Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

We recognise that our clients’ success – and therefore our own – depends on our firm being made up of the right people.

Our ambition is to be widely recognised as an employer of choice within the legal sector – attracting, recruiting, retaining and incentivising colleagues of the highest quality in all roles. Our People Strategy underpins that ambition and how we are seeking to deliver on it.

A big part of that strategy is to create a supportive and inclusive working environment, and we are committed to diversity and inclusion in all aspects of our business. Our colleagues have the opportunity to contribute to that work by taking part in various projects led by our six Together Network Groups:

• Gender
• Race, Faith and Belief
• Pride
• Social Mobility
• Wellbeing
• Young Persons

We are committed to playing our part in improving inclusion and supporting currently underrepresented groups in the legal sector and in the business community as a whole. We also frequently undertake joint initiatives with our clients, many of whom have similar goals within their own businesses.

Our efforts have been recognised in that wider community. At the 2024 Herald Scotland Top Employer Awards, we won Top Employer of the Year in the Medium Business category (250–1000 Employees), and Best Diversity and Inclusion Dynamic in the Workplace. Also in 2024, at the Employers Network for Equality and Inclusion (enei) awards we won the Supporting Neurodiverse Talent award and were highly commended for our Inclusive Recruitment initiative. We also won the Diversity and Inclusion award at the 2024 Legal 500 Scotland Awards.

We’re also very proud of the fact that we have both a platinum-level Investors in People accreditation (awarded in 2021) and a platinum-level Investors in Young People accreditation (awarded in 2024).

Gender

We frequently review and update our family-friendly and wellbeing policies to ensure that they continue to meet the changing needs of colleagues, and we run many initiatives in this area.

We actively encourage people to take the time to attend cervical cancer screening appointments. And we host the Menopause Café, an event which allows anyone of any age to discuss and learn more about menopause and the support that is available, so that they can continue to be equally successful and effective in their roles.

Race, Faith and Belief

We are members of Race Equality Matters, and have signed up to its “Big Promise” initiative confirming that we have zero tolerance of racism. We have also taken a number of practical steps.

A training course on microaggression is now part of every new employee’s induction process. We’re a signatory to the Race Fairness Commitment and a member of Legal CORE, a collaboration which aims to tackle the underrepresentation of Black, Asian, and minority ethnic groups in the legal sector. And, working with the 10,000 Black Interns programme and Black Professionals UK, we’re ensuring that we reach a broad range of applicants to our summer placement scheme.

Pride

We celebrate notable LGBT+ dates throughout the year, and participate in numerous Pride events and marches, including Mardi Gla and the Proud Scotland awards. We also collaborate with external network groups on a wide range of fundraising and social events.

We have also contributed articles to the Scottish Legal News on various subjects related to LGBT+, including representation on screen, Glasgow Pride, and LGBT+ History Month.

Social Mobility

We provide annual sponsorship to the LawScot Foundation, and participate in events such as their LawScot Challenge for students.

We’re also a founding member of PRIME, an alliance of law firms that aims to improve socioeconomic diversity in the legal profession. As part of this we support placements for pupils who are less likely to secure legal work experience, with the aim of improving access to the legal sector.

Two examples of the practical steps we have taken in this area: we offer diploma funding and maintenance allowances for incoming trainees; and we use Rare’s contextualised recruitment system to ensure that we recognise the context of applicants’ achievements.

Wellbeing

This area includes physical health, mental wellbeing, disability, and neurodiversity.

We’ve chosen and trained several mental health first aiders, who provide local support across all of our offices. We also provide an Employee Assistance Programme for all our colleagues, offering 24/7 access to trained mental health counsellors.

We have disability champions across the firm, and we’re a founding member of Disabling Barriers Scotland, a charity striving to make the Scottish legal sector accessible to those with disabilities. In 2025 we were recognised as a Disability Confident Leader, supporting disabled colleagues and applicants and guaranteeing an interview for anyone who meets our minimum selection criteria. Our work to promote disability inclusion is detailed in our Voluntary Report.

The Voluntary Report also gives details of initiatives such as our Workplace Adjustment passport, which enable colleagues with a disability or who are neurodivergent to identify any accommodations that would help them in the workplace.

We have also developed a Neurodiversity Information hub with guides about support available for colleagues such as assistive technology. We’re a member of Neurodiversity in Business, and have internal champions who guide us on how to make our workplace more neuroinclusive.

Young Persons

We have developed a Young Person’s Strategy to ensure that young people are fully engaged in our business, and are given the opportunity to develop and fulfil their potential.

In partnership with Forage, we have created a virtual work experience programme – the first Scottish law firm to do so. The programme gives an insight into the work that we do by setting a series of tasks, created by our lawyers, in an invented scenario that’s similar to work that we typically do at the firm. It’s free for all students. We launched it in 2023, and since then over 2,500 people have enrolled on the programme.

We organise an annual Future Careers event for school and university students,. Our initiatives to support young people interested in our firm also include offering workshadowing opportunities to students (over 50 in 2025), and providing online drop in Q&A sessions for people who are interested in our summer placement programme.

For young people that work with us, we offer a range of targeted support including useful training on wider topics such as financial awareness.

We’re more focused on results than recognition, but nevertheless we were delighted when we received a platinum-level Investors in Young People accreditation in 2024.