West End firms have a serious diversity problem. Try wearing a Keffiyeh to work and watch the reaction...

"It's important that firms are aware they shouldn't be sending an all white male team to pitch or to act on deals - some firms don't seem to even think about that, which baffles me especially when diverse GCs are instructing them," said a private equity client."

I look forward to the day that you can say, without batting an eyelid or thinking for a moment that you might be saying something straight up racist, that you were baffled by a firm's decision to send a group of black people to speak with you because didn't they realise that you were white and wouldn't find it acceptable to hear from People Like That.

The idea that we can't fairly be expected to do business with people who don't look like us, and that we can openly criticise suppliers for failing to supply someone from our chosen tribe, is a huge step backwards for equality of opportunity and social cohesion. It's so sad to see it bedding in amongst otherwise intelligent people as a misguided way of improving those things. The mantras around it say it's a virtuous path to a brighter tomorrow, but like a lot of supposedly virtuous ideologies before it, it's going nowhere good.

It's like watching the Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly in slow motion.

"West End firms have a serious diversity problem. Try wearing a Keffiyeh to work and watch the reaction..."

What do you mean by that?

Could you be a bit more specific about the 'problem' you are trying to point out here?

What, or who, are you trying to say is too prevent at West End Firms exactly? Why so circumspect?

Any diversity policies out there that have brought in some working class accents?

@ Anon 8:34

You are correct, to a large extent, but it also shows a serious lack of savvy for a modern firm to send a gaggle of middle-aged white blokes to an organisation that may be unimpressed with such a cohort. 

As with most aspects of the business of law, the trick is largely about playing to the room. If the client wants a "diverse" - whatever that means to them - panel, then send them one. If they don't, don't worry about it. Clearly the GC that made those comments felt wronged for whatever reason, so if you want their business, don't make them feel like that.

I was once looking to get involved in a delegation to an African country to speak with potential merger partners. Despite already having offices in sub-Saharan African, my firm was proposing that the delegation would be entirely white European males based in Europe, with one female (who was not actually employed by the firm but was a local consultant). I asked why we were not including some of our colleagues from our other existing offices in Africa - it seemed like a most obvious thing to do for a variety of reasons - and was astonished to find that such a thought had never crossed anyone's mind. So, whilst you are right in principle - that division along grounds of identity is not good, and tokenism is also not good - there is a still a business case for considering issues of diversity and for, frankly, showing a bit of human intelligence - something that a lot of people in the industry still struggle with.

What is diversity? It means different things to different people.

Some facts:

The most underrepresented tribe in law remains the white working class man. 

The majority of women choose to marry men that earn more than them. The lack of senior women is due to women generally (not always) preferring to reduce their working hours when they have sprogs because they can rely on their higher-earning husbands to provide. Why spend 80+ hours a week at work if you don't need to? Why choose that over time with your children?

To counteract this, firms openly discriminate against men. They hire 60-70% female trainee cohorts because they know they'll lose loads of them. They promote women to partner earlier at lower standards than men in order to improve their diversity stats. 

As a non-white woman, I have now realised what it means when my West London firm partners continually talk about the right "fit" for partnership. If you don't know what that means, then you are not it. If you are serious about career progression, look at the diversity amongst heads of department and senior management. If there is no-one there who looks like you, then give it a miss.

I’m a white middle aged male. I’m friendly and like meeting new and diverse ranges of people. I do not discriminate. I would like to see a fairer world. Why does everyone hate me and tell me that they need to see less of me because I’m white and identify as male? 

Any in house department that seriously instructs a firm based on how many DEI quotas they satisfy rather than how well-suited they are for a particular matter is probably an insufferable place to work.

DEI industry has gone runaway in london city firms. An important role, for sure, but should be a core HR function rather than its own competing agenda. One DEI manager has now become a dedicated team of 4 at my firm, rivaling the core HR team. Takes a week to get a response on any HR query but we're piling resources into bi-monthly drag pub quizes instead.. Employee policy now requires DEI eLearning courses to be passed which necessitate commitment to "trans women are women" mantra etc, which seems far too contested and controvresial to just assume everyone actually supports (they dont), and yet noone speaks out due to fear of reprocussions, so it grows and grows without challenge. 

