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News

Privately educated lawyers still dominate top 20 firms, survey reveals

updated on 20 July 2012

The 2012 Employee Satisfaction Report, conducted by Legal Week, questioned over 5,000 associates at leading UK and US law firms about their educational background. 57.5% of Linklaters respondents are privately educated - the highest percentage of any firm. CMS Cameron McKenna, Hogan Lovells and Ashurst are close behind, with each firm taking over 50% of its lawyers from privately educated backgrounds. Irwin Mitchell is currently the UK legal sector’s diversity champion, as 72.5% of its lawyers are state educated. Bird & Bird and DLA Piper also boast similarly diverse workforces.

Felix Hebblethwaite, global engagement and diversity manager at Linklaters, said: "We recognise the need for a diverse working population and started to collect data from our own people about their socio-economic background in 2010. We hold this data on 70% of our UK employees, which shows that only 31% of our associates attended a private school."