Aiming for equality

Janet Paraskeva urges solicitors to fill in a Law Society questionnaire and explains how the form should help foster equality and diversity in the profession

Every practising solicitor, registered foreign lawyer and registered European lawyer will shortly receive a questionnaire from the Law Society.

Few people enjoy spending time filling in forms, so we thought at least an explanation of the purpose of this exercise and the importance of getting as significant a response as possible would be appropriate.

The Society wants to provide each of its members with an increasingly focused, relevant and personalised service.

To achieve this, we need to develop a more direct relationship with lawyers and improve our understanding of their particular interests.

This will also help us not to distribute material which is of no interest.

The data provided by this questionnaire will be invaluable in developing this better, more targeted service.

You will be able to tell us whether or not you want to receive information from those groups and sections recognised by the Society, such as the Local Government Group, the Association of Women Solicitors, or the probate, law management and the property sections.

The exercise will also improve the Society's understanding of solicitors' ethnic origins and, for the first time, provide information on levels of disability.

We already have information on gender and age and this is not classified as sensitive by the Data Protection Act.

Data on ethnic origin and disability are classified sensitive.

We are committed to promoting equality and diversity, both within the profession and within the Law Society itself.

To make progress, we need to improve our understanding and awareness of how issues and policies affect different groups, such as black and minority ethnic groups, women, older and younger solicitors, and people with disabilities in the profession.

We are legally obliged to implement the various pieces of anti-discrimination legislation, such as the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000.

The latter Act requires us to ensure that we do not discriminate on grounds of race while undertaking our regulatory duties, and that we have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination and promote equality of opportunity and good race relations.

It is important that we monitor and analyse the impact of our policies to be certain that we are fulfilling our obligations.

We also need to be able to measure and evaluate our progress in achieving equality.

Regular monitoring can help us judge whether or not we are making a difference.

A first and essential step is to collect data to help us to answer such questions as whether ethnic minority solicitors face more regulation than their white counterparts.

Are women solicitors leaving the profession in greater numbers than their male colleagues? Are disabled solicitors being discriminated against in making progress within the profession?

These questions have been raised by members of the profession, but we cannot yet answer them with any precision.

This information will also help to highlight areas of potential discrimination and disadvantage and enable us to investigate the reasons for them.

This will mean that we can focus on areas of concern and take appropriate action where necessary - making more effective use of resources.

I am aware that collecting data on people's ethnic origin is, for some, a sensitive issue.

We are asking individuals to define themselves into categories which may not describe their identity.

Some people have concerns and suspicions about how the information will be used.

The issue of which categories to use is complex.

There is no single agreed set of categories and probably never will be.

For our purposes, we have chosen to use the categories used in the 2001 census.

This complies with advice from the Commission for Racial Equality and will allow us to benchmark against the only nationally available demographic data on ethnicity.

As to how we will use the information, I can assure you that the information will be kept in strict confidence.

Only aggregated and anonymised data would ever be published, to help us identify trends and enhance understanding of the impact on equality and diversity of our activities and how discrimination and disadvantage can manifest itself.

We would use information about you only for the purposes that you have permitted.

Of course, this monitoring exercise does not cover all of the issues.

There will soon be further legislation, prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, age and religion.

We are considering the potential implications of this legislation to see whether and how we will need to extend the monitoring arrangements.

Collecting data and monitoring information is not the whole story.

It is only a first step towards implementing the equality and diversity strategy and framework for action.

The critical issue is how we use the information to ensure that our policies, practices and procedures do not discriminate and are used to promote equality of opportunity and diversity.

These are compelling reasons for monitoring.

Solicitors repeatedly tell the Society they want a professional body that more closely reflects their concerns and interests.

We can achieve that only if we have a clear picture of what those concerns and interests are.

The questionnaire is just one step - but a significant one - towards enabling us to provide that more personalised service.

Janet Paraskeva is the chief executive of the Law Society