Social Mobility: The Role of Business and Their Legal Advisers by Sandra Wallace, DLA Piper

Thank you, Geoff, Nihal, and Sir Linda. I'm very pleased to be here, and it's quite a privilege to be talking to you in this inaugural event, and in a role as Pro-Chancellor and former alumni. I'm truly honored to be speaking to you today. It's quite clear to me that this is a really special establishment, not only from my own experience but from how the university has developed over the years since I attended, which feels like a long time ago but I don't feel that old. The issues that I want to talk about today are really dear to my heart. They talk to my own personal story, but also, as a proud graduate of Wolverhampton University, I think this is a university that embodies the opportunity to engender social mobility and service the community in which it serves.

So, a little bit about me. I am one of six children, number five of six, and the first person in my family to go to university. My parents came to this country from Jamaica in the 1950s. My dad was a painter and decorator; my mother was a cleaner — in fact, she was a cleaner at the school that I actually attended, which as you can imagine at times was a bit of a challenge. We lived in Birmingham, in a three-bedroom maisonette and then in a council house. I worked really hard at school. I am proud to say that it was an environment where not many people aspired to get jobs beyond what their parents did, or low-paid work, or just didn't believe that there was much out there for them. I didn't — I wanted more. I felt that there was a better life out there for me. I didn't want to continue in the life of poverty that we were living, and it was really important to me to try and better myself.

After leaving school, I attended a local further education college and then took a year out to convince my parents that I could actually earn a living — they were a bit nervous about me going to university and not bringing money home. And then finally I went to university. When I was applying for places to attend a university, I did visit Russell Group universities. I visited one in particular not a million miles away from Birmingham, and I arrived in the lecture hall. I was one of a handful of Black students at the time that were applying for law, and in that lecture hall, the wealth and the know-how and the sort of experience of applying and visiting the university was evident in the room. And I just felt I couldn't go there. I didn't think I'd fit in. I'd already had a struggle at school, and I just didn't want the next three years to be a struggle.

When I visited Wolverhampton, it was completely different. It was diverse, it was welcoming, it was down to earth, and it just felt like this was going to be a place that would better fulfill what I wanted to achieve in terms of enjoying my education. I was offered a place elsewhere, but I didn't attend. Instead, I came to Wolverhampton, and the rest is history. I felt for the first time truly engaged in education and felt that I could really achieve beyond all the expectations that had been leveled at me up until that time. It was truly the best decision I've ever made, and I just don't believe I'd be here, where I am today, without the way the university made me feel, the opportunities that it gave me, and the opportunity to study law at a high standard, which I still really enjoyed.

Yet no one is more surprised than me, still, that many years later I've been invited back to be a Pro-Chancellor and give a lecture on something very dear to my heart — social mobility. I often tell myself that I need to better embrace the achievements I've had in my career and where I am now in the leadership role, and be more comfortable in my skin. Not only with the successful legal career that I've managed to reach, but also being at a global law firm which has been very special and very dear to me in the time I've worked there since qualifying. But more important to me is that I can't allow myself to get too comfortable or complacent. I need to encourage, inspire, cajole, and generally make a nuisance of myself by making the case for improving the lives of people from more deprived or less privileged backgrounds, and ensure, as I found, that someone's past doesn't determine their future.

So why should we all care about social mobility? This is a topic that is becoming more prevalent — people are talking about it a lot more. It's ubiquitous in political conversations, business, the education sector, and people have various opinions on it. Regardless of the way it's spoken about, the only way we can progress in social mobility is if we can combine our own lived experiences and our ambitions with concrete solutions and attainable outcomes. I feel passionately that we need to address poverty, deprivation, inequality, social and economic bias, and that has never been more pressing. We see campaigners like Marcus Rashford and we say, well, is that a one-hit wonder? But what they are trying to address, and what this lecture is trying to address, is that this is one of society's biggest challenges.

So what I want to do this evening is appeal for really collaborative action from the legal sector, business, and the future generation — which I hope are all listening today. I'd like everyone listening to think about how we take the social mobility story, and diversity and inclusion more generally, beyond what sometimes people say to me — especially in my world as an employment lawyer — is an HR story. We need to win the minds of leaders, senior managers, directors, and CEOs so we can help shape the future success of your businesses, our educational establishments, and those that aspire to progress in life. If anyone today is thinking they don't see a clear way to help the cause of social mobility, then that's what I'd like to address today.