I look for diversity of background (whether that is ethnicity, class, education etc) and they have to be damn good at the job; unsurprisingly, most lawyers are. It says a lot when large firms can't be bothered to train and promote a diverse workforce. 

Can we all start talking vocally about how unpleasant and difficult to work with the diversity focused activist GCs, who are more at home in a HR department than in a legal position, are?

It wouldn't be so bad if they were more honest and just admitted that they hate white men.

In practice, D&I seems to largely involve unlawful employment practices to up quotas.  I've lost count of the number of clients who've told me that instructions are to recruit a woman for a new role to please management/the regulator/shareholders 

Ignore the diversity policies - they are window dressing. Always look at who is top of equity - it will tell you all you need to know about the firm's attitude to diversity.

The absolute irony of self-identifying straight white men in these comments whinging about not feeling included in conversations about diversity - while completely failing to engage with any empathy on how people in marginalised groups might feel all. the. time. 

Honestly, would be funny if it wasn't so bloody depressing. Look around you, no-one is excluding you from anything, you're very much still ruling the roost. That isn't changing anytime soon. Creating opportunities that proactively include other groups and backgrounds won't kill you. You might even learn something.

Race and sex are the most visible diversity metrics, but they aren’t the only ones. For example, a client has no way of knowing if the panel pitching to them has disabilities. Unless clients are requiring lawyers to parade their disabilities for inspection. Diversity needs to be looked at using the overall anonymised statistics of a firm, not by a cursory glance at the individuals who happen to be in front of you. 

"Look around you, no-one is excluding you from anything, you're very much still ruling the roost"

No. They literally are. 

Just go read the article again, people are quite open about it. That's the whole point of 'equity' as a policy rather than 'equality'. They're very open in saying they don't want white men.

Don't be surprised when people point that fact out. 

This zany idea that white men in their 20's and 30's can be openly discriminated against, and policies implemented to ensure that is institutionalised, because you think that they have automatic 'Privilege' because of generations past is just pure racism. Which you are ok with and have convinced yourself is fair because it benefits you. They are obviously going to complain about that, people do historically tend to be quite vocal in protesting against racism you see.

Quotas aren't strategies to proactively 'create opportunities' for people, they're policies to restrict opportunities to the Right Kind Of Person.

You can't really wave that away with vague mumbo jumbo about unspecified 'Privilege'.

"Always look at who is top of equity - it will tell you all you need to know about the firm's attitude to diversity"

Are you sure that it won't tell you more about who the firm's actual rainmakers are? 

I.e. the people who bring the work in that keeps these shows on the road.

"As a non-white woman, I have now realised what it means when my West London firm partners continually talk about the right "fit" for partnership"

Does it mean that you don't have any clients of your own yet?

It's virtue signalling, pure and simple. 

The way to improve diversity of thought is to hire more people from working class backgrounds, but ignoring race. 

In my experience there's no shortage of BAME solicitors but most of them attended private schools. Hearing a northern or cockney accent on the other hand is quite rare.

Well communicated Anon.  As a white male partner who grew up in social service care with parents who both abandoned me in their teens, experiencing both mental and physical abuse at the hands of my foster carers, to then seize every opportunity to raise myself from poverty through education and with my firms help, when I then walk into a meeting as the partner I am today, my underprivileged childhood and struggles, rare and diverse in a law career are unseen, yet they are still there.  We judge what we see.  I'm not saying that is wrong but it isn't always right.

My DEI bod tried to stop me hosting an event for a client as the client wanted to bring all men (I didn't know their race, sexuality, physical attributes or social class but these aren't important apparently....)

