Diversity: Failure to act could leave regulators open to legal challenge
The profession has failed to make “significant progress in tackling the structural and cultural barriers to encouraging equality and diversity”, the Legal Services Board (LSB) has declared.
As a result, the case for regulatory action to improve the diversity of the legal profession “is clear”.
“The risks of doing nothing or not enough include: a profession that is not representative of the public that it serves and a profession that is characterised by inequitable, exclusionary and unhealthy practices.
“Failure to act could also leave regulators vulnerable to legal challenge for breach of relevant statutory duties.”
By contrast, an equal, diverse and inclusive profession would deliver “more effectively for consumers and the wider public, and, critically, will maintain public trust and confidence”.
The full board of the LSB will tomorrow consider a draft statutory statement of policy on encouraging a diverse legal profession, which will strengthen the 2017 requirements the LSB imposed on the frontline regulators.
Papers published in advance of the meeting said the evidence gathered by the oversight regulator showed “persistent gaps in diversity and continued prevalence of key systemic barriers to equality and diversity in the legal profession and deficiencies in regulators’ practices to meet statutory obligations to encouraging equality and diversity in the profession”.
The barriers included “obscured and inaccessible pathways” into the profession, “including financial hurdles and elitist attitudes on the image of a typical legal professional”, under-representation of female, ethnic minority and disabled lawyers at senior levels, and bullying, harassment, discrimination “and other forms of behavioural misconduct”.
Though the frontline regulators’ efforts have improved, not all were taking “a consistently strategic and proactive approach, and there is little evaluation work taking place across the regulators to demonstrate the impact of their interventions”.
In some cases, regulatory processes may be contributing to barriers to equality and wellbeing, with ethnic minority lawyers over-represented in the Solicitors Regulation Authority and Bar Standards Board’s enforcement activity.
The LSB noted that the government’s recently published Industrial Strategy explicitly acknowledged how critical workforce diversity was for supporting growth in the professional and business services sector.
The draft statement – which, subject to the board’s approval, will be issued for consultation – sets out four high-level outcomes for the regulators to meet:
- Regulators take evidence-based, collaborative, and strategic actions to encourage a diverse legal profession;
- Regulators take effective steps to ensure regulatory approaches, processes and decision-making support equality and fairness and do not undermine efforts to encourage a diverse profession;
- Regulators support fair, flexible, and accessible pathways into, within and back into the professions that encourage a diverse legal profession; and
- Regulators ensure their frameworks effectively support authorised persons to uphold professional conduct, behaviours, and competencies that encourage a diverse legal profession.
Each outcome will be underpinned by a series of more detailed expectations.
The LSB said it would also look at non-statutory interventions to achieve the cultural change that was needed.
“As oversight regulator, we are uniquely positioned to bring stakeholders together and maintain momentum on diversity efforts in the sector, including long-term change in workplace and leadership culture.”
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