Workplace
A core part of our firm’s strategic plan is to foster a culture where our people can thrive. Over the past year we have done much in terms of developing our future firm strategy, launching a new strategic plan for the firm at the end of 2023, but that maps out our strategy from 2024-2027.
Some of the highlights from this year include:
A key focus of this strategy is of course our people, those who have formed the backbone of the firm for many years, those who have joined us in recent times and very importantly, those who will join us in the future. To help gain more insights on our culture, we launched an ‘AC Engagement Survey’ in association with Gallup in June 2024. The intention of this survey was to gather feedback that helps us make informed decisions on the future people strategy for the firm.
Bystander Training
A key focus of on our culture this year has been to educate our people on unconscious bias so that we can each understand how to better embrace a diversity of thought and experience, manage our inherent bias, and create an inclusive and respectful environment. To help us do this we partnered with UCC to deliver our first ‘Bystander Training’ in March 2024. This workshop provided a group of people, including members of our Management and Policy Committees as well as people from all levels across the firm, with an opportunity to better understand how to intervene in challenging situations that may arise and to better support those who may be marginalised. We plan to roll out this training, with an added module on Unconscious Bias Awareness, across the firm in the coming year.
Alternative Working Arrangements
Flexibility continues to be key part of our people strategy. In recognition that the traditional working model is evolving in the workplace and to address this, we were pleased to run our Alternative Working Arrangements early adopter programme from July 2023 to June 2024 inclusive, with 11 participants from a wide variety of business areas and practice groups taking the opportunity for some time out of the workplace. Feedback from the initial programme has been extremely positive from both participants and business leaders. As a firm we recognise the value to employees of offering opportunities for more flexible working arrangements. Participants in this programme had the option of taking 10%, or 20% of the year in blocks of time or to work a four-day week for a 12-month period. This time was used by many to do some extended travel. We are pleased to report that as a result of the successful initial programme in the past year, that it will be implemented as an offering to eligible staff members again in the coming year.
Health and Wellness
We recognise the importance of the wellbeing of our people. Our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) provides a confidential counselling service 24-hours a day, seven days a week. Our EAP also provides a portal through which our people can access additional wellbeing supports. In October 2023 we refreshed our Workplace Wellbeing Policy to reaffirm our commitment to creating a workplace culture that promotes and supports the health and wellbeing of our staff. We also have a dedicated team of trained mental health first-aiders onsite and available to anyone in the firm who may need assistance. Over the past 12 months we have hosted over 15 bespoke wellbeing events and promoted 30 community events that have been offered by our external wellbeing partner organisations.
In October 2023 we hosted 10 initiatives as part of our "Wellness Month", including reflexology sessions, massage therapy and mental health and resilience information webinars. In April 2024, to coincide with Ibec’s National Workplace Wellbeing Day, we organised a week-long itinerary of well-being initiatives.
Building mental health resilience has been a key theme for our wellbeing programme this year. We welcomed Ray Goggins, Chief Instructor from "Ultimate Hell Week" and ex-army ranger to the firm, to share some skills for building resilience and developing coping strategies. We also hosted a session with Nina Carberry, renowned Irish jockey, who shared insights on her remarkable journey from childhood to sporting success and beyond.
Arthur Cox Chair, Orla O'Connor and Nina Carberry
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) has been a business imperative for us for a number of years. It is central to the culture and ethos of our firm. We recognise the importance of EDI as we evolve our business and embrace a variety of views and backgrounds - this leads to greater innovation and creativity.
To better reflect the clients we serve and the community in which we do business, we continue to work on action plans that ensure we afford opportunities to people from diverse backgrounds and sections of society that are underrepresented in our employee base. We want our workforce to be made up of a multitude of different backgrounds and perspectives that support our purpose of delivering all-round excellence to clients and our people.
Over the past 12 months, our EDI Partner Committee has focused on the development of our enhanced EDI strategic plan for the next three years. Using feedback from focus groups and people surveys, we launched our revised EDI strategy paper in March 2023 which outlines our four key pillars:
Each pillar is supported by a Partner from our EDI Committee who is responsible for providing guidance and direction to the sub-committee. Each EDI sub-committee includes representation from our people across all levels in the firm. These sub-committees are key to delivering the action plans for each pillar.
