Law Society of Scotland: Good Practice Guide

Equality Works was commissioned to carry out research and consultation to inform the production of forthcoming guidance for solicitors on equality and diversity.

By conducting a literature research and consulting within the Society and involving its partners/practitioners/customers/equality groups we were able to identify key equality issues. Furthermore, we supplemented existing statistical data by adding a qualitative and up to date element regarding equality issues.

Once the consultation process was completed we analysed the feedback and discussed the findings in detail with the Law Society.

The research enabled us to identify areas of good practice as well as some of the challenges in terms of equality and diversity.

The identified areas of good practice are:

• Leadership
• Partnerships and procurement
• Mainstreaming
• Success – the rate of change

The identified challenges, given a relatively low baseline in terms of equality and diversity, are:

• Lack of time and/ or interest
• Inherent tensions in the Society’s role
• Dispersed profession, some with limited access to ICT

The key message from this consultation is that there is good practice in terms of the quality of Equality and Diversity work undertaken by the Society to date. However, that there was still considerable work to be done to raise the profile of equality and diversity work.

Given these findings, we structured a final report around considering ways in which the Society might improve communication about good practice within the profession and effectively develop a ‘brand’ around equality and diversity.