It is our wish to support our Black and minority group colleagues and friends who are confronting racism and racial injustice. We all must do more to make progress and we continue to come together internally, and with our clients and peers, to drive positive steps in the legal profession and the wider community to defeat racism.
To underline this commitment, we are now signatories to the Race Fairness Commitment.
This is progress in our efforts and determination to effect change within the legal profession, and demonstrates our continued commitment to moving the needle in this area.
The commitment outlines a series of measures relating to the recruitment, progression and retention of Black, Asian and minority ethnic talents throughout our business. This involves collating, monitoring and publishing data, and more importantly taking action to address racial inequality.
The Race Fairness Commitment was launched in July and has been developed by Rare, an organisation that specialises in connecting students from under-represented backgrounds with careers in top organisations. We have already introduced Rare's contextual recruitment system to our graduate programme to deliver a more inclusive recruitment process.
On the commitment, partner Vinod Bange, co-chair of Cultural Diversity, said:
Racism and racial injustice have no place in our world. We all play a crucial role in making progress, and our commitment to working with Rare enables us to find more and better ways to do that. We place diversity and inclusion centrally within our business because we recognise it's the right thing to do – for us, our clients and the communities in which we operate. Beyond our individual roles within society at large, I believe our firm has a duty to effect change within the legal profession. It's through working closely with other organisations that, together, we can continue to collaborate and challenge the prejudice and privilege which stops us reaching our goal of a fairer and more equal society.”
Signing the Race Fairness Commitment will allow us to further our commitment to use our platform, connections and legal expertise to defeat racism and racial injustice. Although a positive first step, we are under no illusion that we need to do more and must avoid complacency, build on our plans, continue to listen and act to effect change.
