Squire Patton Boggs is proud to announce that it has been ranked 15th in this year’s Social Mobility Employer Index, up from 46th place in 2020, underlining the firm’s commitment to social mobility.
The index was created by UK charity the Social Mobility Foundation in 2017 and examines how companies and organisations are driving social mobility within their workplace.
The Social Mobility Employer Index is comprised of two elements: questions directed at employers, and an employee survey. Employers are evaluated across seven areas: their work with young people, routes into the employer, the attraction of staff, recruitment and selection, data collection, progression of staff and experienced hires and advocacy. This year saw 203 businesses and public sector organisations, who collectively employ 1.35 million people in the UK, answer around 100 questions.
Partner Rob Elvin, who leads the firm’s Social Mobility Resource Group, commented: “Social mobility is an issue we take very seriously at Squire Patton Boggs. To have made such tremendous progress after entering the index for the first time last year underlines how hard we have worked, not only to address barriers to recruitment, but also to improve mobility within the firm.
“We have benefitted from the recommendations and advice of the Social Mobility Foundation and their rigorous assessment of our progress which has helped us to set meaningful priorities and bring about positive change.”
A number of measures have been taken by the firm to improve social mobility. In continuing to partner with the Sutton Trust’s Pathways to Law programme and the Social Mobility Business Partnership, the firm has further developed its Accelerate outreach programme which has scored highly in the index. Key to the programme is the appointment of lawyers as local champions to partner with schools and colleges, providing meaningful interventions to young people in key areas of disadvantage, and university undergraduates to support application readiness.
Other improvements include the adoption of a more focused approach to recruitment with further refinements to the firm’s graduate recruitment programme and the introduction of paralegal apprenticeships to improve access to the profession.
For further information about the index, please visit the Social Mobility Foundation website.