One of the first steps in improving social mobility is to identify where we are today, and it's fair to say we are not there yet. I look at my own legal world, and I think it's right that if we're going to challenge others, we are happy to have the spotlight shown on ourselves. Despite all the interventions that have been put in place over the years, there are still damning statistics regarding progression across professional firms. The Bridge Group, who does a lot of work in this area, in their 2020 report on socioeconomic diversity and progression to partner in the law, highlighted several things. Those who identify as white progress to partner nearly two years more quickly than those from other ethnic groups. Those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds take a year and a half longer on average to reach partner, and in many cases it's a lot longer. Females take nearly a year longer than males to reach partner, and Black and female employees are much more likely to be from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

It's my view that business cannot and will not prosper in a world with systematic environmental and social failures. If you view your people as your primary assets — as I'm told all the time as an employment lawyer — then the social mobility agenda, along with inclusion more generally, is integral to the future of work and business. So I want to look at what we can collectively do. I believe it is vitally important to share stories of success but also of hardship and resilience. It's something I do a lot of my time, and I've got more comfortable with sharing my story. When people understand that it's not straightforward, it's not easy, but there are more and more opportunities and more and more people working to improve opportunities, then I think it's an encouragement for all.

I know there are business leaders, educators, students, business people who have never shared their personal journeys for fear of looking out of place or feeling their perceptions of them will change. I know that's something that I felt for many years — not saying where I went to university because I thought if you didn't go to Oxford and Cambridge it wouldn't be acceptable; not saying that I hadn't been on holiday abroad until I was in my 20s; not been in a car until I was 15 or 16. You're ashamed of sharing those experiences. A lot of business leaders that I've come across have hidden those stories. But actually, the more we share our stories, the more we share our successes, the more people think and believe that things are achievable for them. When you actually open up about your personal journey, so many people tell you that it's helped them realize they can achieve their ambitions and much more.

Before I address the articulation of the steps that business and legal advisors can take, I wanted to appeal to the students that are on this call. Whether you're studying law, business, or some other subject, and you're thinking about your future career choices — you should consider the need to challenge and hold employers to account. If they want your skill and they want your talent, you hold the power to make them make a difference. Students need to see yourselves as leaders and to think about creating the world you want to live in. Reducing inequalities in our world will be fundamental to driving sustainable futures for all.

People across the UK experience disparity in a range of ways. We're not trying to compete with disadvantage — there's an intersection in how people experience disadvantage, including rural and urban disparities, household poverty, gender discrimination, ethnic minority discrimination, migrant status, disability. These things are not separate or distinct or in silos. Businesses are drivers of economic growth and contribute in multiple ways to functioning and flourishing societies. They can also, however, exacerbate inequalities, including perpetuating bias and discrimination. For students at Wolverhampton, understanding structural inequality in your studies, particularly in law, along with the root cause of stagnant social mobility, will mean that you can help challenge, disrupt, and ultimately improve society for all.

So be leaders in understanding this agenda, and question the employers that you're going to see when you're looking for new opportunities. It's part of your responsibility to ask those difficult questions and ensure that the employers are doing their part in dealing with the inequalities that might exist. We're at a crossroads. As we start to recover from COVID, we understand inequality like never before, and we have stakeholders genuinely looking at how they can be part of the change like no other time in history. The generation currently at university will have a great opportunity and responsibility to hold governments and business to account, because they are listening, and if they're not, they won't survive.

And to those who just like me were living or trying to just avoid the poverty trap and want something better — even though you may not know what it is — I'd still say to you: the tide is turning in your favor, and we must work to ensure that barriers, even if we accept there will always be some in life, are not simply due to background.

So to business — many people say to me we shouldn't need a business case for improving social mobility. But the reality is, in order to maintain strong workplaces and economic prosperity, we do need employers to appreciate the case for social mobility. It's just as important as looking at your budget, your bottom line, your P&L, your innovation strategy, your skill shortages. It's just as much part of business as that. Diverse businesses are profitable businesses. Diverse teams improve customer satisfaction, improve client approval, and give you access to a widening talent pool. Often people talk to me about skill shortages, and they're ignoring people on their doorsteps who have the right skills — who, with the opening of the right opportunities, would be only too willing to join their organizations. We know that employees from lower socioeconomic backgrounds outperform, on average, their more advantaged peers. We also know that diverse teams lead to improved employee engagement and support the well-being of colleagues.

