Diversity

We want to be part of our communities and help the next generation of leading minds find their voice and realize their aspirations. Our partners include:

• Legal Outreach, an organization working to level the educational playing field for minority, low income, and first-generation students by implementing programs to ensure academic success. As part of their programming, we host New York City high school students for internships. 
• Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School (WHEELS), a public school where students come from families where neither parent graduated from college. We provide mentoring and assist students with their college applications and personal statements.
• The U.S. Virtual Learning Program is open to students around the world to experience life as a lawyer at Linklaters. In an effort to widen access to the legal profession, the program is free, self-paced, and no experience is required.

We strive to ensure that everyone who walks through our doors feels a sense of belonging. Some ways we do this include: 

• Network Groups: we have a range of employee-led network groups focused on ethnicity, disability and mental health, family and caregivers, LGBT+, faith, and gender equality.
• Global Agile Working Policy: Agility is essential to our business. In 2020, we adopted a new global agile working policy that empowers our employees to determine where they get their work done without having to request permission. Under the new global policy, you can work remotely for up to 20-50% of your time.
• “Diverse Voices” Reverse Mentoring Program: This flips the traditional mentoring relationship model on its head, with junior mentors sharing their personal experience and insights with a more senior mentee.

We are committed to ensuring that there are many paths leading to our door.

• We partner with law school student affinity groups during the academic year by supporting activities such as networking, mentoring, mock interviews, and resume workshops.
• Through the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity’s (LCLD) 1L Scholars Program in our 10-week summer associate program. Each class of Scholars benefit from the annual 1L Scholars Summit and the LCLD network.
• Our Making Links 2L Diversity Fellowship is open to second-year law students. Fellows work with us as summer associates and are eligible to receive a stipend of US$50,000 after acceptance of a full-time offer to join the Firm following graduation.

We believe in creating a level playing field so that everyone has a chance to succeed and fulfill their potential. This includes: 

• Our Race Action Plan, which affirms our commitment to anti-racism and using our position as a global firm to drive change. The plan sets out how we will accomplish this at all stages of the career path, with concrete targets and actions, and holds firm leaders and managers accountable.
• Our INspire Minority Ethnic Talent Program is designed as a career accelerator to progress talent from minority ethnic backgrounds and ensure that our working environment is inclusive for all.
• Our Women’s Leadership Program was developed as a key part of our commitment to creating a sustainable pipeline of female talent for Partner and Counsel roles. It is a structured career development course for female senior associates who aspire to leadership positions at the firm. 

We know we can progress our Diversity and Inclusion ambitions faster if we work together with our clients and our communities. Some of our partnerships include: 

• The Leadership Council for Legal Diversity (LCLD): each year we select attorneys to participate in the organization’s Fellows and Pathfinders programs for high-potential attorneys from diverse backgrounds.
• Open for Business: we are a founding member of this coalition of leading global organizations that make the business and economic case for LGBT+ inclusion around the world.
• Law Firm Antiracism Alliance: in 2020 we joined this coalition of over 200 law firms that collaborate to assist legal services organizations in dismantling structural and systemic racism.