Watch: Breaking Down Barriers to Law - a regional perspective
Law is about equality and fairness. It's at the core of what the legal profession stands for. Yet for too many people, pursuing a career in law feels out of reach. It's something that other people might be able to do, but not them.
And that's actually symptomatic of a Britain where your circumstances of birth have always shaped where your life can take you. It shouldn't be like this, and we literally can't afford to waste this country's talent anymore. So things need to change.
The legal sector has long faced some of the most pronounced equality of opportunity challenges of any industry. So leading law firms across the regions of the UK are now coming together through the Breaking Down Barriers to Law project to show that there is another way of doing things. To make sure that talented people, whatever their background or circumstance, get into a career in law and then thrive and progress.
Firms involved in the Breaking Down Barriers to Law project have a significant presence right across the country and they're often serving and embedded in the communities where opportunity is needed the most. So they can be key to making a career in law and the legal sector a real opportunity for talent throughout the UK.
This project is about law firms coming together and leading together, being the trailblazer. And it's fantastic that we already have leading law firms like Fletchers Group, Walker Morris, Lester Aldridge, Winckworth Sherwood, Boyes Turner, Brachers, Harbottle & Lewis, JMW Solicitors, Stevens & Bolton, FBC Manby Bowdler, Wilsons Solicitors, Tees Law, Chadwick Lawrence and others on board.
These founding firms have shown a clear commitment to go beyond the traditional way of doing things, to challenge the status quo and to work individually and collectively to deliver a real impact on social mobility and opportunity.
Over the next six months, we'll be working together on developing our action plan to set out a new standard for opening up the legal sector to all the talent this country has regardless of the background or the obstacles that people face, working out how we can empower and lift people up and lower the barriers to accessing opportunity.
Watch this space.
