Welcome
Responsible Business delivered sustainably
Foreword
From our Responsible Business Board
We act sustainably together as a responsible business driven by an inclusive, innovative and learning culture. Being responsible is not only one of our values, it's a core part of our strategic vision, governance structures and board discussions. It means we're committed to protecting our culture of inclusion, investing in the communities we are part of, and having a more positive impact on the environment today and tomorrow.
There are many highlights covered in this report. We have made real progress on our ambition to have more female partners. Now 30% of our partnership, and 35% of our UK Board are women. This is up from 28% of our partnership, and 33% of our UK Board in the prior year.
We maintained our Mansfield Rule certification, which ensures we are actively monitoring the diversity of our recruitment and promotion processes. Our social mobility programmes were attended by over 100 students to raise awareness of legal careers, and we launched a new Solicitor apprenticeship programme to provide an alternative route to qualification.
In the past year we raised over £100,000 for community projects that share our values, such as Evolving Mindset, which provides free mental health and wellbeing services to the local community. With our commitment to The Roundhouse Trust we have given young creatives and emerging talent further opportunities to flourish. Our employees and clients have thoroughly enjoyed the Roundhouse Poetry Slam, that we sponsored for the first time this year.
We have sought to improve access to legal advice and undertook more than £900,000 of pro bono work for local community projects, including the Blackfriars Project, where we provide legal support to local communities on matters including housing, employment, contractual disputes, and through the Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit where we have supported survivors of the Windrush scandal.
On environmental matters we are accelerating our activity. Our Executive Board has committed to having a science-based target, and we have also delivered training to our lawyers and business services teams regarding how climate change impacts the role of solicitors.
We believe that we have a responsibility as part of the legal sector to support the transition to a low carbon economy, and we have taken a leading role in establishing the Legal Charter 1.5, where we are working hard with others to address challenging climate issues, such as advised emissions and collaborating to accelerate progress across the sector.
We are also participating in the One Million Hours project, which aims to raise one million hours of intellectual capital for the climate and biodiversity agenda. We are actively seeking suggestions of projects where the legal sector can lean in to accelerate climate action.
We have a leading renewable energy practice, and we will naturally do our utmost to enable the upscaling of renewable energy needed to meet the ambitions of COP28 and the climate science.
We are proud of the work we have done and we hope you enjoy reading about our activities and initiatives in this report.
But we still have much to do. This year we have embedded our Responsible Business strategy firmly into the heart of our business strategy and updated our governance structures to accelerate our progress towards our ambitions. We are confident we are ready to tackle the challenges and opportunities ahead and look forward to reporting again next year.