News - News - BLD Diversity Law Event – Creating Opportunities

BLD held its Diversity in Law Event yesterday. The event was sponsored by Allen and Overy and took place at their new office, One Bishopgate, London. Attending the event were Mrs Justice Dobbs, Trevor Faure (EMEA General Counsel of Tyco), Kim Hollis QC, Anesta Weekes QC, Satinder Hunjan QC and our Lawyer of the Month (March 2007), Segun Osuntokun. Many other lawyers, HR personnel and students attended.

 

The theme was: "One Cake For All – How Can Ethnic Minorities Gain Equal Access and Opportunities for a Fairer Share of the Legal Cake?"

The speakers at the event were: Peter Herbert, Gifty Edila, Sailesh Mehta and Makbool Javaid. Susan Hazeldine, Litigation and Graduate Recruitment Partner at Allen and Overy, welcomed everyone.

 

Peter Herbert spoke about the real opportunities of connecting with and helping each other, helping the community and giving back, as the way to create real opportunities for black and ethnic minorities. He said that whilst there has been some progress and some minorities were moving up, including more black and minority ethnic judges, a lot more ethnic minorities were actually worse off than before.

 

Gifty Edila spoke about the vast opportunities in local government and that she would encourage ethnic minorities to head that way. She, however, accepts that currently there are not enough ethnic minorities in the higher echelon of local government.

 

Sailesh Mehta spoke about the real threats for Legal Aid lawyers and the opportunities of making an impact by considering challenging the DCA in the courts on the Carter proposals as the proposals will have a catastrophic effect on black and ethnic minority law firms. He expressed disappointment at the Bar Council's apparent acceptance of the Carter proposals. He also announced the Footsie 100 Project, which is a joint project between Society of Asian Lawyers and the Law Society.

 

Debo Nwauzu, the solicitor founder of BLD, concluded the formal part of the event by quoting the Nelson Mandela version of Marianne Williamson’s "Our Deepest Fear".

 

Attendees continued networking until late into the night.