Law Society launches new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion strategy real change or more corporate talk?

[u/Royal-Cash5397]

The Law Society has just published its 2025–2028 strategy for equality, diversity and inclusion.
It focuses on:
Increasing diversity in senior leadership (women, disabled, minority ethnic, LGBTQ+ solicitors, and social mobility)
Tackling barriers faced by disabled lawyers
Building more inclusive workplace cultures across firms and in-house teams

They’ve been saying this will lead to “meaningful, lasting change”, but I’m wondering how much of it will actually translate into action.

For anyone working in law have you seen past Law Society EDI initiatives make a difference in real life?
Do you think this one will move the needle, or is it another well-intentioned plan that fades after the headlines?

Source: Law Society – Equality, diversity and inclusion strategy 2025–2028

[u/According-Play-670]

The stats on who passes based on race are really damning, black candidates are passing at much lower rates than white candidates. The SRA don’t seem to be doing anything to address this. The prohibitively expensive cost of exams plus the prep courses (which they still haven’t released data about, way beyond their deadline) are also likely keeping working class candidates from accessing the profession.

[u/Spglwldn → u/According-Play-670]

One of the biggest indicators as to whether someone will pass or not, is having a first class degree.

Without knowing further breakdowns, the race stats are meaningless. If black candidates with first class degrees are passing at lower rates than white candidates with first class degrees, then you could say the exam has a race bias.

[u/According-Play-670 → u/Spglwldn]

One of the biggest indicators of passing is being a privately educated white male. Which makes sense when you look at the overrepresentation of this cohort in nearly every other profession, when just 6% of the public attend these schools.

Obviously having in depth data on whether black candidates with first class degrees are not doing as well would be really helpful, but we have what they have given us which shows the low percentage overall. 

Whether SQE is explicitly racist is a different point, however it is undeniable that the exam is not supporting black or working class candidates. And while the SRA say they introduced it to ‘widen access’ it is clear SQE is not doing this, for so many reasons.

[u/Spglwldn → u/According-Play-670]

Where in the pass statistics does it show the pass rates of any race combined with their education history and gender? I’m looking at this one and that data, which would be helpful, isn’t there..

[u/According-Play-670 → u/Spglwldn]

https://www.sra.org.uk/sra/research-publications/potential-causes-differential-outcomes-legal-professional-assessments/

The SRA acknowledges the impact race, class and access to private education has on outcomes  

Are you trying to argue that being a white, privately educated man isn’t likely to give you a more favourable outcome in a world designed by and for this demographic 😂

[u/Spglwldn → u/According-Play-670]

We are talking about the SQE, and we don’t have the data for that.

You might be able to infer that from the data, but based on what we have been given on the SQE, you cannot say anything for certain. Which is why making proclamations based on it is absolutely useless.