Legal Profession: Equality

(asked on 3rd July 2020) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what his Department is doing to tackle the diversity gap in the upper levels of the legal profession.


Answered by
Alex Chalk Portrait
Alex Chalk
Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
This question was answered on 13th July 2020

The legal profession in England and Wales is independent of Government. Statutory responsibility for encouraging an independent, strong, diverse and effective legal profession sits with the approved regulators, overseen by the oversight regulator, the Legal Services Board (LSB). Ministry of Justice Ministers encourage the sector to ensure it more closely represents the diverse society it serves through ongoing engagement with the regulators and the legal profession.

In 2017 the LSB published revised guidance for legal services regulators for encouraging a diverse workforce, and introduced new transparency duties at firm and chambers level to monitor and publish diversity statistics. In 2019 the LSB published a summary of the progress of regulators against four diversity outcomes, which showed positive examples of a new approach to diversity, but also areas where further action is required.

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