Equality & Diversity and CSR

We don't just talk about equality, diversity and corporate responsibility at Eversheds. We invest significant time and resources to make them a reality. That starts with leadership from the top. Our Diversity Steering Committee is led by Margot King, who is our dedicated Head of Corporate Responsibility, Diversity & HR Projects.

Quite simply, we believe in attracting the best people from the widest pool of talent. It's all about valuing the diversity of our people and the multiple cultures within our firm. It's also about creating an environment where people succeed on merit and have the opportunities to develop their potential to the full.

So it will come as no surprise that we have profit share systems in place and were the first UK law firm to introduce a flexible working scheme. Or that we have launched a wider corporate responsibility programme focused on unlocking talent both within Eversheds and the communities we belong to. Our people spend around 20,000 hours a year working with the community - including pro bono legal advice, support for the homeless, primary and secondary school relationships and environmental activities. We also launched ‘Eversheds Unlocked' in 2008, our unique programme aimed at giving young people from disadvantaged backgrounds the support to successfully apply to university and understand what they need to do to secure a training contract at a law firm like Eversheds. In addition, we encourage our people to actively participate in our Corporate Responsibility programmes by allowing them to record up to 50 hours of CR related activities - hours which count towards their chargeable hours target and annual bonus.

But that's just the start. We also promote sustainable growth through responsible and innovative business practice and always work to minimise our impact on the environment.

In short, we aim to set and continuously improve industry standards in all aspects of diversity and corporate responsibility - and we're winning recognition for our efforts. We won ‘Most Effective Diversity Programme' at the Law Society Awards 2009 and were finalists for ‘Most Effective Diversity Programme' and ‘Best Corporate Responsibility Initiative' at The Lawyer HR Awards 2010. Other recent awards include:

• Stonewall Top 100 Employers 2009 and 2010
• Carbon Trust Standard 2009
• Opportunity Now Gold Standard

Visit our dedicated web pages here to find out more.