[1]By Legal Futures Associate The College of Legal Practice [2]
How can you and your organisation take action to help people from low socio-economic backgrounds to enter and progress in the legal profession?
Dip into The College of Legal Practice’s panel session recording, from their virtual event held on Tuesday 13 June 2023, looking at the practical ways legal services organisations can improve social mobility through graduate recruitment.
You can watch the session here [3].
[4]
The top pieces of advice from the panel include:
- Consider each stage of your recruitment process and whether it adds value or could be detrimental to the applicant
- Consider the length and complexity of your application forms
- Think about the information you could share, perhaps a podcast with candidates before they come to the office so they know and understand what to expect, either for placements or interviews
- Assume nothing! Think carefully about whether people will know and understand what you are talking about
- And so important, track your data, you might find that you are making improvements, and it will highlight where you need to focus your efforts – it is also a great way to get stakeholders on board.
A big thank you to Tom Lyas [5] from Browne Jacobson [6], Alice Kinder [7] from Bexley Beaumont [8] and Birmingham Law Society [9], Puneet Tahim [10] from Rare Recruitment [11] and Jane Waddell [12] from the College for giving us your time and sharing your experiences.
We also used the The Social Mobility Foundation [13]‘s employers index as a guide for the conversation and to share examples of things that are working in practice. Their index is still open for entries this year.