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07 July 2023
Issue: 8032 / Categories: Legal News , Profession , Career focus , Diversity
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NLJ this week: Government Legal Department tears down socio-economic barriers

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Government lawyers should reflect the society they serve, Susanna McGibbon, Treasury Solicitor and Permanent Secretary to the Government Legal Department, writes in this week’s NLJ.

McGibbon, who is the second female Treasury Solicitor, reflects on her own ‘culture shock’ on starting pupillage in London as the first person in her immediate family to go to university. She sets out the Government Legal Department’s action plan to increase access and improve social mobility. In particular, she wants to ensure socio-economic background is not a barrier to starting a legal career.

McGibbon writes: ‘I believe we achieve this by integrating principles of fairness and inclusion into everything we do—from recruitment to training and career development.’ 

Read more on social mobility in government here.

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Osbornes Law—Alex McMahon, Andrew Middlehurst & Harriet McMorrin

Osbornes Law—Alex McMahon, Andrew Middlehurst & Harriet McMorrin

Homegrown hat-trick: Osbornes Law promotes three former trainees to partner

mfg Solicitors—Sarah Bradford

mfg Solicitors—Sarah Bradford

Partner arrival boosts law firm’s growing real estate team

Freeths—David Smith

Freeths—David Smith

Freeths secures major tax hire with appointment of David Smith

NEWS
The Supreme Court has clarified the scope of a director’s duty, in a case where a chairman’s good intentions went awry due to the pandemic
Digital fraud is ‘baffling policymakers, investigators, prosecutors and enforcers’, leaving ‘a massive justice gap’, the author of a government-commissioned independent review has warned
Richard Lloyd’s independent review of the Legal Services Board (LSB) has delivered a devastating verdict, accusing the super-regulator of having ‘lost its way in recent years’
The House of Commons has passed the Hillsborough Law, in a historic achievement for campaigners, survivors and families of those who died in the 1989 stadium collapse
Judicial statistics show a steady rise in the number of female judges and Asian and mixed ethnicity judges in the past ten years—however, progress in terms of representation has stalled for both Black lawyers and for solicitors
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