Meeting our responsibilities is not always easy. Above all, it takes a strong culture and globally-minded, committed people supported by strong leadership. We need to understand our clients and have deep market knowledge. We must also manage our impact on our local communities and the environment.
This report describes some of the challenges we face and how we run our business to achieve our vision in a responsible way.
I would welcome your feedback via the CR contact page on our website.
Oonagh Harpur
Partnership Secretary and Global Head of Corporate Responsibility
November 2009
Why report on Corporate Responsibility?
Our stakeholders are all affected by what we do as a firm so we believe we are accountable to them. As part of this relationship, we are committed to keeping stakeholders informed about the CR challenges we face and what we’re doing to address them. That is why we have written this online review (published in November 2009 and covering our global operations in 19 countries), which is our second annual report on CR issues. For last year’s report (November 2008), please click here.
How we chose what to report on
This review focuses on the key challenges we face in meeting our responsibilities to our people, our clients and markets, our communities and the environment. These challenges were identified by an analysis carried out by our CR taskforce based on listening to the views of our stakeholders and mapping them against our strategic priorities.
The stakeholder groups with the greatest direct impact on our ability to achieve our vision are our clients and our people. In 2008/9 we faced significant challenges in meeting our responsibilities in both areas as we worked with clients to find solutions to unprecedented situations that many found themselves in, and tried our best to treat our people fairly as we reduced headcount.
This year’s internal consultation process is described on the Stakeholder engagement page and has helped to raise the level of awareness and understanding of key CR issues the firm faces as well as generating useful insights into areas where we can do better.
What is in the report?
Our annual CR report comprises the following sections of this website, all of which have been assured:
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CR at Linklaters
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Clients and Markets
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People; Community
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Environment
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Progress
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Downloads
The sections above relate to our financial year ended April 2009 unless otherwise stated.
The following sections of this website are regularly updated and do not form part of our annual CR report:
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About us
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CR Around the world
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CR News
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Policies
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Case studies
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CR contacts.
