The SRA data is broken down by five main ethnicity categories: Black, Asian, Mixed/Multiple, Other and White. They have also drawn a comparison between those making up the White group, and those making up the Black, Asian, Mixed/Multiple and Other groups which they refer to as the Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups.
The overall proportion of Black, Asian and minority ethnic lawyers working in law firms is 17% (which is an increase of 0.55% but with rounding shows as no change since 2019) and 79% for White groups, no change since 2019. 4% of lawyers preferred not to declare their ethnicity, no change since 2019.
Of the groups making up the Black, Asian and minority ethnic category in relation to the UK workforce:
- 12% are Asian compared to 7% of the workforce – up from 11% in 2019
- 2% are Black compared to 3% of the workforce – no change since 2019
- 3% of are from a Multiple/Mixed background compared to 1% of the workforce – up from 2% in 2019
- 1% of lawyers are from other minority groups compared to 2% of the workforce – no change since 2019.
Overall, 16% of partners are from a Black, Asian and minority ethnic background but significant differences become apparent when we look at the breakdown by firm size:
- 8% of partners in the largest firms with 50+ partners and 9% in firms with 10 to 50 partners are from a Black, Asian and minority ethnic background
- 35% of partners in the smallest firms with one partner and 23% of partners in firms with 2 to 5 partners are from a Black, Asian and minority ethnic background.
Of the groups making up the Black, Asian and minority ethnic category:
- 4% of partners in the largest firms with 50+ partners are Asian and 1% are Black and in firms with 10 to 50 partners, 5% are Asian and 1% are Black
- 24% of partners in one partner firms are Asian and 7% are Black and in firms with 2 to 5 partners 17% are Asian and 3% are Black.
The proportion of Black, Asian and minority ethnic partners in one-partner firms has risen from 32% in 2019 to 35% in 2021 and in firms with 50+ partners it rose from 7% to 8%.
Read the article Law Society Gazette article here.
Read the SRA’s key findings here.
