Social Mobility

We focus on increasing numbers of candidates from less advantaged backgrounds joining the firm and ensure that the culture within the firm is inclusive so that everyone feels like they belong, no matter their background. We continue to collaborate within the sector to support improvements in social mobility more widely.

Social Mobility report 2023

Real the full report here

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Investing in young people

We invest in initiatives that up-skill, inspire and equip young people for the world of work as they progress through school, go to university and take their first steps towards a professional career. Building on our strong connections with schools and charities, we have a number of ways we try to make a difference to the future prospects of the young people we support.

The Key Project

Our partnership with Central Foundation Boys' School and education charity The Access Project supports students from less advantaged backgrounds to win places at top universities. A dedicated Access Officer based at the school works with around 80 students and supports them with university progression advice and delivers enrichment activities. Our employee volunteers also provide one-to-one tutoring in GCSE and A level subjects. Since launching the scheme in 2012, five times more students from the school have gone to the top third most selective universities.

Mentoring

We partner with a local school to offer a six month mentoring programme to 30 students in year 12 and 13. Our employee volunteers support students with deciding their university and course choice and to complete their application. The number of students at our partner school who progress to selective universities has risen from 13% in 2012 to 47% in 2018.

PRIME Commitment

We are proud to be a founding member and participant of PRIME, a sector-wide initiative to provide fair access to quality work experience.

Excellerators work experience

Our Excellerators Programme is for Year 12 school students. We provide a week-long placement across legal and business services teams to give a unique insight into the variety of roles in a firm like ours with the hope it will inspire students to think about a career in the profession. Following a week at the firm, students then go on to the Insight Week provided by the Social Mobility Business Partnership, a social mobility scheme we set up with ITV.

Upreach Law Springboard

In April 2019, we launched the bespoke ‘Law Springboard’ in partnership with upReach, a charity that helps students across the UK to realise their potential. Designed to improve access to the legal sector for high potential undergraduates from less-advantaged backgrounds, the programme provides one-to-one support, work experience, mentoring and events.

Literacy Support

Literacy is crucial to social mobility. As well as our support of primary school reading schemes, we work with the National Literacy Trust, a charity that helps disadvantaged children and young people gain the literacy skills they need to succeed. NLT’s research has found that children born into communities with the most serious literacy challenges have some of the lowest life expectancies in England. We fund Share a Story, which provides literacy resources that support the development of disadvantaged primary school students and are also a member of the Vision for Literacy Business Pledge, which sets out our commitment to help tackle the UK’s unacceptably low levels of literacy.

Visit the National Literacy Trust for more information

Chapter One

We have worked with Chapter One (formerly TutorMate), an online reading support platform, since 2020. The scheme pairs struggling pupils (aged 5-7 years) from our local primary school with reading support volunteers, who commit to a 30 minute reading session a week. In the 2021-22 academic year, Slaughter and May volunteers provided 85.2 hours of reading support. External evaluation has demonstrated that, compared to other children in their class, Chapter One boosts children's enjoyment of reading, strengthens their belief that they are good readers and sparks their excitement about the world of books.

Slaughter and may scholarship scheme

Launched in April 2021, the Slaughter and May Scholarship Scheme provides bursaries to high-potential undergraduates from less advantaged backgrounds. Working with social mobility charity upReach, the Scheme is an extension of the firm’s existing Law Springboard programme, and provides tailored leadership development opportunities in addition to financial support. The firm has committed to fund three cohorts of 10 students per year, for three years of university study. The bursary will equate to £3,000 per student per year, representing a £270,000 investment over five years.

“upReach research has shown that balancing part-time work alongside study can hold back some high potential students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Financial support can level the playing field, helping students dedicate more time to achieving their academic potential, and participating in extracurricular activities that build crucial “soft skills” like leadership and communication - both of which can make them more competitive in the graduate job market.” Nick Bent, CEO at upReach

Case studies

Lead into Law

Working in partnership with diversity specialists Rare, we launched Lead in to Law in September 2019. This two year development programme provides twenty 16 to 18 year olds from less advantaged backgrounds who are interested in a legal career with work experience, insight opportunities, mentoring and university visits.

Rare Discuss

We sponsor Rare Discuss, an exclusive training programme for university students from less-advantaged backgrounds who are interested in pursuing a career in law.

“It was a fantastic opportunity to go inside some of the biggest law firms in the City to see what they do and how they do it. It was fascinating to talk face-to-face with lawyers at each firm, from trainees to partners, and to have the chance to see how each firm is different. Rare guided me through the application process. They gave tips on what to include in application forms/CVs, they conducted mock interviews based on each firm’s format.

In the end, I had interviews with three sponsor firms, and ended up doing summer schemes with two. I got training contract offers from both.”

Evan, an associate at Slaughter and May