In a letter sent out to senior managers this week, the BSN notes how the tragedy of George Floyd’s murder in the US has led to a surge of ‘courageous conversations’ in workplaces around the world. It calls on firms to build accountability into their diversity initiatives and sets out five points of action.
First, metrics and accountability. Black lawyers make up three per cent of the profession. The BSN advocates collecting data and monitoring ‘racial diversity through the employee life-cycle from recruitment to promotion, attrition (for example, by holding exit interviews) and remuneration, including ethnicity pay gap reporting’. It urges firms to implement targets on recruitment and progression, and calls on in-house legal teams to exercise their purchase power to demand their panels of external law firms invest in black lawyers.
Second, according to the BSN, attrition levels are higher for black lawyers than any other group, particularly in the step from trainee to associate. It suggests that offering more high-profile assignments, client opportunities, secondments and mentoring could help tackle this issue. Third, black lawyers are under-represented when it comes to senior promotions―Solicitors Regulation Authority figures from 2017 showed that only one per cent of partners at large law firms are black.
Fourth, in terms of culture and leadership, the BSN urges law firms and organisations to ‘call out bias and micro-aggressions when they arise and uphold a zero-tolerance policy for discriminatory behaviour, such as racist bullying and harassment (whether covert or overt). Introduce mandatory anti-bias, anti-racism and inclusion training for all staff’ and hold leaders to account for progress on racial diversity’.
Fifth, firms and organisations can also make a social impact by offering career insight events and work experience to local state schools, providing bursaries and scholarships for black candidates from underprivileged backgrounds, and through pro bono work.
For more information about the work of BSN, visit www.blacksolicitorsnetwork.co.uk or email executive@blacksolicitorsnetwork.org.
