive work environment for all.  

Our aspiration is to be a disability confident organization and to offer a workplace and a culture that allows people with disabilities to flourish. We have stated a global aim to become a disability confident firm and have a number of initiatives to support this including:

  • Training on arranging and managing meetings inclusively, resources to support open dialogue and a variety of internship schemes to encourage young people with disabilities to consider careers in a firm like ours.
  • Ensuring that our external, online resources such as our website, are accessible and we introduced closed captioning on all our webinars to improve accessibility.
  • Signing the Dear Everybody pledge, committing to incorporate more people with disabilities in various aspects of our branding and promotional materials. 
  • Creating a series of disability-confident videos to support our people to feel confident in interacting with people with disabilities. 
  • Striving to create a culture where mental health is understood without stigma and where everyone responds effectively to mental health problems to reduce the overall incidence of mental health issues and improve the well-being of our people. To that end, our Breathe Network, an employee resource group led by a group of volunteers, promotes good mental health and a healthier workplace by providing a forum for self-expression and support and reducing stigma.

generations

  • We recognize that many of us have responsibilities that require flexibility in our working patterns at different stages of our lives. We are proactive in supporting our people with flexible, remote and hybrid working to enable them to balance in managing all their commitments
  • During the pandemic we regularly surveyed employees to understand priorities and offered options for flexibility or reduced working hours to meet caring and parenting priorities.
  • We launched a Ways of Working approach that promotes continuous dialogue to understand experiences, challenges and successes with agile and flexible working approaches. The policy aims to create a sustainable, high performing and supportive culture where our people are provided with certain flexibility in how, when and where they work. We believe that such flexibility supports firm members to better integrate work and life and enables them to do their very best work in delivering exceptional service to our clients. This approach allows for a greater range of choices in working hours to manage preferred commute times, care responsibilities and personal commitments.