Increasing the pace of disability inclusion

For International Day of People with Disabilities (IDPWD), our Head of Education Rob Marrs reflects on the work done over the past year to improve disability inclusion.

One of the pleasing things to comment upon since the IDPWD 2022 has been the increasing level of focus within the legal profession on improving disability inclusion in the profession. There is still much to do, but the pace seems to be quickening.

Last year on IDPWD, we focused on two trainee solicitors who wanted to set up a disability network in the profession.

What a year they have had. It has been a genuine pleasure to watch Disabling Barriers Scotland grow since that point – hosting events, becoming involved in policy, working with us on advocacy and representation matters, and becoming an important hub for disabled solicitors, trainees and law students to come together and form a community.

We are only too happy to work with them and find common cause where and when we can.

As well as this, at a UK level, the Legal Neurodiversity Network has grown quickly and is expanding out of the City. We are working closely with them and hope to help them expand in Scotland, so watch this space.

The Society has played its part too. Over the course of the last 12 months, as well as supporting others, we’ve hosted:

• a joint introductory event with Disabling Barriers Scotland
• an event on making organisations more inclusive for deaf clients and staff with Dhana McIver of Balfour + Manson
• an evening on contract simplification with Browne Jacobsen and Natwest, focusing on how we can make our writing more inclusive to neurodivergent people
• an introduction to the Salvesen MindRoom, who we hope to work with further with justice sector stakeholders
• and, most recently, a session introducing inclusive design with the Head of Accessibility at Skyscanner.

It used to be the case that inclusion events typically became a little introspective: everyone agreed that inclusion was the right thing, but weren’t convincing those who didn’t normally attend inclusion events.

We hope that the above sessions focused on practicality: things that organisations can actually do to become more inclusive to disabled people and to non-disabled people. Ultimately, the results of inclusive design for accessibility always leads to a better process for everyone.

The largest piece of work for the Society has been our survey, Profile of the Profession, which always gives us such telling insight.

This time around, we took a new approach to asking about disability. First, we asked members of the profession if they had an impairment or condition and 28% noted that this was the case. We asked this, because our next question was whether they considered themselves disabled as per the Equality Act definition. Only 5% of respondents noted that. Even accepting that not all of the impairments or conditions in the first answer would always constitute a disability, that is a startling drop.

That 5% though is broadly in line with the diversity data we gathered at Practising Certificate renewal in both 2020/21 and 2022/23. Tellingly, the number of those under the age of 35 identifying as disabled was higher (8%).

Many of the trends in Profile of the Profession regarding disability are positive, but disabled members are more likely than other groups to have experienced discrimination. Eliminating this has to be a focus for all in the profession going forward: the Society, employers and all working in the sector.

Elsewhere, we’ve re-written both the PEAT 1 and PEAT 2 Outcomes to ensure an inclusive language was central, whilst also promoting changes in assessment methods. We accompanied this with an advice paper on disability inclusion.

Over the course of the summer, we ran a series of roundtables with disabled solicitors and, also, with employers to better understand what really works and how we can improve. The output from those roundtables will be published as advice soon.

We’ve also consistently put disability inclusion at the heart of our work elsewhere.

We’ve published a reasonable adjustments policy to help make it clearer how we make adjustments at the Society. The Scottish Government convened a Future of the Legal Profession Working Group and, among many other policies that we’ve lobbied for, we’ve been guided by disabled members on support for disabled solicitors who work in legal aid, the necessity of improved Wi-FI across court (a textbook example of inclusion for disabled people benefitting everyone). We’ve also represented members to others in the sector – SCTS, SLAB etc – about how those organisations can create a more inclusive environment.

Next year, let’s re-double that pace and make sure the sector is as inclusive as possible to all.