Diversity, equity and inclusion at Gowling WLG (UK) LLP

This article has been produced by Gowling WLG (UK) LLP, sponsors of LawCareers.Net’s Diversity hub.

The diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) of our workplace is hugely important to our firm and is reflected in our global values. Over many years we’ve invested in DE&I as a central part of our vision – recognising that we’re fundamentally a ‘people business’ and that attracting and retaining diverse talent is essential to delivering the best service to our clients and supporting our future growth and success.

We work for sophisticated clients who themselves field diverse teams and we operate in some of the most diverse locations and communities in the UK and worldwide – and our business should reflect and harness that diversity.

We want to create an inclusive workplace where our people can be themselves, celebrating the fact that we’re all individuals. We’re committed to attracting and retaining talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds.

We give DE&I the resource and leadership it needs to drive action.

• Andy Stylianou, is the firm’s DE&I champion.
• We have board sponsors for gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity and for mental health, wellbeing and disability.
• We have a dedicated DE&I team led by a head of DE&I, reporting to our HR director and chair.

Our latest DE&I strategy, ‘Inclusion for All’, empowers leaders and colleagues at all levels to play an active role in making progress on DE&I. This strategy is based on collaboration and gives all of our people the opportunity to make a positive impact on improving equality and diversity. By means of annual action planning at a team level, our people have greater influence on the type of change they want to see.

Our networks

We have six employee networks at the firm, which all work to raise awareness and education around key issues as well as offer a safe space for our people to share any concerns and get support. They’re the driving force in bringing our inclusion agenda to life.

• Enable – our disability, mental health and wellbeing network.
• EmbRACE – our ethnicity network.
• EVOLVE – our junior talent network
• Family Matters – our family and carers network.
• OpenHouse – our LGBT+ and allies network.
• Thrive – our gender network.

Each of our networks have detailed business plans that align to the firm’s strategy and our DE&I strategy and dedicated budget for delivery. The networks are led by our people, for our people and everyone is encouraged to get involved. They hold events to celebrate specific important dates such as Black History Month, LGBT+ History Month, International Day of Persons with Disabilities, International Men's Day and International Women's Day. They provide opportunities for our people to understand the experiences of our people via storytelling and presentation by experts. They also provide opportunities for people across the firm to network and collaborate with colleagues.

Race Action Plan

The deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd and their consequences sparked an unprecedented global focus on the #BlackLivesMatter campaign in 2020 and the experiences and social and organisational structures that have made such campaigns necessary.

In the UK we’ve focused on ethnicity inclusion for several years, but we knew that we needed to do more. In 2020 with the input of our EmbRACE employee network, our people and leadership, we developed a clear action plan to help us increase the representation of ethnic minority and particularly Black talent at Gowling WLG. Our Black Lives Matter Action Plan delivered on 22 actions to increase representation.

We reviewed the impact of this plan in 2024 and have launched our Race Action Plan to build on the success we saw under the Black Lives Matter Action Plan. We’re focused on key areas of retention, career development and ongoing education. Our aim is to deliver on key actions on an annual basis then review the impact of this work and put in place future actions.

Increasing female representation

Across the legal profession there’s a visible lack of female talent at the top, and we’ve been focused on changing this at Gowling WLG for several years. In 2016, when 18% of our partners were women, we set targets to increase representation of female partners at the firm, with the aim to reach 25% female partners by 2021 and 30% by 2026. We’ve continued to see success in terms of representation of senior female talent, with us achieving 33% female partners as of 1 May 2024.  This meant that we’d already achieved our target of 30% female partners ahead of our 2026 aim and therefore needed to agree new targets to ensure we continued to push for gender equity. 

We also recognised that, while we had seen positive change in terms of ethnic minority representation at the firm, it was an opportunity to also introduce ethnicity targets for the first time. Our new targets are:

• 40% female partners by 2030;
• 18% ethnic minority partners by 2030; and
• 27% ethnic minority representation firm-wide by 2030.

Inclusion Allies

Our ‘Inclusion Allies’ programme is the result of each of our networks recognising the important role allies play in making progress. Their advocacy and support helps to foster a diverse and inclusive workplace where all of our people are free to bring their authentic selves to work. Often hearing from people who don’t have a vested interest in a topic can be powerful and they can use their roles in the organisation to create an inclusive culture.

Our allies are asked to do the following:

• Challenge – openly challenge any behaviour or language that goes against a diverse and inclusive workplace.
• Participate – look for internal or external events, roundtables or feedback sessions they can participate in.
• Include – foster an open environment by sharing their own stories of difference and asking their colleagues to do the same.
• Educate – understand the unique issues and challenges their colleagues face and ask questions.
• Share – show their colleagues that they’re an inclusion ally and create a safe space where colleagues can approach them.

Our allies register and share their motivation behind being an inclusion ally and are given access to resources and tools to help educate themselves on being effective.

The above projects highlight some of our key areas of focus in the DE&I space to attract and retain diverse talent. Our extensive DE&I programme covers a wide range of initiatives from mentoring, sponsorship, training, events, neurodiversity, wellbeing champions, domestic abuse champions and much more. Our ambition is to ensure that everyone at Gowling WLG feels that they belong and can achieve their potential.

This information is supplied by Gowling WLG.