A recent report on diversity in the legal industry by Bolt Burdon Kemp found that only 29% of partner roles in large firms are held by women – despite women making up 47% of the workforce.
Further findings in the report demonstrate that the legal industry is falling short in equality when it comes to three other key demographics:
- Disability– only 3% of lawyers report being disabled in comparison to 19% of the working population. What’s more, the Junior Lawyers Division Resilience and Wellbeing Survey in 2019 found that 48% of junior lawyers reported experiencing mental ill-health.
- Ethnic minorities – only 19% of lawyers in 2019 were from an ethnic minority background. The proportion of ethnic minorities also falls drastically as the size of the firm increases. In larger firms, only 8% of lawyers are Asian and only 1% are Black – yet they make up 27% and 8% of 1-partner firms respectively.
- Sexuality– only 3% of lawyers identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual, in comparison to 7% of the British population identifying as such. Furthermore, 3% of partners in larger firms are gay men while only 1% are gay women – showing there’s a gender imbalance at play too.
Read the full report here.
