Law firms must focus on recruiting ethnic minorities

Law
firms need to look beyond A-level grades and concentrate more on ethnic
minorities as they recruit tomorrow’s lawyers, according to a new report.

The
research by law firm Reed Smith and Longbridge
recruitment consultancy also advised firms to increase their recruitment scope
beyond traditional hunting grounds such as Oxford
and Cambridge
to include less popular universities.

Almost
all respondents from the 100 law firms surveyed said ethnic minorities were
still under-represented in commercial law firms. More than two-thirds (67 per
cent) said non-white lawyers were under-represented, and one in five (19 per
cent) said ethnic minorities were ‘grossly unrepresented’.

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Tim
Foster, managing partner at Reed Smith, said the international operations of
law firms made diversity essential.

Michael Millar