When companies foster a more positive, inclusive environment, 83 percent of millennials are found to be more actively engaged with that business, and 43 percent of businesses with more diverse workforces have higher profits. I can certainly testify to that in my business — as we've diversified, as we've encouraged, as we've looked at making sure our leadership team is diverse and strategically relevant, the business has gone from strength to strength. So it's absolutely essential to understand that the case for improving social mobility is not just about money. The case for inward progression is not all about expensive training or having big outlays in order to look at this agenda. To really make a difference in social mobility, the business community just needs a mindset change. It needs to think about where it goes to find its future talent.

So where do we start? Some of the tips I want to talk about are not rocket science — they're things that business can take on board even in these difficult COVID times. There are simple steps they can take to increase access to their businesses, open people's eyes to what opportunities are out there, and ensure that people can apply to your businesses and look for those opportunities even if they think it's not for them or not what they feel is expected of them. Local outreach: visit local schools beyond the schools that your children might go to. One of the things I've often talked about is employers setting up stands at parents' evenings. It's about opening the eyes of parents, teachers, and students into what's available to them. Go into those schools and talk about the job market and what's available. Talk to students and find out what they believe are the barriers to success.

Pick those schools with a high proportion of free school meals, because that's where you'll find a lot of children that want to improve themselves, want to succeed, but often don't know how. They don't have the grounding and the network or the parents who've often operated in professional or other environments that can help them succeed. Help with CV writing, interview techniques — there are lots of organizations that run programs across the UK. Speakers for Schools is one of them. The Social Mobility Commission, of which I'm part, has an online directory that can help you find a partner to work with.

Inspire students to consider other career paths. Get involved with local charities. Before schools went back into the classrooms, many students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds struggled to access online learning. There are some wonderful charities supporting a campaign to end laptop poverty. It's estimated there are millions of spare laptops sitting in British homes and workplaces — donate these to charities and support learning. I also heard during lockdown of an estate agency that was offering quiet places to work in their closed offices so that students in difficult home environments could study when other opportunities weren't open to them. So think outside the box for opportunities to assist.

When you think about work experience opportunities, offer work experience to students from those schools and make it meaningful. Explore their experience and ambitions. Understand what they say the barriers are — not necessarily what you might think or perceive to be the issues. Put in place support beyond the work experience, whether you can follow up, offer mentorship to ensure long-term support. One of the things we do at DLA Piper is from school age through to university, our outreach program which we call a Head Start, offering networking opportunities, mentoring opportunities, CV writing, and things that are going to assist them throughout their educational career so that they can get the best start when they're looking for jobs.

Pay travel costs up front. Some of the most basic things can hinder people from taking work experience opportunities — having the bus fare to get to your place of work, having the money to find sandwiches during the day. Ensure that people spend their time on your work sites and they understand what your business is about.

If you offer interns, which is an excellent way that people can understand your business, if it's possible, offer a salary — preferably the National Living Wage. Young people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds might have part-time jobs that contribute to household incomes. That was the case with myself before I went to university — I couldn't have taken up an internship before going to university because I needed to be earning and bringing money into the house. They cannot necessarily afford to do unpaid internships.

When we're considering other routes to careers, the apprenticeship route for young talent is also a crucial part, and we're working as part of the Commission to make apprenticeships more directed towards people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. We challenge the government on that. We know that apprenticeships are not straightforward, but also think about apprenticeships if your business is able to offer them. If you have a graduate placement scheme, widen the reach of those you recruit from — don't just recruit from Russell Group universities. Establishments like Wolverhampton take students from the local community, those that need to do part-time work, and have diverse positions. They also show resilience by studying and working, having carer responsibilities sometimes all at the same time. Don't necessarily always go for top grades — look for potential rather than polish. That's something in the legal profession that we've been guilty of. And explore contextualized recruitment. A lot of candidates look the same on paper, they may have similar qualifications, but for someone who has found it harder to achieve what others might have been able to achieve because of home or life circumstances, what they have achieved may be much more significant than someone with a higher grade, because they have had to work so much harder to get where they've got to.

