Earlier this year, The College of Legal Practice ran a webinar on social mobility and graduate recruitment to share good practices and advice on how to improve social mobility within graduate recruitment. This National Inclusion Week 2023 we've put together this detailed article capturing the themes and main takeaways on how to enable social mobility in the legal sector.
Overview
Social mobility in law firms
What do we know about social mobility in law firms? Puneet Tahim explained the work Rare does with its contextual recruitment system. This gives graduate employers more context about applicants. It asks questions you would typically see around social mobility, such as if an applicant was eligible for pre-school meals, attended a bottom 10th percentile school, spent time in care, held refugee or asylum seeker status, worked to support themselves, or was a carer. The platform is now used by 82 UK law firms and indicates that about 36% of their applicants are social mobility candidates.
Takeaway: Since a third of applicants came from disadvantaged backgrounds, relatively, the legal sector is doing better than a lot of other industries at encouraging social mobility.
The profession is changing – but not fast enough
It was noted that ten years ago, social mobility was rarely mentioned in law firms. It was also common, for instance, for firm application forms to ask if candidates knew someone at the firm. Today’s firms are alive to the fact that things need to be done differently.
The idea of recruiting solely from certain universities is also viewed as unacceptable across the board now, and there’s a lot of investment in outreach. Firms are also removing elements like where someone went to school. “It’s very positive,” said Alice Kinder “but it doesn’t mean that diversity is necessarily translating through into the senior ranks. Research in the last year showed that on average people from lower socio-economic backgrounds take a year and a half longer to reach partnership.”
The takeaway is that the profession has changed a lot over the last decade, but there’s no room for complacency.
Outreach and Attraction To The Legal Profession
The panel agreed that to help nurture social mobility it’s necessary to cast the recruitment net more widely. This can be done using virtual engagement, for instance virtual work experience – which might mean giving free access to experiences that help potential candidates understand different aspects of legal skills. This can help everyone regardless of background.
In the same vein, Tom Lyas at Browne Jacobson now runs careers events online. This way the firm can target social mobility cold spots and has a wider geographical reach, without making a significant financial investment. Browne Jacobson also partners with an external partner to extend its reach.[1]
Firms also need to appeal to a diverse range of potential applicants. In that regard, Tom noted that one of the best things he’d ever done to attract people to Browne Jacobson was to not talk about Browne Jacobson, “but to showcase the profession instead.”
The takeaway is that law firms need to do more outreach – which means extending communications activities beyond the usual channels, forums and partners.
Recruitment Selection Process
The panel felt that long application forms can be a barrier to social mobility because they disadvantage time poor candidates, for instance, those with a job to go to or carer responsibilities. Overlong application forms can be a significant hurdle to social mobility.
Firms should also base recruitment decisions on data. Contextualised recruitment looks at two separate things: disadvantage and academic performance. The underlying premise is that someone who gets three Bs when the school average is three Cs is achieving more than someone who gets three Bs when the school average is three As. This is a powerful metric. Also, law firm partners are fans of data, so this kind of information can, at a minimum, add nuance to the use of academic benchmarks.
In addition, it’s good practice to implement an applicant tracking system that keeps track of who is applying and where they’re from. This can be crossed referenced against where the firm advertises.
Interviews
When it comes to interviews firms need to ask themselves: “What are we looking to assess and are we assessing it in the best way?” Also: “What levels the playing field?” With that in mind, some firms are considering sharing interview questions in advance, because, although there’s a desire to test the ability of people to think on their feet, there may be a better way to do that. Also remember that some candidates have been prepped to answer interview questions in ways that others don’t have access to.
Meanwhile, phone interviews may be a better way to go. They contribute to social mobility by removing concerns around the visual environment and what to wear; by reducing the travel and time costs of face-to-face; and by increasing the number of interviews it’s physically possible to conduct.
Hence Tom Lyas has adopted phone interviews at Browne Jacobson, done via 20 to 35-minute calls.[2] They provide the opportunity to probe and prompt to get proper answers – unlike pre-recorded video interviews – and for the firm to sell itself as well. His team members are able to conduct up to 50 phone interviews per week each. “It’s an almighty undertaking for my team,” Tom said, “but it has been game changing.”
For in-person interviews, Jane Waddell suggests doing a short vodcast explaining what the interview will be like to help unconfident candidates unused to ‘corporate’ environments. “Many law firm reception areas are designed to strike awe into clients,” she said, “but can also be hugely intimidating for interviewees.”
The takeaway is that attention needs to be paid to every element in the recruitment selection process that can disadvantage social mobility applicants.
The Impact of The SQE
Qualifying Work Experience
It’s probably too early to see the full impact of the SQE, but we know the biggest shift is in qualifying work experience. Because this can now be peppered throughout the training period it’s got rid of the traditional bottleneck created under the LPC when students were all looking for a training contract at the same time. Although, only time will tell if it’s pushing the bottleneck further down the line.
Attainment gaps
Meanwhile, various reports have highlighted some attainment gaps. Particular groups of candidates are struggling more with the SQE than others, including Black British candidates who are not performing as well at present.
A report from the University of Exeter suggests that some of the gaps might be caused by positive and negative experiences students have had in their legal education journey, as well as the students’ lack of confidence in how much they think they'll succeed in the profession and their belief that the profession is elitist. Another factor for candidates who've performed less well in the SQE is their personal experience of rejection and discrimination.
The takeaway is that in theory the SQE has a huge amount of potential to equalise opportunity, but support needs to be provided to ensure equity.
Career Development and Support
In the final topic discussed, the panel considered the factors that influence career progression and success. One is that in a world where hybrid working has become commonplace, young lawyers may not be getting the supervision, training and mentoring they need, not just to be a lawyer, but to learn about the world of work. This is particularly important for social mobility groups who might have had less exposure to office environments.
Another stumbling block is that in some firms it’s not always obvious what it takes to become a partner and unless you understand the options, it may be difficult for individuals to navigate a successful pathway through the firm.
Lastly, and especially with social mobility groups, soft skills as much as technical skills can be important when it comes to getting to the highest ranks in a firm. This includes influencing, presentation, networking and business development skills and the capacity to build a personal brand. As such, mentoring and coaching can really help young lawyers from disadvantaged groups to see what they can attain and how they can attain it.
The takeaway is that social mobility doesn’t stop once applicants have been recruited. It’s necessary to be continually vigilant around the factors that influence successful career development for young lawyers from all backgrounds.
Webinar panellists:
- Alice Payne, Head of Business Development & Marketing and EDI Lead at the College of Legal Practice
- Puneet Tahim, Senior Manager of Strategic Development at Rare, a diversity consultancy that focuses on social mobility and race, where about 50% of the client base is law firms
- Jane Waddell, Head of Curriculum Design and Development at the College of Legal Practice
- Alice Kinder, an employment lawyer and Senior Associate at Bexley Beaumont, President of the Birmingham Law Society, Chair of its Social Mobility Subcommittee and a social mobility ambassador for the Law Society of England and Wales
- Tom Lyas, Head of Resourcing and Co-leader for Social Mobility at the law firm Browne Jacobson
[1] Browne Jacobson partners with Young Professionals, see: https://young-professionals.uk/ It has over 4,500 schools on its database and can reach 50,000+ student followers.
[2] Tom works with the diversity recruitment agency Amberjack, see: https://www.weareamberjack.com/
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