corporate social responsibility
Responsible, Sustainable Business
Our law firm’s commitment to corporate social responsibility and community.
Our commitment to diversity and inclusion
At Ignition Law, we’re deeply committed to promoting diversity and inclusion across every aspect of our business. We have always – and will always – champion excellence, regardless of background, culture or ethnicity, and will continue to do all we can to contribute to a more diverse and inclusive workforce.
We do so not simply because it’s the socially responsible thing to do, but also because diversity and inclusion has positively influenced every aspect of our business from the get-go. We have seen first-hand how placing diversity and inclusion at the centre of our work – in part through fostering a diverse and inclusive culture – promotes innovative thinking and the personal and professional development of our team members.
This in turn helps us to develop a wider range of solutions for clients, which is essential for a thriving legal practice.
Our diversity and inclusion policy
We also recognise the important role that equality legislation has to play in promoting equality and eliminating unlawful discrimination, and have reflected this in our own diversity and inclusion policy.
This policy simply codifies the values on which we were founded. The importance we place on equal opportunities and recruitment practises. Our understanding that the right to equal pay and merit-based promotions should be a given. And our strong belief that flexible working arrangements and shared parental leave are essential if we’re to continue attracting and retaining the best talent.
Building a diverse and inclusive team
Our values have enabled us to foster a culture that respects and values people from all walks of life. A culture in which everyone is accepted, treated with respect, and feels empowered to reach their full potential and deliver their best work. A working environment in which talented lawyers are encouraged to practice their profession, without needing to sacrifice their families and interests (which are often their sources of motivation and inspiration). After all, modern day life no longer fits within the confounds of a traditional 9-5.
Our values and culture have enabled us to attract a rich and talented team, representing a unique range of skills, backgrounds, interests and personalities. In particular, our pioneering approach to recruitment and work allocation makes us an incredibly attractive option for mothers returning to work (in fact, 70% of our team are women and 60% of our partners are female).
This has enabled us to maintain a richly gender-diverse workforce where everyone can (and does!) enjoy both career progression and a work/life balance. That’s a real rarity in this profession, and we’re all better off as a result. Including our clients.
On that note, many of us have founded and scaled our own businesses, social enterprises and charities (from ski transfer businesses to educational publishers!), which has given us a unique understanding of the challenges faced by many of our entrepreneurial clients. And the thousands of clients we have supported over the years would hopefully attest to that.
Tackling a systemic lack of diversity in the profession
Our founders and partners appreciate that diversity and inclusion need to be driven from the top in order for us to attract an even more diverse range of applicants for our roles. For this reason, we formed a Diversity Panel, which meets quarterly to discuss the ways in which we can further integrate diversity and inclusion into our broader business strategies. This plays a significant role in keeping diversity and inclusion at the forefront of all key decisions.
Moreover, we constantly review our recruitment processes to try to attract a more diverse selection of applicants for every role. After all, our clients are diverse and our team should reflect that.
In addition to widening our recruitment searches and advertising roles via diversity-centric partners such as the Black Solicitors Network, we also strive to tackle the lack of diversity in profession at the ground level.
For starters, our team have been working to inspire school children from all backgrounds to consider law as a viable and achievable career option. We also invest as much time as we can in educating underrepresented students about legal careers (with a recent example being at the Euromoney Teach First event) and have developed a bespoke work experience programme aimed at candidates from a broad range of backgrounds.
mental health
We appreciate that mental health is still a delicate subject and can be incredibly difficult to talk about in the workplace. However, with statistics showing that almost every worker will at some stage experience stress and/or mental health-related concerns at work, it’s incredibly important to us that each and every team member feels fully supported and sufficiently empowered to discuss any personal or professional issues. It is an important aspect of our corporate social responsibility programme.
For this reason, we have appointed our own internal Wellbeing Officer (Lauren O’Sullivan), who is always on hand to provide ongoing day-to-day support to the wider team.
We also know that prioritising mental health allows our entire business to thrive, and understand that looking after our team should therefore extend beyond gym membership and free fruit in the office. Accordingly, we took the decision to completely overhaul our benefits package in order to offer greater emotional support to any team member that needs it. For example, we now partner with wellness platform Heka to offer all employees direct access to support covering everything from nutrition and exercise, to meditation and therapy.
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