Diversity and inclusion

At Allen & Overy we recognise the importance of diversity and inclusion – it's essential to our business and enables us to continue to be a successful practice in today's competitive global market.  And our approach to diversity means we recognise ways in which we all differ including age, gender, ethnicity, disability (visible and non visible) and physical appearance, as well as religion, nationality and education.

Our objective is simple: to attract and retain the most talented people, to benefit from the varied talents a diverse workforce brings, and allow our people to achieve their potential and fulfill their ambitions, within a supportive working environment. 

At A&O we know that our approach to diversity and corporate responsibility will be an important consideration for individuals researching the firm or applying for open days, vacation programmes or training contracts.  And we already have a number of initiatives and projects underway to widen access to A&O and the legal profession, which you can read about in our Corporate Responsibility pages on our main website.  These include our LGBT network, Diversity Week and Parents forum.  A&O has been awarded an 'Exceptional' status by the BITC regional Work Inspiration award for our diversity-led work experience placement programmes.

Here are some examples of what else we're currently doing in Graduate Recruitment with schools and universities to help achieve our aims:

• in the recruitment year 2011/2012 we will be visiting and working with 40 UK and Irish universities;

• we participate in the Black Lawyers Directory LLP and TCTL programmes, CSET Summer Schools,  and Pure Potential: events which aim to encourage students from ethnic minorities and socially disadvantaged communities to apply to university and consider a career in law.  We also run a summer programme each year – The Smart Start Experience - for 6th form students from London boroughs who are considering a career in the City;

• we are a founder sponsor of the Sutton Trust Pathways to Law programme, a charity which aims to increase the educational opportunities which can lead to a career in law for young people from non-privileged backgrounds.  In February 2011 we hosted a week's work experience programme for 10 Pathway students currently in Year 12; and

• as a disability inclusive employer we work with EmployAbility, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to assisting people with all disabilities into employment.  EmployAbility help advertise and market  our career opportunities to prospective candidates at diversity and general careers fairs at UK universities.  We have also provided disability awareness training for our HR and recruitment professionals and we are a founder member of The Disability Café.

We know that we can do better, but here are our current statistics which we continue to monitor and update on a six monthly basis when our new trainees join:

• our current trainees attended 43 different universities between them and the gender split is 59% female and 41% male;

• 21% of our current trainees are from an ethnic minority background.

Allen & Overy in London are members or sponsors of the following organisations to ensure that we are up-to-date with and support diversity and inclusion best practice: Aurora (gender), Blind in Business, Black Lawyers Directory, Employers' Forum on Age, Employers' Forum on Disability, Opportunity Now (gender), Rare Recruitment (ethnicity), Stonewall (gay, lesbian and bisexual), The Disability Café  and Working Families (flexible working and family friendly).

By monitoring our diversity statistics we are able to track our progress and determine where we are having an impact.  Follow this link for information on our UK specific diversity metrics.