SRA Diversity Data Survey

Every two years, law firms regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) are required to collect, report, and publish data about the diversity make-up of their workforce. This data is used by the SRA to update their law firm diversity data tool, which provides an overview of diversity in the solicitors’ profession, as well as to inform their engagement, regulatory, and research work. 

The survey also provides Stone King with a useful opportunity to refresh and build on our existing people-related data. We are committed to being a transparent, data-driven organisation and know that monitoring and responding to our data is critical to our work around diversity, equity and inclusion. 

The SRA has introduced several changes to its 2023 survey, including a new distinction between full equity solicitor partners and salaried or partial equity partners. There was also a change to the wording of the question on parental occupation in order to align with Social Mobility Commission guidance. 

This year, for the first time, we have decided to publish our own data alongside sector averages. We hope that this context will make our own data easier to interpret. To learn more about what we are doing to progress DE&I at Stone King, please also have a look at the Diversity and Inclusion pages on our website. We have also included a section identifying sector-wide trends as highlighted by the SRA at the end of this document.

All of our people, including the Firm’s partners, had the opportunity to complete the survey. We were pleased to see a response rate of 86%, though note that this, along with the fact our Williams Lea colleagues were not included in the survey, means we have a helpful but incomplete data set. 

The data we hold includes information relating to respondents’ roles within the Firm as well as their office location. These details are useful as we work to understand more about how DE&I intersects with both place and progression. In order to ensure that no individuals can be identified, we are, however, only able to publish a summary of our results. In places we have also aggregated categories or avoided giving precise figures in order to protect anonymity. Where we provide an SK percentage, this is rounded to one decimal place.
In relation to ethnicity data, we ordinarily use the Government Statistical Service’s harmonised standards, where necessary aggregating data into the five recommended categories. In this instance, data privacy constraints mean we are unable to publish a detailed breakdown of our ethnicity results. We have therefore followed SRA guidance and compared our Black, Asian, Mixed and Other categories together with the White group. 

We think it is important, however, to acknowledge the limitations of this approach and to underline our commitment to following best practice guidance wherever possible when collecting, analysing and reporting on ethnicity data. 

*please see ‘a note on our data’ above for information about why we have used aggregated categories here.

*Lower socio-economic background: technical and craft occupations; routine, semi-routine manual and service occupations; long-term unemployed. Intermediate background: clerical and intermediate occupations; small business owners who employ less than 25 people. Professional background: modern and traditional professional occupations and senior, middle or junior managers or administrators

This data is helpful as we look to embed and accelerate Stone King’s DE&I work. Notably, we can see there is more to do in relation to the representation of ethnic minority groups within our Firm, and that a large number of our people are the primary carers of children. 

We are committed to ensuring our workforce is reflective of local communities, and to supporting those with caring responsibilities. These are already areas of focus for the Firm, and will remain so over the coming year. As above, you can see more about our current DE&I work in the Diversity and Inclusion section of our website. 

The SRA has identified a slow but steady increase in diversity among all lawyers since the previous survey in 2021.

• The proportion of women in law firms has risen from 48% in 2015 to 53% in 2023, however a seniority gap for women remains.
• There has been a steady increase in the proportion of Black, Asian and minority ethnic lawyers in law firms, from 14% in 2015 to 19% in 2023.
• There has been an increase in the proportion of disabled lawyers, from 3% in 2015 to 6% in 2023. However, there is still significant underrepresentation compared to 16% in the UK workforce.
• There has been a slight growth in lawyers who are lesbian, gay, bi or prefer another description over time, from 3% in 2015 to 4.4% in 2023.
• The proportion of lawyers from a professional socio-economic background has decreased from 60% in 2019 to 57% in 2023. Lawyers from an intermediate socio-economic background increased – from 5% in 2019 to 13% in 2023.
• The proportion of lawyers attending independent/fee-paying schools has decreased, from 23% in 2015 to 21% in 2023. The number of those attending state schools has grown from 59% in 2015 to 64% in 2023. There is a greater proportion of partners (25%) who attended an independent/fee-paying school compared to solicitors (19%).

You can find more information about trends identified by the SRA here.