A prominent US law firm with offices in London asked us to help them understand their key DE&I challenges across the business and support them in creating an evidence-based diversity and inclusion strategy

The Challenge

The firm were aware of many of the diversity challenges they had in common with top law firms, but also recognized that detail was important and different employees across their US and UK offices would have unique experiences which they needed to understand more about in order to implement an effective overall DE&I strategy.

The firm’s senior leadership team asked us to:

  • Help them take a ‘snapshot’ of where they were in their inclusion journey
  • Increase their understanding on the lived experience of diverse employees within the firm
  • Actively challenge their working ways
  • Reinvigorate their commitment to putting DE&I at the heart of the business

As we would be engaging directly with legal staff in both the US and UK we needed to be highly aware of the way in which we engaged employees and complied with all the appropriate legislation for both the US and UK.

The Solutions

We implemented our RADAR benchmarking solution for both US and UK offices.

This RADAR consisted of an engagement survey tailored to both regions, but with key data points maintained so results could be understood by region but also as a whole across the organization. The survey collected both key diversity data to help the firm understand the make up of their organization, as well as more detailed qualitative data on how inclusive practices and the culture is at the firm.

Key findings from the survey informed six focus groups to deep dive into employee experiences within the organization.

We also conducted a full HR audit to ensure that the firm went beyond legal obligation when it came to supporting diverse employees.

All of these data points were drawn into a single RADAR report which assessed the organization against our Best Practice Scorecard and highlighted the key areas where challenges needed to be overcome.

The RADAR report outlined five priorities for moving inclusion forward at the organization with steps for:

  • Focusing on diverse recruitment
  • Developing a cohesive D&I strategy
  • Strengthening data collection
  • Bridging the divide between business service and attorneys
  • Building a more robust training programme