It is no secret that salary is no longer the only pull for younger lawyers. An employer’s environmental and social ethics are increasingly becoming more and more important to young talent.
James Lavan commented that some candidates are turning down generous offers from firms that do not align with their beliefs, continuing that in the past year he has seen offers rejected by people who “felt that they were firms that didn’t match up with what they were trying to do”.
“ESG has been spoken about more and more over the last five years. It’s gone from something that is nice to have to an absolute must. The younger talent, they’re actually talking about it more because it’s something that really matters to them; it’s a moral cause. They are more interested in why firms are doing it.”
“I’m being asked for data on partner progression for men and women within a team and gender splits more than I ever have before. When we’re speaking to junior talent, they want to see that these things are not just window dressing. There’s been a lot of coverage of gender-washing. Candidates are now very aware of not just wanting to see one person has been pushed into a position of power, they’re asking more about how ESG filters down throughout a business. It’s something they actually believe in.”
“Partners recognise that they cannot merely be a legal provider now. They are also talking about how to position themselves in a really unique way in a market in which fundamentally there are very few differences between firms. They are very similar to each other, so ESG is a way of separating themselves.
“Previously, a partner might say, ‘You’re here to be a lawyer, not to change the world’. Now, because of the war for talent, we are seeing partners and HR teams start the conversation around this in the interview process.”
“That sort of awareness has come from the ground and floated upwards rather than leaders at the top saying this is something we’re going to now focus on”.
Tom Hanlon explained that ESG now frequently features as a topic at the initial screening stage with law graduates. Candidates want to know that a firm is not only making the right decisions internally, but also “pro-actively advising clients on their own ESG initiatives.”
“They will genuinely make a decision on whether they move forward on a firm based on purely those factors. We see this happen a lot more often. So that means that the firm’s wider impact on society generally, not just internally, rather than just trying to tick boxes.
“They ask the question now at interview, to the firm, whether that’s something that they adhere to proactively.”
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