It wasn't a golf game or a rugby match but an in house training session on a particular point of law - rather dull really 

Anyway I told the DEI bod to f off, ran the event and produced some income from it

We then got reselected for their panel 

My point is performative DEI is nonsense. It needs to be real and much broader than it currently is. Law firms need to report on more than just gender pay gaps and women in partnership - having a load of able bodies public school white women is a step but it's not true inclusion 

How many trainee intakes are 99% white and 95% public school? Most of them 

Most DEI initiatives are woeful because they ignore class, which in the UK (rather than the USA where most of the discourse originates and is a totally different situation) is the biggest driver of inequality. If you are born poor, you will (with few exceptions) die poor - regardless of how talented or hard working you are. This is regardless of sex, gender (eye roll), or race. 

Apart from this - sexism is rampant. It’s not necessarily a “choice” to reduce your hours as a working mother. There is a societal and in most cases familial expectation that you will be the default parent and unless you are earning very well, the childcare costs can necessitate this. The recent tragic death of Vanessa Ford highlighted the pressure a lot of female lawyers who are mothers are under -  expected to parent like they don’t have a job and work like they don’t have children. It’s impossible and women are working themselves into the ground trying to do both. Ime law firms couldn’t give less of a shit and the ones with the loudest DEI initiatives are the worst for this. 

As a sole practitioner, when I meet someone BAME LGBT etc I just black up or wear drag according to my mood that morning. Works a treat.

TL;DR. Please see https://controlc.com/c4fa8aba for criticisms of diversity as a political movement.

Some excerpts:

"Diversity is simply a political theory favored by advocates of identity politics. Its origins still define it. "Science" has ever since been playing catch-up-trying to supply a scientific foundation for what is a political objective. The primary function of the business case is to lend a veneer of scientific respectability to the political program of affirmative action for women and non-whites. The scientific evidence does not support the claims made by advocates of diversity in the workplace." Source: Maitland, I. (2018). Why the business case for diversity is wrong. Geo. JL & Pub. Pol'y, 16, 731, https://www.law.georgetown.edu/public-policy-journal/in-print/volume-16-special-issue-2018/why-the-business-case-for-diversity-is-wrong/

Over the past few years, McKinsey has released multiple studies claiming a positive relationship between DEI and company performance. Indeed, it is frequently credited for having led the wave of diversity initiatives in the West. However, McKinsey appears to have fabricated their data for political and commercial reasons. https://econjwatch.org/articles/mckinsey-s-diversity-matters-delivers-wins-results-revisited

There is no reason other than unprincipled charlatanism and cynical power politics to assert that men, particularly white heterosexual men, and their concerns, are less important or of less value than others. In fact, there is hardly an activity, a facility or a convenience that has not been built by, maintained by and or created by them. As you conduct your day, thank those who enabled: electricity, gas, oil, sewers, nuclear power, wind power, solar power, telephones, mobile phones, the internet and even Tampax. Not to mention the internal combustion engine, electric motors, batteries, satelites, GPS, washing machines, dishwashers, cookers, hobs, hoovers, nylon, elastic, textiles, microwaves, hair dryers, cosmetics, deodorants, vaccines, penicillin, x rays, MRI's, radiotherapy etc.

Bill Clinton correctly diagnosed the poison in May 2024: "Any time you spend all your time trying to settle past grievances or trying to focus on our differences instead of figuring out how to make common calls for a shared future we all want, I think you’re in trouble. We have been through a period when, for any number of reasons, the political rewards of grievance-based politics and [...] have been so immense that nobody could give them up. Knowing all along - including members of the mainstream media, not just the right-wing media - knowing all along that if you didn’t give them up, that you put our system and our country and our kid's and our grandchildren’s future in peril." Source: Former President Clinton at Milken Institute Conference, 8 May 2024, https://www.c-span.org/video/?535466-1/president-clinton-milken-institute-conference, at 4 minutes, 50 seconds.

The majority of women choose to marry men that earn more than them. The lack of senior women is due to women generally (not always) preferring to reduce their working hours when they have sprogs because they can rely on their higher-earning husbands to provide. Why spend 80+ hours a week at work if you don't need to? Why choose that over time with your children?

To counteract this, firms openly discriminate against men. They hire 60-70% female trainee cohorts because they know they'll lose loads of them. They promote women to partner earlier at lower standards than men in order to improve their diversity stats. 

