If there is a lack of understanding and knowledge about the ethnicity and experiences of GRT candidates, including their diverse backgrounds, firms that practice ‘diversity’ create an exclusive club
‘Other’ followed by ‘give more details’
For anyone who has applied for a job or a graduate role, the diversity and inclusion questionnaire is a staple of any application. In my experience, buzzwords fill corporate legal speak (and no doubt other professional spheres) portraying inclusive workforces. This is admirable. Look at the detail and one will see marginalised communities left behind. Falling through the cracks of diversity pledges.
Think about it. You’re filling out these application forms and you get to that diversity monitoring questionnaire. What do you put down when asked to detail your ethnicity? Is it easy? Can you even find an accurate description?
Now training as a solicitor, I look back to when I was applying to law firms for training contracts. As an aspiring solicitor from a Romani background, my ethnicity never quite made it onto the drop down list. For years, I was ‘other’ followed by ‘give more details’. The feeling of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) candidates being invisible was confirmed when an associate at a firm asked me at an application workshop ‘what is Roma?’. The workshop was aimed at improving my chances of getting a training contract, but it was clear improvement was needed from even the most diverse-minded recruiters to expand their knowledge of the diversity of their applicants and potential future employees.
True diversity
Very much a speck left unbrushed by the veneer of ‘diversity’, the numbers of GRT-identifying legal professionals is unknown. From my own research, I cannot find a law firm detailing GRT as a minority when reporting on workforce diversity, a Law Society statistic for GRT members and, even when looking at diversity reports; the lack of GRT lawyers is not considered. This directly affects GRT students who may have ambitions to enter the law, but are put off because their identity is not acknowledged or considered in the white-wash of the legal industry.
Simply put: if there is a lack of understanding and knowledge about the ethnicity and experiences of GRT candidates, including their diverse backgrounds, firms that practice ‘diversity’ create an exclusive club. There must be total diversity when companies and firms practice ‘diversity’. The irony should not be missed by any of us.
Look, I get it. Even Romani scholars disagree on the best method to collect ethnic data on those who identify as GRT – especially Roma. However, it is recruiters’ jobs to recognise that GRT candidates exist, for the majority struggle to get into a position to apply and that representation of a whole people group is missing from the industry. Even for law firms to recognise GRT identity in the application process and in the workforce would be progress, but this is by no means the only step that should be taken. The work needed to remedy GRT representation in the legal sphere is extensive.
Representation
One of the key areas where GRT representation can be improved in the legal sector is through the GRT community mobilising. Here’s a question for anyone reading this. Is there a Gypsy, Roma & Traveller Lawyer’s Association (or any other variation) in the United Kingdom? I have looked and asked, but I cannot find an association or organisation to call our own. Let’s do something about it. Let’s create our own association.
I’ve created a group on LinkedIn here, so please join if you are a GRT student interested in a legal career, a GRT trainee solicitor, a GRT legal professional or a much needed ally who cares about the advancement of GRT communities.
Denisa Gannon, the first solicitor of a Romani background to qualify in England and Wales, said poignantly “I will set a precedent“. Let us take up this mantel and see where this can go. The status quo is not and has never been acceptable.
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