One of the firm’s EDI goals is to increase the diversity of our candidate profiles. We began reporting on EDI demographic data for new candidates on an optional and anonymous basis towards the end of 2022. We wanted to ensure we were making progress on our EDI initiatives, and we wanted to identify areas, like our recruitment process, that needed improvement. We continue to review this data as a mechanism to measure the success of our EDI action plans through improved representation.
Once again this year we ran our EDI Trainee Competition. The winning group in 2023 came up with the idea to introduce a formal policy for our people who juggle full-time work with caring responsibilities. The working group have commenced engagement with our HR team to draft this policy. The aim is to launch this policy by the end of 2024.
An external EDI initiative that we were proud to sponsor this year was the final of the Irish Federation of University Women Girls Public Speaking Competition in March 2024. We have committed to sponsoring the competition for the next three years.
We are also continuing our partnership with the Open Doors Initiative as it works to provide opportunities for marginalised members of society through training, education, employment and entrepreneurship. During the course of the year we were pleased to host two work experience candidates from the Initiative and these candidates continue to be mentored by a member of our staff.
Gender in the Firm
Our Gender in the firm initiative aims to improve gender balance and support women’s careers and progression to leadership positions in our firm. We focus on sponsorship and mentoring, offering bespoke maternity coaching, providing targeted networking opportunities and running training sessions designed to support women at pivotal points during their careers. To ensure the effectiveness of this initiative, we have set a target of 40% women partners to be achieved by 2028. Currently 41% of our partners in the firm are women. We continue to strive to increase our percentage of women equity partners in the firm.
41% of our Partners are women
In December 2022 we published our first Gender Pay Gap Report, and published our second report in December 2023. We are focused on closing this gap and our refreshed EDI Strategy, is key to how we will get there. Our Gender Pay Gap Report is available to view here.
Our formal sponsorship programme is available to all our female associates at the level of four years’ PQE and above. In parallel, we offer mentoring to all our associates who are three and four years’ PQE to support them on their path to partnership as they develop their career in the firm. We also have a focussed sponsorship and mentoring programme for our partners in the firm, to support their progression to Equity Partner. This is overseen by our Chief People Officer, Chair and Managing Partner.
We continue to collaborate with external partners such as the 30% Club Ireland, which is committed to supporting organisations achieve improved gender balance. Over the past 12 months we have hosted panel discussions with prominent female speakers (both internal and external) to share their experiences, learnings and provide advice. This year we were joined by Sarah Keane, President of the Olympic Federation of Ireland (OFI) to help us celebrate International Women’s Day 2024. Sarah has been President of OFI since 2017 and is CEO of Swim Ireland. She is also a non-executive member of the Commission of the Central Bank of Ireland. As part of her presidency of OFI she is leading this year's centenary celebration of the Olympic movement in Ireland, and was also involved in the preparations for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Over the past year we have also refreshed and strengthened our Gender Committee. The Committee now has 16 members with strong representation (both male and female) from senior levels in the firm.
As part of our EDI initiatives, we are now formalising processes for employees to take longer periods of family leave, so we can support the transition between work and home and improve communication and consistency for colleagues when leaving and re-entering the firm, with a particular focus on career progression. With this in mind, we are also partnering with a new maternity coaching provider that specifically works with law firms in the UK and Ireland to provide targeted support for our female colleagues in their careers after they become parents. This coaching is designed to support and facilitate career focused returns.
Family Leave
We have several programmes that support family leave, including our maternity coaching programme referenced above. The purpose is to allow expectant mothers to fully understand and explore the maternity transition and to be effective in meeting the challenges it brings.
We also provide extensive support to our fathers through progressive parenting and paternity leave policies. This includes a shared parenting leave policy that allows the sharing parent to avail of any untaken period of maternity leave. Our paternity leave policy offers 12 weeks' paid leave.
We believe these areas of focus are key to supporting the successful progression of our female staff members, facilitating improved sharing of parental responsibilities and leave in what are often dual career families. In the past year, we are pleased to report that 71 of our people have availed of some form of the firm’s family leave.
LGBTQ+
Our firm’s LGBTQ+ committee, alliance, aims to foster a culture of inclusivity and openness and its success over the years has been built on a solid foundation of engagement by all our colleagues in the firm, regardless of how they identify, since its formation. Membership of the network is open to everyone in the firm, both those who identify as LGBTQ+ and their allies.
Over the past year the network has organised regular social, educational and networking events, and also provided training and development opportunities for LGBTQ+ employees and allies. alliance also works with many external LGBTQ+ organisations, sponsors a number of LGBTQI+ university societies, and was a founding member of OUTLaw Network, a national LGBTQ+ network that promotes LGBTQ+ diversity across the Irish legal profession.
