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8 March 2024
One of the UK’s leading public sector law firms, Sharpe Pritchard, is hosting several events and sharing its positive message about investing in up-and-coming female talent as part of its celebration of International Women’s Day.
The London law firm is renowned for its people-led growth strategy and has previously been named as one of the Top 5 practices to work for within the Capital, by Best Companies and has been ranked in The Times’s Best Law Firm to Work for based on its exceptional efforts to support its staff and improve equality and social mobility.
On the day itself, the firm has organised an insightful talk on gender apartheid for its team led by Chief Operating Officer, Nadia Biles, and Sarah Richardson, Consortium Relationship and Business Manager.
They will be joined by a speaker who is sharing her life experiences of crimes against women in Afghanistan under the Taliban’s current regime of gender apartheid.
She continues to have to protect her identity in public, due to the dangers that she faces from the Taliban. For more information on the unfolding gender apartheids in Afghanistan and Iran, the Gender Apartheid Inquiry has released a report this week, available on its website.
Speaking ahead of the event, Nadia said: “This year’s International Women’s Day theme, resonates deeply with our ethos at Sharpe Pritchard.
“Our firm has consistently championed gender equality and nurtured female talent, leading to transformative growth not only within our practice but also in the wider legal community.
“Celebrating International Women’s Day provides us with a poignant reminder of our commitment to elevating women in law and underscores the critical role they play in driving forward progress and innovation.
“Our firm’s history of supporting female leaders into prominent positions reflects our belief that investing in women is not just the right thing to do – it’s a strategic imperative that propels us all towards a more inclusive and equitable future.”
This year’s International Women’s Day is focused on the theme of Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress and Sharpe Pritchard has a long and illustrious history of gender equality and supporting female leaders into the upper echelons of the profession.
In fact, unlike most other firms, half of the practice’s partners and 75 per cent of its executive board are women.
Along with its investment in developing female solicitors, Sharpe Pritchard has had flexible working and other inclusive arrangements, which benefit women, in place since the 1990s – long before most other firms.
Its recruitment policies rely entirely on merit and are not based on which school or university the candidate attended, their background, race or gender – with most partners enjoying a state-school education.
Managing Partner, Julia Rudin, had this to say about her own experience at Sharpe Pritchard. She said: “I applied for my training contract in the late 1980s. I only applied to firms with at least one female partner and at the time that ruled out about 80 per cent of law firms.
“Sharpe Pritchard was one of the firms that I applied to, and I completed my training with the firm. When I returned to work after maternity leave in the mid-1990s, it took enlightened male Partners to embrace things like part-time work.
“Flexible working was unheard of in most law firms at the time. It is because I felt valued and included that I have stayed at the firm for 30 years and I would like to think that I have given something back to the firm in that time.
“My experience only reinforces the importance of inclusion for our whole community both within the legal profession and beyond..”
As an equality-driven employer, Sharpe Pritchard is incredibly proud of its implementation of gender-responsive financing and pay.
Its latest gender pay gap report for 2023, shows that the firm’s mean pay gap is -2 per cent and the median pay gap is 15 per cent – well below the average for the legal industry and just underneath the national median pay gap of 15.4 per cent, according to the Office for National Statistics.
To find out more about Sharpe Pritchard’s approach to equality and diversity, please visit https://www.sharpepritchard.co.uk/about-us/equality-and-diversity/
