Managing and promoting diversity

We have a dedicated partner champion for diversity issues and members of the human resources team who work on diversity issues day-to-day.

We run bi-monthly "Diversity: What it Means to Us" workshops which all new employees attend and to which all existing employees are strongly encouraged to come.

We are members of the Law Society Equality and Diversity Forum, which two of our partners regularly attend.

We support the City Solicitors' Educational Trust (CSET) in a new education project reaching out to a wider range of universities in a new diversity drive. Along with a number of other major law firms, we are helping to finance a new summer school project which aims to encourage students from a wider range of universities to consider a career in law. One of our partners is a member of the CSET management committee.

We have an internal lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender ("LGBT") network named 'Out 'N' About'. Chaired by Darren Stolzenberg, a partner in the Funds and Indirect Real Estate team, and with members from across the firm (partners, associates, trainees and support staff), the network is committed to nurturing a tolerant working environment. For further information about the network please download Out 'N' About.

We are also a member of Stonewall's Diversity Champions programme, Britain's good practice forum in which employers can work with Stonewall and each other to promote LGB equality in the workplace.

We are a member of the Employers' Forum on Disability. The Forum has spearheaded many initiatives that encourage businesses to work with disabled people, whether as employees, customers or simply fellow citizens. We are also a member of the Employers' Fora on Age and Belief.

We are supporting the Social Mobility Foundation, a registered charity which is working to secure internships in major private and public sector institutions for high achieving A level students from low income backgrounds. The Foundation is unique and innovative in that it brings bright young people into contact with world-class employers and careers to which they might not have normally had access. We think it is very important that we play our part in helping young people, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, to understand more about what it takes to work in a professional services firm such as ours.

We work with Young Enterprise on their "Learn to Earn" programme at a local school. The programme is designed to introduce students to the benefits of education through training on the relationship between education, career options and learning personal economic skills.

We have also signed up to the Law Society's Diversity Charter.