Clifford Chance

As inclusion has skyrocketed to the top of our clients’ agendas, we have devised a training programme to help them navigate the issue. Partner Michelle Williams on how it will help us become their ‘go to’ for diversity and inclusion.

We have developed our first ever continuous legal education programme for inclusion with the overall aim of helping clients achieve their goals in an area that’s becoming increasingly important to them.

A unique combination of regulatory legal change management and strategic campaigning around inclusion, the programme was first pitched to our financial investment client TIIA, who jumped at the chance to take part in it.

It’s a real value add for clients. They want and need training in this area and we’re able to deliver it to them in a way that is really effective for their organisation. And because interest in this issue goes right up to the most senior levels of most organisations, it’s a great opportunity for us to broaden and further cement the relationships we have with clients.

We weren’t sure how many people would turn up when we launched the programme but we had 179 lawyers attend, which was phenomenal and shows just how much appetite exists for this kind of training. We have also demonstrated Clifford Chance is a firm that is there not only to support clients in their business matters but also on the issues that are really significant for them as an institution.

Having completed that initial programme preparation, we’re now in a great position to customise it and offer it to other clients, which we have already done. Regardless of sector, this is a critical issue that clients actively want to engage with and can’t ignore. We’re already in discussions it with a number clients about delivering training to them and all have given us genuinely positive feedback.

We know we have the right programme and the skills to deliver it; now it’s a case of getting in front of our clients and, hopefully, getting them to think about Clifford Chance as their first port of call when they have a question on inclusion.