We’re a different kind of law firm

DEI

As a firm, we are committed to ensuring that our employees are diverse and reflect both the society around us and the clients we serve.

We recognise that the degree to which people feel included and respected will directly correlate with the success of the firm. We have an active DE&I Committee at the firm which is the vehicle in place to deliver the DE&I strategy in alignment with the firmwide strategy set by the Board. This DE&I Committee is made up of a cross-section of the firm, including the Director of People & Culture, three partners and four employees.

Supporting the DE&I Committee and acting as a bridge between them and the people across the firm, we currently have four network groups: LGBTQ+ & Allies, Sex & Gender Equality, Social Mobility and Ethnic Minority. These networks actively raise awareness of their respective DEI stream throughout the firm by way of knowledge sharing, events and taking a collaborative approach to the review and introduction of firmwide practices and procedures.

The firm has invested in both partner and employee DEI training and recently ran development sessions for all employees and partners in conjunction with diversity consultancy Language Matters. These sessions focused on problematic language in relation to all underrepresented communities with an objective that we all become more thoughtful allies for each other and the clients we represent.

We continue to partner with Aspiring Solicitors and use Rare’s contextual recruitment system; an applicant tracking system seen as a market-leading social mobility measuring tool for graduate recruitment in the legal industry. Our social mobility work experience programme, in partnership with the Sutton Trust, has gone from strength to strength. This programme aims to improve social mobility in the UK so that young people are given the chance to fulfil their potential regardless of their circumstances, their school or where they live. Each summer we welcome six students into our office to take part in a variety of sessions including legal talks and presentations, a Q&A session with lawyers, shadowing trainee tasks, attending a CV and skills workshop as well as completing a written task and a presentation.

Corporate responsibility

We are committed to giving time, money and resources to good causes in the most beneficial manner.

We therefore support a single charity with fundraising activities each year, following a nomination and voting process.

Our charity for 2023 and 2024 is Key4Life. Key4Life is an innovative crime prevention charity which rehabilitates young men in prison or at risk of going to prison, and provides real solutions to help reduce youth offending. The charity’s rehabilitation programmes help the young men to build resilience and release negative behaviours through a powerful blend of music, football, equine therapy, NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming) and emotional release sessions.

Only 14% of those who have been through Key4Life’s prison and preventative programmes have re-offended, compared to the national proven re-offending rate of 64% one-year post-release. Our ongoing work with the charity looks to provide inspiration as well as tangible benefit to these young men, offering them opportunities that may otherwise not be available and helping to encourage engagement with Key4Life’s preventative programmes.

In recent years we have supported the Spitalfield’s Crypt Trust, Anna Freud Centre, Nordoff Robbins, The Eve Appeal, The Children’s Trust, Shooting Star CHASE, Alzheimer’s Society, Teenage Cancer Trust, Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research and The Rainbow Trust.

Sustainability

We are very aware of the environmental impact of our activities as a firm and our moral responsibility to society.

We are dedicated to making a positive contribution through our sustainability efforts and encourage all of our people to play an active part in being an environmentally responsible firm.

We make every effort to limit travel in order to reduce our carbon emissions and we try wherever possible to purchase items manufactured or produced from sustainable sources. Our firmwide green policy has helped us to change our staff’s attitudes and behaviour in terms of the consumption of paper and energy. We have communal recycling points on every floor in addition to recycling bins beside each desk. Our electronic filing policy has helped us reduce paper usage significantly and we are saving energy through the use of sensors which automatically turn off lights. Many of our employees also benefit from the cycle to work scheme as an alternative to public transport.

We have an environmental policy with which we expect all our employees to comply. We continually strive to improve this policy by setting annual targets, reviewing our objectives and measuring our progress via formal audits.

International

We are a one office firm with a global footprint.

Although we are based in the UK and operate out of our London office in which our lawyers practise English law, the vast majority of our work has an international element. This may be due to the location or residence of our client, an intermediary we are working alongside being based in another location, or due to the matters that we are working on spanning multiple jurisdictions.

We value our position as an independent firm and feel that this gives us, and our clients, the freedom to work with the best counsel around the world depending on the particular circumstances and need. Across the firm, we have relationships and connections in various overseas locations and members of the firm regularly travel abroad.

Innovation

We are committed to fostering a culture of innovation.

This involves us identifying operational improvements and strategic opportunities, often through the use of technology, which will improve the way we work for the benefit of us and, importantly, our clients. We act for some of the most innovative and influential individuals and companies in the creative industries and it is important that we, in many ways, reflect those clients. Not only do we provide cutting-edge legal advice, but we are committed to using cutting-edge technology to deliver that advice to our clients seamlessly and efficiently. Innovative clients will not instruct antiquated lawyers.

We are committed to acknowledging and exploring the changes currently occurring in the market and ensuring we are ahead of the curve. The firm has developed and released its own internal AI-powered tool, HarBot, which will take on a number of guises in order to address particular business needs or improve efficiencies in particular areas of how we work.

We continue to invest in and advance our technology to be at the forefront of modern working for our clients. In order to drive initiatives aimed at uncovering innovative solutions to improve the way we work, we have launched the Innovation Fund which is used by the business to invest in new technology and new processes. All employees have access to a newly launched platform called the Ideas Hub to which they can submit their ideas on how we can improve the way we work, with a focus on streamlining legal and business administrative tasks. We have embedded innovation in the business by investing in a central innovation team tasked with managing the progression of ideas submitted to the Ideas Hub.