Blog: Diversity in the Legal Services team

"In-house legal teams in the social housing sector are still relatively new and following our merger, we were keen to build on the existing in-house legal provision in our two legacy organisations. When building the new team we were very conscious that we had an opportunity to drive our organisational values as well as contributing to the diversity improvement of the legal profession.   

We know it’s important that our colleagues reflect the diversity of our residents, and when we deliver legal services with residents, our diversity gives us an edge. We understand our residents more than we could expect which provides reassurance and improves communication.  

We recognised that the legal profession has a way to go in improving diversity and the barriers faced by diverse applicants. By creating trainee solicitor roles within our new organisation, we opened up an opportunity for colleagues to peruse a legal qualification whilst working and earning which may be a possible remedy to the disproportionate challenges diverse colleagues face in the sector.   

The diversity of our legal services team is as follows: 

• Gender- 66% of the team are female. This is an increase on the average female representation across the legal profession which sits at 53% in private practice or 61% in-house
  
  
• Ethnicity - 84% of the team are from ethnically diverse backgrounds which is a huge increase on the average of 21% in private practice or in-house
  
  
• Socio Economic- The proportion of our lawyers from a professional socio-economic background is 36%, a decrease on the average of 57% in private practice
  
  
• Educational - 80% of lawyers across the team attended state schools which is an increase on the average of 64% in private practice.

We also looked at our diversity across our senior positions and while the numbers are small, the findings are reassuring: 

• Gender - 30% of our senior management team are female. 32% of full equity partners are female in private practice
  
  
• Ethnicity - 70% of our senior management team are from ethnically diverse backgrounds. In private practice 76% of full-equity partners are white.

Our in-house legal team are service orientated and the diversity across the team helps position them to be ready to rise to challenges through lived experience and applicable knowledge, diversity of thought and perspectives that feel real and impactful."