Simmons & Simmons aims for 30% minority trainees by 2025

Law firm Simmons & Simmons has revealed a set of targets to achieve greater ethnic and racial diversity across the firm within the next five years.

According to the D&I initiative announced on Wednesday, December 8, the firm aims to have 30% ethnic minority trainees by 2025, building on its present trainee ethnic make-up of 25%.

Simmons & Simmons is also aiming to achieve a 15% ethnic minority partnership within five years. The firm’s 2020 diversity report showed that 14% of partners are from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds.

According to the announcement, the plan has a particular focus on improving the quality of its data collection and analysis to monitor progress, the review of recruitment and promotion processes, and extending the mentoring programme which aims to share and educate on experiences of ethnic minority colleagues, said the firm.

This announcement follows the firm’s ranking in the Social Mobility Employer Index 2020.

Simmons & Simmons senior partner Colin Passmore said: “It is only right that as a firm we continue to challenge ourselves to create a truly diverse and inclusive environment for our people. Our firm’s ambition is to deliver greater inclusion and to ensure that our people can deliver their best in a workplace that supports everyone”.

Simmons & Simmons partner Fiona Bolton, chair of EMerge, the firm's BAME network, said: “We have made real progress so far in our steps to improve D&I at all levels of the firm, but there is still much to be done by individual firms and the legal profession as a whole.

“Our race and ethnicity action plan forms part of our ongoing efforts to make meaningful progress and we will continue to evolve our ways of working in pursuit of inclusion and diversity.”

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