I didn't have the top grades. Everybody always assumes that if you're a lawyer at DLA Piper you must have got triple A's and all the rest of it. I didn't have those grades, and it was someone seeing beyond that that helped me to get where I am. If you don't know where you are currently, then it's always worth looking at the data that you hold on the socioeconomic makeup of your organization. And to do that, track data, collect early data—not only in early careers but on progression in your senior leadership. Diversity data is not something that's unusual to organizations, but perhaps not many organizations will collect data on social mobility journeys. The Social Mobility Commission, as I said, the government organization of which I am part, at their website socialmobilityworks.org, gives guidance on how you can start to track data on social mobility in order to see where you are as a business and what more you can be doing. And there's a key question to ask: what was the parental occupation of your worker when they were 40 years old? It's a very simple question, it's a very simple metric to judge, and it also means that in your organizations you can really pilot and champion what you're trying to do in asking that question—not just of people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to give you that information, but for everyone to give you that information so you have a real good picture of what's out there. The data will give you the guidance and where you need to make changes, support colleagues from all backgrounds in not only getting into your business but also progressing in your business. So do visit socialmobilityworks.org to get more information on collecting that data. And I want to turn finally to what legal advisors can do. As legal advisors, we have a duty to hold our clients to account. And I'm proud to work for a firm that is championing social mobility both internally and within our clients. My work at DLA Piper has grown from leading the UK employment group—an area of expertise that's my area of expertise—and my passion for employment law grew at Wolverhampton. And we advise business, and we want to advise business to be ethically and socially as strong as they can be. DLA Piper has not stood still with the knowledge that socioeconomic diversity is not at the levels it should be in the legal and professional services, and it's working hard to bridge the gap. It's allowed me, as a firm, to give up time to further this agenda—not just for law firms but for wider society—with my role as interim chair of the Social Mobility Commission. What you've got to ask yourself as an employer is: do we value our people who take on roles that further this gender or other diverse agendas? People that care about and want to make things better for others, because we should be encouraging that in our organization. Ultimately, DLA Piper has a global reach and the power to be a global influencer in our field. Therefore, I believe we have a responsibility to encourage business to do more for the cause of social mobility. What we've tried to do is partner with clients as they move beyond incremental change and implement transformational solutions. There's many clients at the very start of this journey, and there's many clients that are really embracing this agenda and really want to transform their organizations. We are playing our part in helping clients build new business models and economic and market systems that favor sustainable companies, and we use our position to advise government on legislative change if companies do not see the business case themselves. Whilst legislation by itself does not necessarily always move the dial—one of the oldest pieces of legislation we have out there is the Equal Pay Act of 1970, and yet we still see a big gender pay gap—but the fact is it is a tipping point. It's the point by which we can see business says, okay, if you're not going to do something by yourself, we will work with you as a government to do something about it. It tips the ballot for change. The law and the lawyers lead the way and lead by example, with employers, with our clients, and with government. We also need to use our position to influence policy and the conversation. One example of this is a City of London Corporation task force DLA Piper is strongly involved with—over 80 organizations, financial and professional services, working with Her Majesty's Treasury and BEIS. This task force is going to look at collaboration in order to improve socioeconomic diversity in the sector, and we are working to come up with recommendations for business for 2022. So we can use our influence in many ways as lawyers to forward this agenda. The work is not done, and I don't say at DLA Piper or any organization in the legal sphere is perfect, but we know that this will improve our business ultimately and in the long run. Let me end by saying I never wanted to be a role model. When I joined DLA Piper, I just wanted to do my own thing, work hard. I wasn't looking for recognition. I didn't even know what levels of success I'd achieve. But then I started to realize that being a role model wasn't actually about me. If I was able to succeed through hard work, some good fortune, but predominantly hard work, then I had an obligation that people coming behind me were seeing the opportunities, had opportunities opened up for them, and I wasn't the last one on the ladder. I needed to send the lift back down. I believe that obligation rests with all of us as teachers, students, employers, employees, governments, the general public. The promise has to be that our past doesn't dictate our future. It's a cause I will be fighting for as long as I can, and as long as people will listen. And I'm thankful to you for listening to me today. Thank you.

