Committed to change

Changing the culture of an organisation is easy to talk about and difficult to do - but that is the task the Law Society has set itself in terms of promoting equality and diversity, writes Janet Paraskeva

This week the Law Society's Council fully committed itself to playing a leading role in eliminating discrimination and promoting equality of opportunity and diversity in all its activities as a regulator, a representative body and an employer.

Since the council first looked at a draft framework for action in January of this year, a wide range of specialist and minority groups, local law societies and other key stakeholders have been consulted.

The business risks facing the Society have been considered, the seriousness of the Society's role in meeting its legal responsibilities under anti-discrimination law have been acknowledged and resources have been allocated to ensure that the strategy is implemented.

It is a strategy that will bring about change throughout the organisation and one that addresses the Law Society's role as a regulator, as a representative body and as an employer.

It also addresses the governance arrangements of the Society, for if an organisation is not committed from the top then any chance of fundamental change is seriously in doubt.

However, the Society's leadership has committed itself to this work.

As David McIntosh ended his presidential term last week he reminded an annual general meeting of the work to which the Society had committed itself since adopting its three-year corporate plan in December 2001.

In taking office the Society's first woman President, Carolyn Kirby, restated her position.

She said: 'I also look forward to leading the Society's important work in promoting equality and diversity.

In particular I will be keen to progress the Society's plans to launch a diversity access scheme, helping talented young people who might otherwise face obstacles, to become solicitors.'

So what does it all mean? Fine words on paper are not too difficult to draft.

Meetings and round-table discussions are fairly easy to organise.

But changing the culture of an organisation, if not a profession, is much more daunting.

And that is the task that the Society has set itself.

As a regulator the Society is subject to a new general duty at public law, to have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination and to promote equality of opportunity and good relations between people of different racial groups.

In line with this duty, all aspects of the Society's work in legal education, in writing the rules, setting ethical standards and in handling complaints, discipline and compliance is being reviewed.

The Society will ensure that the widest range of young people have equal access to opportunities entering the profession; that obstacles to progression within the profession facing disadvantaged groups are lowered; and that solicitors falling short of good practice face stiff sanctions.

As a representative body, there is much work to do.

The composition of the Society's council is changing - 25 seats are now held by women and five by members of black and minority ethnic groups.

The Association of Women Solicitors and the Group for Solicitors with Disabilities have specialist seats and there are two specialist seats representing black and ethnic minority solicitors.

However, it will only be when all council seats attract the broadest range of nominations that the Society's ruling body will be fully representative.

The systems now in place to monitor the profile of all the Society's corporate governance structures, including the council, boards and committees, is likely to show that much work is still needed to achieve greater diversity.

But the Society is committed to bringing this about.

As an employer, monitoring arrangements are already in place, and already progress is being made.

Some 68% of the Society's staff are women, 44% at management level; 13% are from black and minority ethnic groups, 9% at management level.

But again there is more to do.

For example, we would like to increase the numbers of employees with disabilities; at present only 1.02% of our staff are registered disabled.

Therefore, we will be setting targets for recruitment and progression for staff with disabilities and minority categories.

We are beginning to make progress and we are certainly not frightened of having that progress independently evaluated.

Indeed, we will shortly embark on an a system of external monitoring of our strategy to make sure that our actions are having a real impact.

In the autumn we will be holding the next of our open days for young people - young people from a wide variety of backgrounds and from different black and minority ethic communities.

And we will follow this with the launch of our diversity access scheme with an increased number of work placements for young people to experience what a job in the law might be like, with a mentoring scheme to which young people and schools can refer for advice, and with a scholarship fund that we have already kick-started with 150,000 from our training budget.

We hope that when the scheme is launched that firms will contribute to the fund and help us to provide as many scholarships as possible available to the brightest and best of these young people.

There is much to do and we will not be daunted by the size of the task.

We will work, regionally and at a national level to make sure that the commitment from the Society on behalf of the profession manifests itself in real change.

Janet Paraskeva is the Law Society Chief Executive