Tag Archive for 'SRA'

Institutionally racist

Published
by
NL
on 14 August 2008
in job
. 18 Comments

We are not institutionally racist. SRA October 2007

This is not housing law related, but it is of significance to many in the sector.

Lord Ouseley, the former head of the Commission for Racial Equality, was jointly commissioned by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority and the Society of Black Lawyers to conduct an independent investigation into the SRA’s treatment of BME solicitors and firms, in a perhaps belated response to repeated complaints that BME firms were disproportionately targeted for interventions and that complaints and disciplinary proceedings were also handled in a discriminatory way. Even at the level of referrals of law students for character or suitability assessments, black and asian students are disproportionately represented.

The Guardian has obtained a copy of the report (and the Times also reports, more moderately). It makes for very uncomfortable reading for the SRA.

The report finds that the very way the SRA operates has ‘potential discriminatory effects’, and that

Potentially this still leaves the SRA open to the charge of institutional racism, as its policies, procedures, practices and actions, however unintended, can be seen to have disproportionate detrimental and discriminatory outcomes for BME solicitors

Awareness of the problem and progress on diversity issues at the the SRA is negligible, as management

regard the commitment to equality and diversity as superficial, tokenistic and unimportant.

And some SRA staff are quite simply racist:

Not to be under-estimated is the level of prejudice and bias which exists among personnel in this and other similar organisations

such that

some ethnic minority lawyers are judged to be guilty through racist stereotyping before an investigation is started (Guardian precis)

The report makes 39 recommendations, and demands ‘urgent, active and swift implementation’. Any chance of that? Well the current SRA leadership might have problems as the report found that:

The SRA at present lacks the drive and the equality and diversity competence within its managerial and leadership spheres to make the changes happen.

This is a pretty devastating condemnation of the practices and culture of the SRA. Let us hope it marks a watershed moment.

On the naughty step

Published
by
NL
on 26 May 2008
in whatever
. 2 Comments

On the very crowded naughty step this week are the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Law Society and, umm, firms of solicitors in general.

Shahrokh Mireskrandari, senior partner of Dean and Dean, has launched a claim for £10 million against the SRA and the Law Society at an employment tribunal, alleging racial and religious discrimination, harassment and victimisation by pursuing ‘numerous’ complaints against the firm over the last 5 years, only one of which produced a, minor, adverse finding. He accuses the Society and SRA of acting

unjustifiably, oppressively, disproportionately and outside their powers.

Meanwhile the SRA has, under pressure, set up a working party to investigate why 62.8% of interventions by the SRA in 2006 were against black, asian or unknown ethnicity solicitors, while 37% were against white solicitors, who make up 78.6% of all solicitors. (I’m very curious about the remaining 0.2% of interventions.)

On the topic of unjustifiable conduct, the Law Society’s own equal pay review revealed the shocking results that the median income for ethnic minority solicitors was 20% less than that of white solicitors. Even once factors like grade, gender, firm size, region, post-qualification experience and hours worked were taken into account, the gap remained at 17%.

Women solicitors earned 32% less than male solicitors. Even after grade, firm size, PQE, hours worked, work breaks taken and area of law were taken into account, the gap remained 7.6%.

The figures are appalling, way beyond any ‘accidental’ disparities. If they are accurate, the figures are a pretty damning indictment of our ‘meritocratic’ profession.

That said, a closer look at the sample size might cause a small doubt over the reliability of the survey.

Researchers quizzed 1,201 solicitors, 9% of whom were BME solicitors and 43% were female – described as a representative sample after weighting. The overall response rate was 76% and 52% for the salary questions.

On my maths that means 109 BME solicitors, of whom 56.7 answered the salary question. That strikes me as small sample and one that is pretty easily distorted, even using a median. This doesn’t mean the findings are wrong though, not at all.

It also suggests a sample of 516.3 women solicitors of whom 268.5 answered the salary question, which ought to be more reliable.