At Michelmores, we believe our strength lies in valuing people as individuals and sustaining a culture where inclusion and a sense of belonging are paramount.
We constantly evolve to meet our clients’ and people’s diverse needs and allow everyone the opportunity to thrive and reach their full potential, whilst being their true selves at work.
Our approach to Inclusion focuses on understanding our impact in terms of our people, our planet, the communities we work in and the clients we support. As a responsible business, we expect our people to act conscientiously and take a proactive approach to supporting each other and the wider community.
Above all, we know that our success rests on the collective strengths, perspectives, and contributions of our people. Our people will only thrive if they feel valued, understood, included, and listened to which is central to our people having a true sense of belonging at Michelmores.
Our people enhance our culture and are essential to our journey. We believe having people with different backgrounds and cultures is crucial to helping us to continue our success as we recognise how our people, and their diversity of thought makes us stronger.
We have a rolling campaign to raise awareness and open up conversations around inclusion to create a fair and equitable place for everyone.
We are committed to taking positive action to widen access to the law, promote social mobility and support levelling opportunities for colleagues from minority ethnic backgrounds. Currently we are working in partnership with several organisations and charities to inform and push forward our diversity and inclusion work, including 10,000 Black Interns, PRIME, Pathways to Law, and Vision Path.
in 2022, we proudly launched our Momentum programme in partnership with VisionPath. Our aim is to make law more accessible by inspiring disadvantaged students to make broader career choices and understand their potential through workshops, mentoring and skill building sessions.
Our colleagues are actively involved and passionate about the impact proactive social change can have for everyone.
Our culture allows everyone to bring their true self to work, every day, and to create that sense of belonging where people feel safe to be themselves. We recognise that, outside of Michelmores, many within the LGBTQ+ community continue to face prejudice. We are proud to have an internal LGBTQ+ network who help us, alongside our partnerships with LeGaLBesT, Stonewall and Inclusive Employers, to make sure we are creating the environment where all our people can thrive, and we listen to our people to understand the support they need.
In 2016, Michelmores created the Women@Michelmores initiative, which supports the development and progression of the women in the Firm with a key aim of creating a better gender balance across our partnership. In 2022, we proudly surpassed our target of 30% of women across our partner group. In 2024, 49% of our partner group are women, with 74% of women at senior associate level.
Our people are actively promoting opportunity for gender parity within the sectors they operate within, through active involvement in Women in Telecoms and Technology, the Empowering Girls Network, and Inclusive Angels which focuses on changing the faces of Angel Investing. We are passionate about making a difference within our industry and within the wider community.
We work hard to create a working environment in which everyone feels psychologically safe, fully supported and able to talk about personal situations which may affect them. We have opened up conversations around sensitive topics such as menopause, fertility treatment, pregnancy loss and domestic violence.
We are proud to be the first law firm who signed up to the Employers with a Heart Charter where we committed to extending maternity leave and providing compassionate leave for those parents whose baby is in neonatal care.
We support our employees with caring responsibilities through our Family Network and our Family Leave Programme which aims for everyone to feel supported, valued and a sense of belonging, before, during and after their return from Family Leave.
By supporting all of our people to invest in their family we know that this will positively impact on female progression and gender parity across the board.
We are an advocate of gender pay gap reporting as a tool to improve transparency on pay. We use the information from our gender pay gap reporting to help inform where we need to focus to reduce or eliminate pay gaps. We recognise that change doesn’t happen overnight, and have a long-term commitment to closing the gap by increasing female progressions in senior and leadership roles, and increasing male representatives in our more early career roles. Based on our analysis, we believe that men and women are paid equally for doing equivalent roles at Michelmores
For the full 2023 report, please click here.
For the full 2022 report, please click here.
For the full 2021 report, please click here.
For the full 2020 report, please click here.
For the full 2019 report, please click here.
We regularly collect diversity data to allow us to monitor progress on our diversity and inclusion initiatives. View our Diversity Survey results for 2023.
We work with a number of organisations, including, Inclusive Employers, Employers with a Heart, Vision Path, Stonewall, Aspiring Solicitors, Pathways to Law and PRIME, to promote and encourage diversity within the Firm and the profession. We are also signatories of the Law Society’s Diversity & Inclusion Charter and the Mindful Business Charter which commits to supporting mental health and wellbeing.
The review and development of our diversity programme is the responsibility of Kim Tomlinson, our Deputy HR Director. If you have any feedback about our approach to Equality and Diversity, please let our Deputy HR Director know.
