Leading black and Asian solicitors this week called on City firms to bring in quotas for ethnic minority trainees to make up for their failure to recruit talent from a more diverse pool.

Caroline Herbert, chairwoman of the Law Society's equality and diversity committee and council member for diversity, challenged firms to set quotas for trainees from different ethnic backgrounds in proportion to the ethnic breakdown of students passing the legal practice course (LPC).


She said quotas were needed to combat the discrepancy between the numbers of ethnic minority students passing the course and securing a training contract.


According to Law Society figures, 23% of students passing the LPC in 2003 were non-white, but only 18% of trainees were - with even fewer, anecdotally, at large firms.


Ms Herbert said: 'City firms already have informal quotas in place for Oxbridge graduates. A quota system for black and ethnic minorities would provide positive encouragement to look for talent more widely.'


Sajjad Karim MEP, a partner at Marsdens in Lancashire and former member of the equality committee, supported the call. He said: 'It is time City firms opened up the mould - and I can't see that happening until they decide to take a set number of recruits from a wider and more diverse background.'


Yvonne Brown, chairwoman of the Black Solicitors Network, called on the Society to publish information it has been gathering on firms' equal opportunities policies so the real picture of discrimination can be revealed - with penalties, such as naming and shaming firms, an option once the full picture is known.


Trainee Solicitors Group chairwoman Nicola Fitches said the group backed penalties to encourage fairer recruitment practices, but that quotas would not address firms' mindset.


Tim Foster, managing partner at City firm Reed Smith, said both firms and clients would benefit from more diverse candidates, but that quotas would undermine the status of ethnic minority recruits. City firm Linklaters' training partner Simon Firth said a quota system would be inconsistent with a meritocracy.


A Law Society spokeswoman said it was examining 'a number of ways of ensuring firms comply with the anti-discrimination rule'.