This is a total crock of sh*t. Every woman lawyer and doctor I know (myself included) out earns her husband by a significant margin. It’s such an outdated attitude, that men use to ease their guilt about denying women parity in pay and progression. Law firms do not fiscriminate against men- look at the makeup of any of the partnership for any major law firm and men will put number women. Women work harder & longer for fewer rewards. 

"Women work harder & longer for fewer rewards."

Please can you pick one or the other?

Is it that women work longer and harder than men, but get less in return despite doing the exact same?

Or is it that women don't work as long as men, but that's because they're expected to do so much childcare and so can't possibly commit so much to their employer, but for the sake of fairness they should be paid the same as people who don't have that childcare burden to cope with?

It can't logically be both at the same time.

To "The 1950s want their attitudes back", who asserted, "look at the makeup of any of the partnership for any major law firm and men will outnumber women. Women work harder & longer for fewer rewards."

Not this nonsense again...

TL;DR. There are no pay gaps. It's a dishonest excuse for affirmative action. For more, see https://controlc.com/75511dfe 

Bias-based unequal pay for women is a myth. Women are paid less than men not because they are discriminated against, but because they have made lifestyle choices that affect their ability to earn.  For example: workplace choices that affect women's and men's incomes include putting in more hours at work, taking riskier jobs or more hazardous assignments, being willing to change location, and training for technical jobs that involve less people contact.

The sex pay gap is nonsense (sex, as gender is an invented social construct). It is a made-up figure for those craving victimhood. Men and women make different choices. They therefore get different outcomes. People doing the same job are paid the same: it has long since been unlawful to do otherwise. A small % of women are trying to impose affirmative action and blackmail to force de facto quotas at men's expense, by contriving, fetishising and weaponising victimhood in pursuit of status, resources and self-aggrandizement. As politically unpalatable as this may be to the Woke Taliban, the reality is that given freedom of choice, women make different choices to men:

“84% of working women told ForbesWoman that staying home to raise children is a financial luxury they aspire to...more than 1 in 3 resent their partner for not earning enough to make that dream a reality.” Is 'Opting Out' The New American Dream For Working Women?, Meghan Casserly, Forbes Magazine, 12 September 2012. https://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/09/12/is-opting-out-the-new-american-dream-for-working-women

This is like a zombie debate that refuses to die. If you want to close the 'gender pay gap' then female agency and choice needs to be constrained (that I think is a terrible idea): (a) force women to take degrees in engineering and STEM and not psychology, sociology and other non vocational degrees.; (b) refuse all part time work requests by women; and (c) pass a law that makes it very hard for women to quit their high paying jobs after maternity.

There is a perfectly acceptable way in law firms to see who works the hardest - it's called time recording

Most law firms do their bonuses on this basis (and if they don't, are open for discrimination to creep in) 

From my law firm only, it tends to be the associates from lower social economic classes who do the most hours (regardless of other personal characteristics) 

@16.21 

It’s perfectly possible for it to be both. Women who work full time are seeing slower progress in their careers and pay despite not having cut their hours. Women who cut their hours to accommodate childcare requirements are penalised even further. It’s not, as pp said down to having children and making “different choices” because women who don’t have children also experience discrimination. If this was all a “myth” then how come there are repeatedly cases of sex discrimination (including on the grounds of maternity) which succeed before the ET? 

It’s an unpleasant realisation for a lot of men that a big factor in their success is an uneven playing field, but it’s true all the same. 
 

There is a perfectly acceptable way in law firms to see who works the hardest - it's called time recording

Except it’s a fairly well acknowledged fact that many lawyers pad their time sheets. In fact, if you don’t, it’s likely you are at a disadvantage.

“84% of working women told ForbesWoman that staying home to raise children is a financial luxury they aspire to...more than 1 in 3 resent their partner for not earning enough to make that dream a reality.”

how the hell is this evidence that a pay gap doesn’t exist?! 

"Women who work full time are seeing slower progress in their careers and pay despite not having cut their hours."

What's the evidence for this, please?

