Diversity plan targets City for more ethnic minority lawyers

CONSORTIUM: push to increase training prospects for students across the profession

A scheme to help ethnic minority students gain a first foot on the ladder into the legal profession - especially in the City - is to be launched later this month.The Diversity in Law programme - a joint initiative between the Law Society, charity Global Graduates, the Department for Education and Employment, and the London Development Agency - is supported by a mix of large and small law firms, including Freshfields, Lovells, DLA, Denton Wilde Sapte, Olswang, Finers Stephens Innocent and Webster Dixon, as well as the Government Legal Service.

The programme aims to improve the chances of a successful career in the law for people from a range of backgrounds, concentrating mainly on ethnic minorities, but also covering groups such as mature students.A specific early focus of the programme is to increase the diversity of recruits in City firms.Diversity in Law will involve promoting contact between degree students and law firms, providing guidance for young people intending to go into a legal career, research on ethnic minority school leavers and law students, and customised training from the College of Law to help graduates obtain training contracts.It is hoped that the programme will help remedy the problemsethnic minority students face intrying to enter the legal profession.Latest Law Society research shows that last year, 22% of legal practice course students were from an ethnic minority background.

However, ethnic minority students held just 16% of available training contracts.Freshfields' graduate recruitment partner, Hugh Crisp, said the programme was not about positive discrimination.

But he added that he hoped it would encourage firms to offer work experience and summer placements to increase ethnic minorities' chances of getting a training contract.'It is recognised that law firms have to recruit only on the basis of merit in order to prosper,' Mr Crisp explained.

'The intention is to identify people who have the ability to be lawyers of the quality required and to give them the opportunity and the confidence to realise their potential.'See Editorial, page 16Paula Rohan