One of our priorities is to create a truly inclusive culture. Our goal is to foster a working environment in which individual differences are respected and valued, and everyone has the opportunity to excel. Achieving our goal remains a significant challenge, but we have made progress in a number of areas over the last year.
We have strengthened our local diversity working groups. Our staff affinity networks have initiated a range of internal awareness and networking activities. We have partnered with our clients and other law firms to celebrate particular aspects of diversity and to engage in discussions on how to address some of the challenges we all face.
Sharing best practice
Creating a diverse and inclusive culture is a key business challenge. We view it as part of our corporate responsibility to facilitate the sharing of ideas and best practice. This year we have organised events on diversity-related issues in partnership with our clients in Amsterdam, Milan, London, Milan, New York, Paris, Shanghai and Warsaw. We have collaborated with clients and other law firms at events focusing on issues ranging from gender and ethnicity to faith and sexual orientation.
In Asia, we are a member of the Diversity and Inclusion in Asia Network (DIAN), which has provided us with the opportunity to share best practice and participate in benchmarking activities on issues of gender and culture. In Italy, we participate on the Board of the diversity organisation Valore D and Parks, which focuses on LGBT equality within the workplace. In the UK, we are one of the founding signatories to the Law Society’s Diversity and Inclusion Charter. We work closely with a broad range of organisations, including Catalyst, Pathways to Law, the Social Mobility Foundation and Stonewall. The New York office has become the first Magic Circle law firm to join the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity, an organisation of chief legal officers from Fortune 500 companies and law firms.
Linklaters was awarded the title Diversity Law Firm of the Year 2010 by the Black Solicitors Network and the Best International Law Firm for Minority Women Lawyers at the European Women in Business Law Awards 2011.
We continue to monitor the diversity of our people where it is possible to do so to track our progress. This year we have extended our UK survey to include questions relating to socio-economic background. The findings help us steer our strategy to provide access to the firm from the widest talent pool and support our commitment to fair access to the legal profession.
Download our latest diversity statistics , and our global policy is available here.