Maternity Leave putting the brakes on a professional career is a well evidenced phenomena (and a sensible discussion about what do to about that is a sensible thing to have) but what you're saying here would be really quite remarkable.

Do you have any statistical evidence that women are in fact being systematically discriminated against prior to (and/or in the absence of ever) taking Maternity Leave? Doing the same hours as their equally childless male peers and yet not being promoted equally quickly? Being hired as legal trainees at a greater rate than men, but then suddenly falling out of favour immediately after the hiring process ends? 

I'd be fascinated to see it because that phenomena has, until now, escaped widespread attention. Which seems remarkable really when you think about it.

Indeed, are you sure that evidence for it really exists? Or might this be a case of letting one's imagination run a bit wild in an echo chamber of similar thought that never contradicts the idea that The Patriarchy is keeping one down? Taking an issue specific to working mothers and eagerly spinning it into a more general narrative of full-spectrum oppression?

Anyway, really looking forward to your evidence. Please do let this be something more than vaguely gesturing at the existence of the Employment Tribunal and asking us to imagine that some cherrypicked cases from random industries should be read as evidence of some general trend in Law (while, I assume, ignoring the fact that it also produces cases in which men, and people of any identity characteristic you care to imagine, have been discriminated against too). It'll be such a fascinating read.

Anonymous 24 May 24 17:00 lol the busiest don’t even have time to record their units half the time 

Partner at national firm - its class that is the biggest barrier still. We see less and less working class / northern trainees year on year. 

18.16 your sealioning is so obvious. Presumably you can use the internet if you are posting here, so go and do the research yourself. It’s not a new or unobserved phenomenon. 

Typical man, expecting a woman to do the work for him! 

"your sealioning is so obvious"

Lots to say when playing the victim.

Sudden shyness and churlish harrumphing when asked to substantiate it. "Everyone who challenges me is a 'Sealion'!" 

You know who else can't engage in reasoned discussion and retreats to "doo yore research!" when asked to explain their odd views? Conspiracy theorists.

More in common with them then you might have expected, perhaps?

As a working class white man I’ve been discriminated against my whole career in the legal industry. It’s then an extra kick in the teeth to be openly discriminated against because you fit into a larger category which includes the most privileged people in it. What then happens is that the privately educated men continue to sail through without scrutiny and we end up being the ones filtered out so that women and people of colour can appear in the diversity statistics.

Yes if you look at the makeup of the partnership of any top 50 law firms, the bar, the FTSE 500 CEOs, the Sunday Times Rich List, Westminster, etc it is absolutely bereft of white men. There are so many women and people of colour dominating every aspect, it’s incredible!

I am a GC in the tech sector. I had a firm who spectacularly managed to mis-advise on the statute of limitations in France and immediately follow up with a "here is a our DEI stats and how important is it to you" survey. I mean, let's start with the basics. I want good lawyers first and foremost. Hire the best candidate and diversity will usually take care of itself. If there needs to be a focus on diversity, it should be at the starting level ie university.

There are lots of people making money on the DEI Commissar grift right now. So I don't expect it to go anywhere. 

I don't disagree that pitch teams should be made up of the best people for the job, without tokenism, but even if there was a token woman on every pitch team, there are still significant barriers to women progressing in the industry. For example, I see some of my white middle class male peers getting invited by white middle class male partners to client events to watch rugby/cricket/tennis etc. whereas I know those opportunities for client exposure would never be offered to me because the activity is perceived as a male one. There seems to be a lot of "pairing up"  between junior male associates and senior male partners, who end up doing pitches/BD/client events together, but a junior female associate/ senior male partner BD collaboration is a rarity. 

The reality is, you might be really technically competent and great with clients, but men like to support other men, by and large, and there aren't enough women at the top to mentor all the women further down the chain. And when women do make partner, everyone says "oh she only got it because she's a woman/sucking off the manager", so you don't even get perceived as equal to your male peers once you get to partnership. It's a raw deal all round. If you're not a white middle class man, you are better off making your money and getting out. Less stress and people will have the same amount of respect for you either way.