Birmingham law recruitment 'ahead of the game' with diversity
26/09/2006(18:33)
With changes imminent to the anti-discrimination rules governing recruitment by legal firms, Birmingham businesses are set to lead the way say legal experts.
Solicitor Alex Bishop said that law firms needed to awake to the possibilities offered by a diverse ethnic recruitment policy, particularly in Birmingham, which is set to become the UK's first city with a majority of ethnic minorities by 2010.
Mr Bishop told The Lawyer that although Birmingham could have 50,000 extra jobs in professional, financial and business support services in just four years, at present this ethnically diverse city employs only 20 per cent of staff in these sectors from ethnic minorities.
West Midlands law firms are awaking to the fact that in under five years time their company demographics may be unrepresentative of the clients in the areas that they are operating.
At the same time just one third of the legal profession, often highly resistant to change, is willing to publish data on its staff diversity, according to the government.
But Birmingham is alert to the issue and driving through change with the support of local, government supported bodies like Professional DiverCity, which aims to make the city a leader in ethnically diverse recruitment by the end of the decade.
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