Law Firm Celebrates Diversity Across 13 UK Offices

National law firm Irwin Mitchell is marking this year’s International Women’s Day by celebrating the diversity of its female workforce across its 13 UK offices.

International Women’s Day (8 March) is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity.

To mark the occasion the leading law firm, for the first time, is holding a nationwide event between 13:00-14:00 to celebrate the many different women who work at the firm while highlighting the issues they face.

The event forms part of Irwin Mitchell’s commitment to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace and has been organised by IMPowered, the firm’s internal support and networking group for gender related issues.

The group have organised a varied line-up of speakers from the business who will discuss the important roles women play both in and outside of the workplace. With the World Economic Forum advising that true gender parity is still over 200 years away, and, in keeping with the theme of International Women’s Day, ‘Press For Progress’ they will also be looking at why and how we all must continue pushing for gender equality and inclusivity.

The speakers include:

• Alison Eddy, Managing Partner for the London office, and Head of IM Powered
• ​CEO of Business Legal Services, Vicky Brackett – the importance of having a good mentor, career ambitions and work/life balance.
• ​​Partner, Anita Jewitt, winner of the Inspirational Women In Law Award for the First 100 Years Project.​
• SML Co-ordinator (HR) Nia Parsonage –becoming an international women's rugby referee and what's it like working in women's sport.
• Trainee Real Estate Solicitor Laura Kacoutie – on issues affecting BME women.
• ​Associate Director, Mark Duffell, Group Comms – supporting his wife's career and raising a daughter.
• ​​Public Law Paralegal, Ashlee Coates - celebrating and working with women in the LGBT+ community.
• Web content officer, Sarah Sharp - on confidence and resilience as a female singer-songwriter. 

Expert Opinion

We're thrilled to be marking IWD this year and have put together an inspiring panel to help celebrate the massive contributions that women make in society, while exploring what else we can all do to drive for greater equality. True inclusion won't happen unless everybody is at the party so I hope that lots of our male colleagues feel welcome to come to come and join in whilst showing their support. Alison Eddy - Partner

As part of the firm’s celebrations of on the day IMPowered members are asking colleagues to take to Twitter to post about the women who have inspired them and encouraging others to do the same. In Birmingham the IMPowered group has been collecting Easter eggs and gifts for The Freedom Project, which supports women and children affected by domestic violence. Employees at the same office have also introduced collections for Beauty Banks, a not for profit organisation which aims to reduce hygiene poverty, inviting staff to bring in toiletries and sanitary protection to be donated to those who cannot afford self care and sanitary products. 

IMPowered is also planning an event to mark International Men’s Day on 19th November, for the first time, aiming to highlight the issues commonly faced by men while celebrating the contributions they make to society.

The events are the latest in a long line from IMPowered. Most recently they set up their Modern Families initiative to look at the ways colleagues can be affected by the pressures of modern life and explore ways to reduce stress and improve work/life balance. So far the group has had members of staff talk at internal events on caring for older relatives or disabled children, being a single parent, co-parenting, miscarriage, and same sex marriages, as well as sharing case studies on their firm’s intranet.

The New Parents project aims at helping those who are considering starting families, and affected by issues such as IVF, adoption and surrogacy. The initiative aims to provide better support for those on maternity and paternity leave or returning to work and ensuring better information about benefits is available.

The group hope that some of the outcomes of both projects will improve inclusion at Irwin Mitchell and encourage more women into senior roles within the firm.