UK law firm collective increases ethnic minority partner representation

The representation of ethnic minority partners at the eight firms that established the UK’s first cross-firm collective aimed at tackling racial underrepresentation in the legal sector has improved since the group's inception. This represents an average increase across the firms of three percentage points.

This news marks the three-year anniversary of Legal CORE (Collaboration on Race and Ethnicity) launched in 2021 by founding firms A&O Shearman, Clifford Chance, Freshfields, Herbert Smith Freehills, Linklaters, Macfarlanes, Norton Rose Fulbright and Slaughter and May. From November 2024, existing chair firms Slaughter and May and Norton Rose Fulbright will pass on leadership of the initiative to Clifford Chance and Linklaters.

Since its inception Legal CORE has grown to 44 law firm members, all focused on the retention and progression of ethnic minority talent. Half of these members now publish ethnicity targets to further drive their commitments to tackle underrepresentation including associate, trainee and business services populations.

Over the last three years, Legal CORE has driven collective action and engaged with hundreds of individuals across the legal sector through various events and forums. This includes a series of leadership events to encourage frank and open peer-to-peer dialogue featuring guest speakers such as business psychologist and diversity specialist, Professor Binna Kandola OBE discussing “What is racism?”; five best practice forums run for Diversity and Inclusion practitioners on topics such as ‘Effective reverse mentoring’ to spark insightful discussion and share collaborative best practice ideas; and interactive Think Tanks which provide an opportunity to for grassroots engagement with supervisors and managers to crowdsource solutions to D&I challenges.

Outside of the legal sector the collective has partnered with Rare Recruitment by funding its Hemisphere Education training programme in over 60 schools across England and Scotland. This is an expansion on work that many member firms already do to support local school students with meaningful employability and careers opportunities. The training for teachers aims to improve racial literacy to create better outcomes for Black students.

From 27 November, Linklaters Partner, Andy Vickery and Clifford Chance Partner, Simeon Radcliff will become the new chairs of Legal CORE, taking over from Slaughter and May Managing Partner, Deborah Finkler and Norton Rose Fulbright Chair of Europe, Middle East and Asia (EMEA), Farmida Bi. At a practitioner level, Steering Group Co-Chairs Uzma Hamid-Dizier, Director of Responsible Business at Slaughter and May and Joanna Harris, Head of Responsible Business and Wellbeing, EMEA at Norton Rose Fulbright will hand their roles over to Louisa Awolaja, Senior Manager Global Race Strategy at Linklaters and Nina Goswami, Head of Inclusion UK at Clifford Chance.

Farmida Bi commented:

“Legal Core has been a vital tool in improving ethnic minority representation in law firms and I am delighted to have been its co-chair in its first three years. It has helped to raise the importance of race as a diversity issue at the most senior levels in both law firms and at client organisations, resulting in strategies which have helped to drive change. It has been great to share best practice and to encourage innovation across the sector, resulting in meaningful improvement, although there is still much work to be done.”

Joanna Harris commented:

“It has been great to collaborate and innovate with the eight founding firms of Legal CORE to address ethnic minority representation across the legal sector. Together we have seen tangible progress and I look forward to continuing to work with the steering committee to build on this momentum in the future and to further increase the impact of this important work”.

For more information, visit the Legal CORE website.