Clifford Chance

Expanding our racial equality network across Continental Europe reaffirms our commitment to creating a firm that’s more reflective of the society in which we operate. Partner and Chair of our Race Equality and Celebrating Heritage (REACH) network in Continental Europe Mustapha Mourahib discusses the importance of the network in the region and how clients can get involved.

At the beginning of 2021, the former French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe took part in the virtual launch of our Race Equality and Celebrating Heritage Continental Europe (REACH CE) network.

The event, entitled ‘Do you see me? – Visibility of diverse talent in the workplace’, marked the start of a series of initiatives around the firm’s European offices aimed at creating more opportunities for people from ethnic minority backgrounds with the ultimate goal of broadening the diversity of the firm’s people.

We introduced REACH in Continental Europe because we realised our ethnic minority and socio-economic diversity is not representative of the society we live in. There are huge immigrant populations in the countries where we have our major offices here, but that is not reflected in our teams. For example, I am one of only three partners in Continental Europe from an ethnic minority background.

REACH CE is administered by a steering committee populated by senior associates, partners and business professionals that has organised a range of activities around three pillars: visibility, attraction and retention. Initiatives the network has launched over the past year include a European scholarship for diverse students that is being trialled in five countries, a toolkit for career development and a mentoring programme.

We received 140 applications for the scholarship, which for its first year is amazing. I believe we are the first law firm to offer this kind of scholarship, which will see us widen the net and encourage us to hire from a much broader range of universities.

Our approach is to implement a series of small, practical, concrete changes that, when taken together, really make a difference. It’s extremely difficult to drive radical change throughout an organisation in a short space of time, so the idea is to have a policy within each office to be conscious we need to be more diverse, but not to have obligations or impose extra layers of bureaucracy.

Client involvement is critical to the network’s success. Clients are increasingly calling for more diversity in the teams that advise them because they appreciate the benefits of drawing from a broader range of perspectives. That’s why involving them is a significant part of the network’s strategy and is something Mustapha believes will give the initiative more traction throughout the firm.

From the outset, we sought the participation of several clients in Continental Europe to share ideas and experiences. They like the idea of promoting diversity through a mnetwork because they have seen this collaborative approach work before when we have used it for practice areas and different sectors and they prefer collaborating with us in this way.

For the network to succeed in its aims internally, client involvement is critical. It means our Partners and other senior people buy into what we’re trying to do and it also makes the initiatives more attractive to the minorities we want to encourage.

It’s also fair to say many of our clients are performing much better than us in terms of their diversity and have ideas they can share with us, so their involvement could help us achieve our objectives sooner.

I believe achieving these goals can only have a positive effect on the firm and its relationship with clients.

When you look at what it takes for someone from an ethnic minority or poorer socio-economic background to be successful in this business, you cannot help but appreciate the value such people can bring to any organisation. And if our clients see we are serious about this and are populating our teams with diverse talent, that can only strengthen our relationships with them.

In my experience, Clifford Chance was already ahead of the curve in this area when I joined as a trainee – it would have been extremely rare for a French law firm to have hired someone from my background at the time.

If you had asked me five years ago if I wanted to be part of this REACH network, I would have said no because since the beginning of my career I have just wanted to be treated like any other lawyer. But now I see it as my responsibility to be a role model and create an environment where people from minority backgrounds feel as supported as I did to develop and grow within the firm. That’s why I’m personally invested in driving this network forward.