I think I would have not given myself such a hard time. I feel that I didn't believe I belonged in the room. I felt a bit of an imposter in that room, and so it held me back. Because she says, as global leader of the global law firm, but at the beginning I just felt that my voice wasn't important enough. I didn't recognize that I'd got where I got to because of hard work, and I had the right to be in the same room as everybody else. And I think that actually can mean that you close your own doors to opportunity, that you don't go for things that you might—you take a step back and you hold back. And I think it would be to say, Sandra, you deserve to be in the room, you deserve what you've achieved, and you need to stop thinking that because you didn't go to all the right schools and you don't know the latest ski resorts and all the things that people talk about when you get into law at the beginning—doesn't mean you don't deserve to be in the room. So I would definitely tell myself to have more confidence and to be proud of what I've achieved.

I think it's knowing what's out there, because I think one of the biggest barriers I faced was understanding the legal world I was going into. I was very naive. I had no one to really show me the way. I had no one saying, oh, if you do this work experience and you go to these sorts of talks and so on, you'll be much more fluent when you go for interview, you'll look much more informed. I think one of the biggest barriers is the lack of information, and that's why I say people need to go into schools, they need to try and open up opportunities and let people know what's available and what's out there, because if you don't know what's out there, you don't know what you're missing. And so one of the barriers that I faced was just literally the sort of ignorance and not understanding what's out there. I think I also faced an assumption that I wouldn't succeed, quite frankly. Having gone to Wolverhampton, a lot of people were very dismissive of not going to a redbrick university, especially when you wanted to go into law. And I think there was a lot of prejudice in that respect. So fighting against that prejudice and having to prove myself was quite a big barrier for me at the beginning.

Wow, that is a big question. I mean, I think there is definitely baked-in disadvantage. There is definitely a lot of things out there that we need to focus on. In our work as a Social Mobility Commission, we see that the disadvantage can start very early—from early years and opportunity for early years, for example, people that are in the care sector and working to improve children's early years experience. The disadvantages that exist in pay and other things mean that that can be a very difficult environment, right through to FE funding, which we know is still severely under-resourced. So there's lots of baked-in disadvantage, but what I would say is I would paint a much more positive picture. People are waking up to the inequalities that exist. I can see that just from the task force I talked about, where 80 organizations, top financial institutions, are all saying this can't go on and we can't keep the same people in place—from coming from the same background—in place for a sustainable future. So I can see a real momentum now in business, from government. It's my job, your job, students' jobs, this commission's job to hold people's feet to the fire and make sure that we don't rest on our laurels. But I genuinely believe we can make a difference in this area if we try.

I think there has to be a period of reflection. I can't speak for all institutions, but organizations have to ask themselves difficult questions. What are the mechanisms for people to speak up in our organizations? How do we encourage that? How do we listen? How do we try and understand context? How do we try and address those things? Very often we have very procedural steps—I know from as an employment lawyer how to handle grievance, how to handle people that are upset in their organizations. Actually, a lot of progress can be made if we actually take the time to stop and listen and understand—not even with a grievance in mind, but just what is your personal experience. Some of what I've talked about in the talk today—what is your lived experience, what holds you back, and what holds this organization back? And I think if we're open to have those conversations, if we're open to what we might hear when we have those conversations, then we can start to deal with some of those inherent biases and things that cause concern. I've often heard people categorized as aggressive or overpowering, or 'you need to tone it down' when you express yourself—and I hear all of that. People need to stop and listen and think about that sort of bias and try and drive that listening and reflective approach. I can't say that we'll cure all ills in that way, but I really do think if we take the time to listen and not just go through the procedural steps that sometimes institutions rely on—the fear of stepping outside the marks—then we would actually make more of a difference.

Well, this is what I've just said in part of my speech. I mean, I think a lot of people offer internships, a lot of people are saying that's a way of getting into our organization. We've really got to say to ourselves: should we be expecting people to do free internships? What does it mean for that individual if they want the experience, but then on the other hand they've got to give up a part-time job that they might already have, or paid employment that they have? So we've really got to look at that. And I also think we've got to challenge government on what is available for students as they go through their educational life that will support them fundamentally to improve their position. There is no doubt that the Black and other ethnic minority groups—Bangladeshi, for example, is some of the work the Social Mobility Commission has found—have faced particular disadvantage, and we need to try and address that. And employers have a part to play in that. You know, if you want change, if you want to drive real change, then you have to ask yourself what opportunities are we giving to people, and at what cost are we expecting it? And ultimately, it may be that we have to push for more legislation in this respect. And that's something that we are looking at as a commission. But there's no doubt that employers voluntarily can make a big step in the right direction.

