Mapping Progress: A Comprehensive Study of Diversity Trends in UK Trainee Solicitor Recruitment

Dec 21, 2023

Written By Lewis Ogg

Ensuring diversity is a significant part of legal recruitment. Law firms are committed to creating more diverse workforces, and thus having a more diverse array of perspectives. This article will conduct an analysis of current diversity trends in UK solicitor recruitment, and predict future trends.

The current state of trainee solicitor diversity

There has been a steady change in the demographics of English and Welsh solicitors in recent years, especially when it comes to women and people of colour in the profession. According to The Law Society, the proportion of BAME practising lawyers has increased from roughly 7% in 2001 to 18.1% in 2021. In 2017, the proportion of female solicitors surpassed that of male solicitors, standing at 53% of the total in 2023.

While many of these trends have demonstrated promising growth in recent years, there still remain several significant challenges that need to be overcome. For example, the number of lawyers from lower economic backgrounds decreased from 21% in 2015 to 18% in 2023. However, the proportion of state-school-educated solicitors increased from 59-64% in the same time, showing that improvements in social mobility have been mixed.

Join the AllAboutLaw Diversity programme

Designed to empower diverse aspiring solicitors in the UK, this comprehensive programme offers invaluable insights, practical skills, and networking opportunities to boost your career prospects.

JOIN NOW

Factors influencing diversity in recruitment

Many law firms have attempted to adopt more modern recruitment practices that seek to minimise unconscious bias. This has led them away from the more traditional CV, cover letter, partner interview format. Instead, we’ve seen the incorporation of practices like blind CV review, psychometric tests, and multiple mini interviews. These new methods seek to generate objective, comparable data on candidates and reduce the influence of individual (subjective) judgement.

While these efforts have gone some way to bridging divides, there still remains a rather daunting split when it comes to education. People who attended independent schools, as well as those whose parents worked in professional services, remain overrepresented in legal education. These factors suggest that a primary issue is the lack of access to legal role models. There are multiple ways to address this issue, but firms supporting organisations like Aspiring Solicitors or the 93% club is a good start.

Successful diversity initiatives

In recent years, firms have made considerable efforts to create programmes that directly offer opportunities for groups underrepresented in law. This allows them to engage with the law before the vacation scheme and training contract. One of the biggest programmes developed is the PRIME alliance, which includes 60 firms across the UK and Ireland. These firms are dedicated to improving diversity in their trainee intakes.

Efforts have also been made to make positive interventions earlier in the educational pipeline to mitigate disparity in trainee intakes, before the recruitment stage. There have been a number of schemes to support educational diversity, such as the Law Society Diversity Access Scheme, which provides scholarships to individuals from lower-income backgrounds, or the Snowden Trust, which supports LPC/SQE and Bar Course students with physical disabilities.

Independent institutions that exist outside legal practice or formal education have also emerged as powerful positive influences. The likes of Aspiring Solicitors and 10,000 Black Interns have become social mobility leaders in the trainee application process.

Challenges and barriers

As mentioned above, unconscious bias is a prominent obstacle to equitable recruitment, especially because it is so difficult to account for in the recruitment process. The way that many firms have overcome this is through the adoption of more objective measures in their early application rounds. Perhaps the most important step firms can take to improve their more subjective later rounds is to ensure that there is a diverse panel of recruitment partners and that applicants either have the opportunity to have multiple one-on-one interviews or have panel interviews.

Accounting for socio-economic and regional divisions is also a lasting recruitment problem, but one which is harder to mitigate. Often, social mobility efforts focus on the firm's local area, meaning that areas in London receive considerable attention relative to, say, rural areas of South-West or North-East England. However, with staff and resources, larger collections of firms like PRIME will be well placed to promote a more balanced distribution of access efforts across the country.

Future outlook and recommendations

Technology offers a fantastic opportunity to bridge the access divide within legal recruitment. Remote hiring practices, digital assessments, and virtual recruitment events all present a more accessible alternative to their in-person predecessor,

It is vital that firms allow the ethos of inclusivity to translate to other aspects of the firm. Support should not end after recruitment; firms should make a commitment to continued support through legal journeys to promote equitable progression once in the firm.

Mentorship schemes can be a fantastic opportunity to connect individuals from underrepresented backgrounds with professionals who can give them practical career advice and insights. Many firms and universities run their own mentorship programmes that prospective lawyers can apply to, but many independent organisations also offer mentoring (GROW Mentoring).

Industry collaboration for change

The most impactful and wide-reaching work can be achieved when firms and educational institutions pool their resources. As discussed above, the PRIME network is an incredibly successful example of the work such collaborative projects can have. In future, we might hope to see an expansion of these collaboration projects and the integration of such projects within educational institutions and firms. This will allow for more evenly distributed and well-rounded support.

Conclusion

While there have been some promising trends in recent years, especially with regard to increasing the proportion of women and people of colour in the profession, there is still much work to be done to create a more diverse legal workforce. If we all participate in creating a more diverse legal profession, current and future lawyers can enjoy a diverse and inclusive workplace.

Diversity