In 2023/24, the alliance Committee’s focus was on a return to a full calendar of in-person events that sought to champion the true impact of building a supportive LGBTQ+ network in our firm. Importantly, alliance held a half-day strategy day in February 2024; this represented a first for an EDI committee in the firm and brought the committee together with its leadership and executive sponsor team in order to determine alliance’s strategy for the period March 2024-September 2025.
The alliance committee is made up of three subcommittees who take responsibility for different aspects of the committee's remit:
alliance’s 2023/24 events focused on authenticity, inclusion, family and activism. Key events during the year included the following:
LGBTQ+ History Month: alliance proudly recognised LGBTQ+ history month with screenings of documentaries focussing on LGBTQ+ rights screened during lunchtime.
Pride 2024: Our 2024 Pride Programme included a number of successful, well attended and highly visible events. These included firm sponsorship of the Pride Run in the Phoenix park, group tours of Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) for its "Pride and the Pen" series and a fireside chat with social media influencer, TV host and entrepreneur, James Kavanagh when he openly discussed his career, life as an LGBTQ+ celebrity and growing LGBTQ+ in Ireland. We were also pleased to have a very special performance by the Arthur Cox choir; and of course, the month was rounded off with our annual Pride brunch.
Training for staff: We have worked with TENI, a transgender equality non-profit organisation, in hosting workshops to assist both those who transition in the workplace, and their allies.
National Coming Out Day: We proudly celebrated National Coming Out Day in October 2023 with a fireside chat with leading A&O Sherman partner, David Herlihy.
Alliance anniversary: We belatedly celebrated five years of alliance with a special evening of food, drinks and music, which featured contributions from founding members of the alliance committee who spoke passionately about the impact of alliance on their experience of the firm.
Pro bono: We also continue to support LGBTQ+ causes as part of our pro-bono initiatives within the firm, including by working on specific mandates addressing LGBTQ+ rights.
Pride Brunch Celebrations 2024
Disability and Neurodiversity
Our society increasingly values differences in individual experiences, and we as a firm acknowledge that embracing those differences improves the workplace for all. Individuals with physical disabilities, Autism, ADHD, Dyspraxia, and other mental and learning differences are natural creative thinkers and problem-solvers because they often live in a world not built for them. We want to celebrate and embrace these differences and have launched a sub-committee who are leading the way in creating an environment where all differences in this space are respected and valued.
Launched in March 2024, our Disability and Neurodiversity committee is focussed on a number of priorities:
- Awareness, education and training
- Supporting applicants through the recruitment process
- Assessing the physical workspace and providing appropriate supports where possible
- Making AC a safe place to allow people to feel comfortable and confident disclosing any impairments they might experience
- Meeting the needs of all our current and future employees while fostering a culture of compassion and assisting colleagues who support family members with a disability and/or neurodiversity
The firm launched our reasonable accommodation policy in June 2024, to ensure our current employees and new joiners have the opportunity to request additional supports that may be needed to fulfil their job to the best of their ability.
We have started to roll out strong, education-focused programmes to help us further our understanding and acceptance of those with visible and invisible disabilities or who are neurodivergent. This year we have partnered with AsIAm, Ireland's autism charity, who will support us on training and have already delivered a kick-off workshop, Neurodiversity & Disability in the Workplace, for the firm in September 2023. AsIAm also conducted a follow-up workshop ‘An Introduction to Autism’ in April 2024 where Bronagh Eaton from AsIAm shared her personal journey with the audience and insights into terminology plus supports that employers need to consider.
We have also conducted a review of our workspace with AsIAm’s support where they have called out a number of actions for us to take on and implement, which we have done in early 2024. We are in the process of launching implementing a sensory map for candidates interviewing in the firm.
Adam Harris, CEO and founder of AsIAm speaking at the Arthur Cox studio
Our Disability and Neurodiversity committee launched a group mentoring programme in April 2024 which aims to:
- Increase disclosure
- Educate and raise awareness
- Provide points of contact
- Elicit change
This is the first of its kind in Arthur Cox and we have over 40 participants from across the firm and at all levels. We are committed to making our accommodations policies clearer, our physical workplace more inclusive, information and communications more accessible, and using data to drive decisions to attract and retain the best and most diverse talent.
