Our EDI objectives stem from our Core Values regarding our people, our clients and our community.
To add value to our relationships, we seek to better understand our clients’ cultures and aspirations through collaboration and our diverse team.
To be a successful organisation, we strive to encourage diversity, provide an inclusive environment where people want to work, and ensure that they are treated fairly.
Fostering partnerships with socially minded organisations to help the disadvantaged and champion causes that we are passionate about.
Our EDI programme is led by senior leaders within our firm who meet regularly throughout the year to plan how we can better promote EDI and keep track as to whether we are meeting our objectives. The programme requires everyone at Devonshires’ commitment and co-operation to ensure it continues to be successful.
Understand more about our EDI Governance by expanding a section below:
We embed EDI through training of staff and by enforcing the requirement to ensure that our suppliers and contractors are committed to the same.
New joiners receive EDI training as part of their induction and all our employees and partners receive regular update training on EDI issues. It is a contractual requirement that staff and partners complete this training when invited to do so.
Our training covers:
We maintain records of all employee details relating to age, disability, gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation, and socio-economic background. This statistical data is used to provide ongoing assessments of our staff profile and will be treated in the strictest confidence.
Diversity in senior leadership is a priority for us, and over 65% of our Partners are under the age of 45. Through our Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) programme, we’ve made meaningful progress. As of 2025, 50% of Devonshires Partners are female - a 12% increase since 2022 - and 27% of our staff identify as being from Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic backgrounds, reflecting a 5% increase over the same period. While we recognise that continuous improvement is essential, we are proud to offer an inclusive workplace that provides equal opportunities to colleagues from all backgrounds.
We benchmark the composition of our workforce against diversity statistics for the City of London, Greater London, and the UK.
You can download a copy of our Gender Pay Gap Report 2025 here.
We are committed to providing equal opportunities in employment and to providing a workplace free from discrimination and harassment. As such all job applicants, employees, partners, and third parties who come into contact with us will receive equal treatment, regardless of age, disability, gender identity, marriage, and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation. We welcome all applications.
EDI is considered at every level to ensure that we recruit, retain and promote the best people irrespective of their background to meet our current and future business needs.
Recruitment of all employees is conducted in a systematic way which enables us to select the most suitable candidates. We advertise all our vacancies internally and externally on our website, social media, and with various universities to attract a variety of candidates. We recruit solicitors who have qualified through the traditional route but also through alternative routes such as CILEx.
We will only ever engage with suppliers, subcontractors, or third parties who take active steps to follow good practice in recruiting, developing, and managing staff that help to widen opportunities in under-represented groups, and who in turn look for similar practices in suppliers, subcontractors, or third parties with whom they contract.
Our HR department generally asks recruitment agents to provide us with their EDI policies to ensure their stance on EDI issues is in line with ours.
EDI requires everyone’s commitment and co-operation to ensure it continues to be successful. Across our business, we have implemented various schemes and practices which run through the heart of all we do. Examples include:
We are Corporate Partners of The Sutton Trust, a leading organisation in the social mobility space in the UK.
The Trust fight for social mobility from birth to the workplace so that every young person – no matter who their parents are, what school they go to, or where they live – has the chance to succeed in life.
Our partnership commenced in Summer 2021 and sponsors the ‘Pathways to Law’ programme – a two-year programme offering young people (aged 16-17) the opportunity to explore what entering the legal profession might look like. The programme provides work experience placements, an undergraduate mentor, alumni networking, invites to university events, and access to a summer school.
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