Post-Event Report from the Lawyers with Disabilities Division Summer Social

EQUALITY, DIVERSITY & INCLUSION

Post-Event Report from the Lawyers with Disabilities Division Summer Social

By Martin Whitehorn

It was a delight to attend The Law Society’s Lawyers with Disabilities Division (LDD) Summer Social at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (Freshfields) on 15 June, which I will expand on in this article. As an autistic solicitor who has been involved with the LDD it was great to finally meet in person with LDD committee members and Law Society diversity leads who I had only met virtually before, and was relieved that I was not the only one peering at faces to try to discern whether they belonged to the same people I had talked to on screens during the lockdowns.

The talks

President of The Law Society I. Stephanie Boyce was the keynote speaker, who shared the news that Project Rise (more on that later) had had at least 7 more firms getting in touch with the LDD expressing their interest in getting involved. Peter Allen, Partner at Freshfields, was the next to talk, mentioning the firm’s disability confidence workshops and peer support network for its people, together with increasing outreach to disabled students, as among the initiatives that had earned the firm a place in the Valuable 500 as a disability-inclusive organisation.

The event then proceeded to a series of fireside chats, with LDD committee member and diversity consultant Yazmin Sheikh interviewing Dame Fiona Woolf first, who emphasised the need for inclusive leadership to help disabled people develop our full potential. Readers may remember The Fiona Woolf Lecture in December last year, available on The Law Society’s online event recordings page, where she emphasised disability inclusion as perhaps the key part of what she wanted from her legacy.

The subsequent fireside chats focused on what disabled lawyers have to offer to the profession. LDD committee member and solicitor at Penmans, Sanjay Solanki interviewed blind trainee solicitor Fraser Kane from Freeths LLP, who talked about software that helps him review documents quicker than many of his colleagues.

This was followed by Freshfields knowledge lawyer, Reena Parmar, interviewing Mark Blois – Partner at Browne Jacobson heading its Education practice who was included in the Disability Power 100 in 2021 and The Lawyer’s Hot 100 in 2022 – who urged that organisations avoid the disability element of D&I being an afterthought, along with the need for visible role models for disabled lawyers. Both Reena and Mark are LDD committee members, and the conversation flowed easily, with another recommendation given being to ask disabled people what they need and listen to what they say. Reverse mentoring was also highlighted as a way senior lawyers can get to grips with the issues that disabled lawyers face.

Afterwards

I was glad to talk to some of the people outside of the LDD committee who are driving positive change for disability inclusion in law, for example Kim Crangle of Payne Hicks Beach who sits on the Employment Lawyers Association's training committee and has been spearheading making their events more accessible to disabled members.

It was also a surprise and pleasure to see Junior Lawyers Division support at the event too, with Junior Lawyers Division chair Suzanna Eames and Junior Lawyer (0-6 years’ PQE) Law Society Council member Lizzy Lim attending, as was Aisling Hayward, chair of Hertfordshire Junior Lawyers Division.

How we got here

In January 2020, Professor Debbie Foster of Cardiff University Business School and Dr Natasha Hirst launched the Legally Disabled? research report on the experiences of disabled people working in law, with another report being issued in 2021 on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to us: legallydisabled.com/research-reports/. For years disabled lawyers had been aware of the struggles of my disabled friends and taken the opportunity to highlight the barriers to disabled people progressing through the legal profession. However, when the reports were released, it was shocking yet unsurprising at how eerily similar the report findings were to the experiences of disabled people in the profession. The reports add credibility to disabled people’s statements about their experiences as it provides evidence to support what we know anecdotally, encouraging the LDD and its members to speak up about these issues all the more.

Employers wishing to improve accessibility can refer to the Law Society’s online guides on ‘Reasonable adjustments in organisations – best practice for disability inclusion’ which has examples of reasonable adjustments that organisations, both large and small, are currently providing their disabled employees, along with ‘Easy wins and action points for disability inclusion’. These draw from the “Legally Disabled?” reports with input from disabled lawyers.

Project Rise

Project Rise is a scheme initiated by the LDD and supported by Aspiring Solicitors to encourage more part-time qualifying opportunities in law as a direct result of the findings in the 2020 “Legally Disabled?” report. Eversheds Sutherland and Osborne Clarke are the first firms to participate in the project in which they have committed to offering all successful candidates parttime training positions (training contract does not seem the right word with the arrival of the Solicitors Qualifying Examination) for the current cohort of applicants.

This initiative is not solely for disabled aspiring lawyers as there are candidates from a variety of backgrounds for whom not having the option to complete a part-time training position would be a significant barrier to becoming a solicitor. Participating firms benefit from regular meetings together to share their knowledge on providing part-time training positions, along with being able to draw on a wider array of talent.

To try to obtain a part-time training position you should apply to one of the participating firms for a training position, ideally successfully completing a vacation scheme first so you can demonstrate that you are making an informed decision. Organisations looking to offer part-time training positions are encouraged to email: lawyerswithdisabilities@lawsociety.org.uk. ■