Diversity and equality

Our success as a firm depends upon our ability to attract and retain the brightest and most able people – regardless of their background.

We believe that career access to the legal profession must be open and fair for everyone. We hope to break down any perceived barriers that may be stopping prospective talented candidates entering the profession. We benefit from these initiatives by generating a wider and more diverse base from which to select our future lawyers.

We are involved in a number of initiatives designed to ensure fair and open access to all:

Hogan Lovells Ladder to Law
We launched this programme in partnership with The Brokerage Citylink in January 2010. It is unique to Hogan Lovells. The programme organises events for students from Years 10 – 12 in seven schools in London. The aim is to inspire the students to consider a career in law, and we are hoping to increase the number of participating schools in 2012/13.

Pathways to Law
We are a founding sponsor of this programme, run in partnership with The Sutton Trust. It is aimed at talented students from non-privileged backgrounds. We organised a week of work experience for a group of Year 12 students in February 2012, and look forward to welcoming a new group of students to the firm in 2013.

Birkbeck College, London
Hogan Lovells has a strong tradition of recruiting people who are transferring into law from another career. We particularly value the different skill set that mature recruits can offer. Working closely with the Faculty of Law at Birkbeck, we have developed a bespoke event that enables mature students (many of whom are working to support their studies) to meet us to find out more about a career in law.

Open University
We welcome applicants from the Open University and our vacancies are always listed on their website. Many Open University students juggle a range of priorities and many have had previous careers that bring a diverse range of abilities relevant to law.

Diversity and inclusion
In the London office we have established Women’s, LGBT, Working Families and Disability networks. Each network supports the Hogan Lovells diversity strategy. In January 2009 we also held our first diversity awareness week. The aim of the week was to raise awareness, and to educate our employees on the main themes of diversity and inclusion. The event was followed up in spring 2010 with a Better Business week, and in 2011 with a diversity awareness month.

Read more about our commitment to diversity at Hogan Lovells on our main website.