Senior litigation lawyer Pauline Campbell, writing in this week’s NLJ, sets out some of her personal experience of diversity and access after 17 years in the legal profession.
Law firms say they want to attract talented candidates, and are taking action on diversity and social mobility, yet progress is slow. Why? Are perceptions standing in the way of progress? What must change?
Campbell, now an award-winning solicitor at the London Borough of Waltham Forest, encountered a series of obstacles en route. She notes law firms are continuing to miss out ‘on talent and profit’ by not taking on graduates from non-professional family backgrounds who attended state schools.
As Campbell writes, ‘barriers are not limited to mere practices and procedures, and also encompass the perceptions of those who work within a profession’.
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