As a law firm, we are—DLA Piper is investing in a lot of technologies, disruptive technologies. The business of law will change. We are relying on AI to do a lot of our work. We are looking at different technologies that will look at how we build, how we interact with clients, how we make an assessment of how a judge might make a decision based on algorithms. So there's no doubt that these things are being disrupted. The disruptors are in our industry. But it's necessary for change. The business of law will get left behind if lawyers don't adapt to that. However, the business of law is about relationships. The business of law is about judgment. It's about coming to the table—and a lawyer and an accountant, so whatever the professional might be, bringing their expertise ultimately to the table. So there might be AI and technologies that will enhance our ability to do our roles, but that need for judgment, that need for the holding and partnering, I believe, will always be there. We shouldn't be fearful of technologies. We should look at how we adapt technologies to ensure that we are part of the solution for our clients alongside those technologies. And as a business, DLA Piper investing in some of those things has not seen us reduce our headcount, has not seen us reduce our numbers. In fact, we want more specialist lawyers that are offering law and working with those technologies to service their clients better.

I think we should. I think you'd be surprised how many people warm to the stories. I was talking very recently to someone at the London Stock Exchange that was asked to be a part of the task force that I've talked about. And when it was announced that he was going to be part of the task force, he was inundated with people in his organization that said, 'That's my personal—I've got a social mobility story. I didn't know the organization was interested in this. I want to talk to like-minded people. I'd like to help.' So absolutely, sharing the story is about opening the door to this conversation and people realizing: what was successful for me? How did I make it work? How did I overcome those barriers? And how can I help people that are coming to the organization? I remember a corporate lawyer at DLA Piper opening up for the first time about her story. She'd never done so. No one had a clue—they'd always assumed she'd come from a very privileged background just based on the way she spoke. We make assumptions about people, and we shouldn't. So we should have those conversations. And I think what you can do in that respect is to challenge your organizations, as I've said, and look at what initiatives that you students think would make a difference in that organization to ensure that people from disadvantaged backgrounds, less privileged backgrounds, can actually succeed in that workplace. So I think it's about opening the conversation and looking at where it can help.

I think it's a great way of cutting your teeth, is one thing I would say, and it's a fantastic service. I remember doing that myself at Wolverhampton many years ago, and it helped me to understand some of the qualities that existed. And you can take those into organizations—you can take that knowledge and that experience into the way you deal with people, into the way you interact with people, understanding some of the hardships that people go through. So I think when you're in those advice centers, keep an open mind. Don't just look at the legal issues that you're facing and how to address those, but look at the wider societal issues that you might be hearing about or recognizing as part of the issue that that individual is facing. Also, again, in those environments, make sure you're sharing your learnings with the other students that might be acting as advisors at all centers, etc. Make sure that if there's a good idea or something works, or you hear about something on one of those calls that could make a difference to other people, that you share it with the team. So I think it's definitely something I would encourage. It's something that I did, and it can really make a difference for people in poverty traps, suffering with landlords and tenant issues, and so on. So all power to you if you are involved in those centers.

I did. I might have one more for the university. I mean, for me, the apprenticeship scheme is an excellent scheme, and it's something—there are many flaws, but apprenticeships are really important. Not everyone wants to go to university. You can have higher apprenticeships, but not everyone wants to go to a university. Some people want to be earning, learning on the job. For me, universities can play their part in publicizing what's available with apprenticeships, helping to challenge the government about how they can make the apprenticeship route more attractive, making sure our courses are relevant to those on apprenticeships. And so really, from perhaps let the university come back on some of that, but really it is a matter of fine-tuning our offering to ensure that people from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds can access those opportunities and access the learning they need to progress in their careers. Thanks, Nihal. So I don't know, Geoff, do you want to come in on that one? Just say a few words.

My pleasure.

Thank you. Good evening.