Linklaters takes over as co-chair of Legal CORE

Linklaters has taken over as co-chair of Legal CORE (Collaboration on Race and Ethnicity), a leadership-led, cross-firm collective aimed at tackling the underrepresentation of minority ethnic groups in the UK legal sector, alongside Clifford Chance.

Legal CORE was launched in 2021 by eight founding firms – Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, Freshfields, Herbert Smith Freehills, Linklaters, Macfarlanes, Norton Rose Fulbright and Slaughter and May – to increase the representation of ethnic minority individuals in private practice.

Over the last three years, Legal CORE has driven collective action and engaged with hundreds of individuals across the legal sector through various events and forums. Outside of the legal sector, it has partnered with Rare Recruitment to improve racial literacy to create better outcomes for Black students, funding its Hemisphere Education training programme in over 60 schools across England and Scotland to support local school students with meaningful employability and careers opportunities.

Read more about the progress made by Legal CORE here.

Andy Vickery, Global Head of Finance and Executive Race Champion at Linklaters, commented:

“I’m delighted to be taking the reins at Legal CORE as Co-Chair alongside Simeon Radcliff at Clifford Chance. Over the last three years under Deborah Finkler and Farmida Bi we’ve made good progress with member firms collectively increasing the representation of minority ethnic individuals. The priority is making sure we get the best talent into the sector, but we won’t get to where we want to be overnight. Sustainable change will need us to continue to make changes on multiple levels for the long term. There’s no question that working collaboratively together on this will get us there faster.”