DISABILITY LEGAL NETWORK
We continue to be members of the disAbility Legal Network to support the wider community in the legal industry and learn how we as employers can support those with a disability or who are neurodivergent.
THE TRINITY CENTRE FOR PEOPLE WITH INTELLECTUAL DIFFICULTIES
Over the past year we have also continued our partnership with The Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities (TCPID), which provides students with an intellectual disability an opportunity to participate in a higher education programme, designed to enhance their capacity to fully participate in society as independent adults.
“The Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities (TCPID) is situated within the School of Education in Trinity College Dublin. We run a 2-year Level 5 Certificate in Arts, Science and Inclusive Applied Practice for students with intellectual disabilities. We work closely with a core network of business and philanthropic partners who provide us with essential financial and practical support. Our partners are key to helping us to create greater opportunities for education, meaningful employment, independent living and a greater sense of inclusion within society for people of all abilities.
Arthur Cox has been a business partner of the TCPID for the past 7 years. During that time, the Arthur Cox team has worked very closely with us and has offered incredible support for work placements and paid internships for some of our students and graduates. We are very proud that two of our TCPID graduates are now employed on a permanent basis in Arthur Cox. Shane McGilton who has been a part of the Arthur Cox team since 2018 and Bobby Dolan who received his permanent contract in October 2023 following a very successful 6-month internship. Getting a permanent job has had a hugely positive impact on both Shane and Bobby. It has been life-changing for them and for their families.
The support of the Arthur Cox team has been invaluable to the TCPID. We are incredibly proud to be working together to help create inclusive educational and employment opportunities for young people with intellectual disabilities. The ultimate goal of the TCPID is to help to promote true inclusion in education, in the workplace and in the community. Arthur Cox is helping us to make this goal a reality.”
Marie Devitt, Pathways Co-Ordinator at TCPID
Race and Ethnicity
We are committed to creating a culture in the firm in which everyone, regardless of background, identity, race, status or other circumstances, belongs. In 2021, we launched EMBRACE, our internal network for promoting diversity and inclusion of people across different racial and ethnic backgrounds within the firm and our wider communities. 2023 was a year of great progress for our EMBRACE Committee, with several impactful initiatives adopted. We saw the continued success of the EMBRACE Book Club, with a Q&A event with Leon Diop, co-founder of Black & Irish, about his new award-winning book “Black & Irish: Legends, Trailblazers and Everyday Heroes”. The Book Club creates a safe space for people to come together to discuss books that explore challenges faced by people of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, and to amplify the voices of authors from diverse backgrounds.
Our ADVANCE mentorship programme, which was an initiative created and developed by our trainees, held its inaugural orientation programme in January 2024 where over 20 students from minority groups were paired with Arthur Cox associates. These students got an insight into life at Arthur Cox and most importantly got support from their mentor on how to navigate their journey into law or another industry. The firm hosted a feedback session in April with the students to learn about their experiences and how the programme can do more to support them.
The EMBRACE Committee also committed support to the UCD University of Sanctuary initiative this year. This initiative provides financial and other supports for refugees, International Protection Applicants (asylum seekers) and those with Subsidiary Protection or Humanitarian Leave to Remain who wish to access higher education in Ireland. This comes from a recognition of the considerable financial, social and other barriers that students of diverse backgrounds face, and forms part of the firm’s wider EDI efforts.
The following targets for future recruitment have been set:
- 15% of the participants in our Summer Intern Programme must be minority candidates and
- 15% of our annual trainee intake must be minority candidates.
In 2024, we reached 14% for our Summer Intern Programme and approximately 8% of our future trainee intakes are minority candidates.
We will continue to keep our university engagement and our recruitment and selection processes under review to ensure we are an attractive employer to minority candidates.
A critical part of our EDI strategy is retaining, supporting and developing our minority colleagues. Our reverse mentoring programme gives senior leaders in the firm, including our Managing Partner, an opportunity to seek insights and to listen to the experiences and ideas of their mentees. The programme also offers mentees a fresh perspective on the firm’s strategy, culture and support for EDI. We are in the middle of completing the first year of this programme and will be launching again in September 2024 with a new group of participants.
Leon Diop from Black & Irish discusses his and Briana Fitzsimon's new book "Black & Irish: Legends, Trailblazers and Everyday Heroes"
Looking ahead
We will maintain or improve our partner gender balance, increase the percentage of our people availing of family leave and meet our targets for future recruitment of minority candidates.