Opportunity knocks

I am writing further to your article on the Diversity in Law programme (see [2001] Gazette, 7 June, 4).

While I maintain any initiative to promote equal opportunities in the legal profession should be encouraged, I have concerns about the reasons why ethnic minority law students do not appear to be making the breakthrough into the profession.

I recognise that not all students will make it through to the profession for a number of reasons.

The main one, I hope, being the merits test - as Hugh Crisp pointed out.

But I was surprised to read Mr Crisp's next comment that the intention of the scheme was 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.' The editorial itself said 'it is about identifying those from the ethnic minorities who have the skills to succeed in the legal profession'.

Surely, large City firms already invest substantial resources in their human resources departments for this specific reason.

And I consider it misleading to suggest that ethnic minority students do not put themselves forward for consideration by law firms, particularly the City firms.

It is my opinion that law firms know that there are promising ethnic minority lawyers in the universities and law schools around the country.

The problem is that law firms have traditionally been disinclined to recruit ethnic minority lawyers for their own reasons.

No doubt this will be a controversial view in some quarters, but I think the time is right for the profession to take a close look at itself and to brush away the cobwebs of the past.

It is little wonder that ethnic minority law students perceive a lack of opportunity in the profession when we are told that initiatives such as the Diversity in Law programme are hoped to remedy the problems encountered by them in trying to enter the profession.

Would the proper approach not be to highlight those problems and then to administer the remedy?

Azher Quyoom, Garwood Devine, Hull