Linklaters founding member of first cross-firm collaboration on race and ethnicity

Today marks the launch of Legal CORE (Collaboration on Race and Ethnicity), the first leadership-led, cross-firm collective aimed at tackling the underrepresentation of Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups in the UK’s legal industry.

Linklaters is a founding member of the collaboration alongside seven other firms, including: Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, Freshfields, Herbert Smith Freehills, Macfarlanes, Norton Rose Fulbright and Slaughter and May. The firms came together in 2020 to promote and amplify diversity and inclusion in the industry and jointly tackle the challenges faced in increasing representation.

Daniel Danso, Global Diversity and Inclusion Leader at Linklaters:

“There is a lack of representation of Black, Asian and minority ethnic individuals in the UK legal sector and whilst we’re each taking action individually as firms, creating a forum for firms to openly share and discuss solutions, and working together will help to realise our common goal faster.”

Legal CORE’s mission is to increase substantively the representation of Black, Asian and minority ethnic individuals in private practice, working collectively to drive action across the legal sector. The founding firms have been working together over the past year to establish the collective and are now inviting other firms to join them.

The group’s focus is on action-led initiatives and collaborative solutions to retain and promote ethnically diverse talent. Over the next couple of months Legal CORE, which is formed of diversity and inclusion leads and senior level partners from each firm, will be:

Piloting a Leadership Forum for senior leaders across the founding firms to facilitate conversations on championing race diversity and explore how to effect change within their firm Hosting a cross-firm hackathon, inviting participants from across the legal industry to come together and crowdsource ideas on how to improve retention and progression for Black, Asian and minority ethnic individuals Introducing a Best Practice Forum to share collective success and challenges on themes such as data analytics, reverse mentoring and retaining Black talent

Find out more about Legal CORE here. 

Aedamar Comiskey, Linklaters’ Senior Partner and Chair: 

“Through Legal CORE, we will actively collaborate to deliver much-needed, meaningful change faster. We are committed to driving action to create an inclusive environment for everyone.”

Paul Lewis, Firmwide Managing Partner at Linklaters:

“This is an exciting initiative and the first of its kind in the UK legal sector. Every firm is facing similar challenges and by coming together we can find collective solutions to facilitate a fundamental shift and bring about a long-overdue change in private practice.”

Diversity and Inclusion is core to Linklaters’ strategy and the firm is committed to being home to an inclusive culture for everyone – regardless of background, identity or circumstance. In October 2020, Linklaters pledged to improve representation of Black and underrepresented minority ethnic lawyers and Business Team members at all levels of the firm. Linklaters’ Race Action Plan set out how the firm planned to accomplish this and the concrete actions it would take, aligned to key targets.