In an increasingly competitive market, attracting the very best talent to our firm has never been more important. Proactively taking steps to widen the pool of talent from which we recruit is a key focus of our D&I Strategy. It’s about making sure we attract people from a wide range of backgrounds to encourage different perspectives, utilise different skill sets and, with that, bring new ways of solving problems into our firm.
This is something we’re passionate about throughout our firm, with offices across our international network taking steps to attract and recruit diverse talent.
Attracting the brightest talent
Our London office’s partnership with the Bright Network helps us reach out to incredibly talented candidates from a wide range of diverse backgrounds. We were Gold Sponsors of the Bright Network D&I Conference in 2021 and attend regular events, which provide us with a fantastic opportunity to showcase the opportunities available at WFW and our inclusive culture.
We have also introduced the Rare Contextual Recruitment System throughout our London trainee recruitment process. This is a piece of software which helps recruiters identify high-potential candidates from all backgrounds through understanding the context in which a candidate’s academics have been achieved.
An insight into Greek Shipping Law
Our Athens office has collaborated with ELSA Greece and The Yes Forum to host Virtual Open Days and we also sponsored the ELSA Greece Maritime Conference in 2021. Both of these events allowed us to speak directly to students interested in a career in law and the shipping industry about what it is like to work in an international law firm, the opportunities we have available and the work we are doing to further Diversity & Inclusion at our firm.
Inspiring women lawyers of the future
One of the aims of our New York office Women’s Initiative is to inspire and support the next generation of women lawyers. In furtherance of this goal, the NY Women’s Initiative engages with women’s associations at law schools throughout the US. Most recently, in coordination with the Tulane Women in Law Society (TWIL), they spoke with students of Tulane Law School in a virtual roundtable discussion. This discussion focussed on the speakers’ diverse paths into law and to WFW and covered career highlights and challenges, work/life balance and approaches to finding legal jobs and interview tips.