Diversity & Inclusion

Working in line with the firm commitment is expected of all our people. Each of us considers how it fits into our day-to-day at the firm serving as a declaration to one another, our clients, stakeholders and our broader community. 

Core Commitment

We are committed to being inclusive in all that we do and to recruiting, developing and retaining the best people, from a diverse range of backgrounds.   We believe that this is the right thing to do and essential to maximise our performance for the benefit of our clients and our people alike.

Rationale and key expectations

At Travers Smith, we are committed to being an inclusive workplace that values and embraces all our people – people with a diverse range of backgrounds, experiences and perspectives.  

Strong, inclusive practices, including how we lead and how we collaborate, result in better decisions and are central to the firm being a distinctive and successful place to work.  They are also essential given the broader legal and regulatory context in which we operate, as well as our specific duty under the SRA Standards and Regulations to uphold the rule of law and promote equality, diversity, and inclusion.

This Commitment has the full support of all partners and other senior leaders, who commit to provide leadership for this work. Everyone has a part to play, so this commitment is expected of all our people.

We know that role models are important, especially in creating an inclusive workplace. With this in mind, we have developed a series to promote role models from diverse backgrounds. Instead of focusing on single issues, the series enables people to share and explore multiple aspects of their identities – such as gender, sexuality, ethnicity and background – to provide a diverse, yet accessible cohort of role models across the firm. As part of this initiative, we are running fully inclusive panel discussions, as well as publishing documents featuring people’s individual experiences and stories. 

This series builds on our “Telling Stories” initiative which has included a project to promote social mobility alongside a booklet on LGBTQ+ role models. It serves as another platform through which people across the firm can share their stories and be open and authentic about aspects of themselves which may not be immediately apparent. To help promote gender balance within the firm, we have run a series of panel discussions – one for men and another for women. These sessions allow colleagues to hear from senior members of the firm about their approach to leadership and authenticity, and how they seek to challenge gender stereotypes in the workplace.

As a firm, we recognise we need to do more to tackle racial inequities in career outcomes and to tackle the systemic barriers facing minority ethnic talent at work and in the wider community. It is no longer enough for people to say they are not racist (passive); we all need to be anti-racist (proactive). As part of our wider work in tackling racial inequities, we continue to run our “Empowering our Allies: How do we be Anti-Racist?” series for all partners and members of staff. These interactive sessions explore the impact of being anti-racist, how we can practice being effective anti-racist allies, and what this looks like in our day-to-day and working lives.

In addition, we have commissioned extense, a leading inclusion consultancy, to support the firm in developing our race inclusion action plan. We have since delivered race inclusion training to all staff and partners, and will soon be looking to implement actions aimed at improving processes relating to recruitment and career progression, along with equitable support for our minority ethnic colleagues. 

"We are thrilled to support Travers Smith along their journey to improve race inclusion, and help the firm to transform their long-standing commitment to increasing representation of minority ethnic talent into tangible, effective actions.”

Julian Richard, Managing Director, extense

We are committed to ensuring that employees with disabilities and/or long-term conditions are valued, empowered, listened to and included. As a firm, we aim to embed accessibility in all our ways of working. These include making physical adjustments at work, providing equipment and specialist software to meet our people’s needs, and offering specialised coaching for neurodiverse employees. We are also proud to have been awarded the Disability Confident Leader Level 3 status, the highest externally validated accreditation in the UK Government’s Disability Confident Scheme.

As part of our wider work in promoting LGBTQ+ inclusion, we partner with Just Like Us, the leading UK charity of LGBTQ+ young people. In 2025, we delivered, in partnership with Just Like Us a mentoring scheme aimed at providing LGBT+ graduates with the skills, confidence and support they need as they transition from university life to full-time employment. This year the mentors were once again drawn from a wide range of industries and professions, including healthcare and medicine, law, the arts, academia and politics. Demonstrating the impact of this scheme, more than 80% of past mentees felt able to start their first job openly LGBT+ which is double the national average for LGBT+ graduates entering the workplace.

"Just Like Us and Travers Smith have been proudly working together to run a mentoring programme for LGBT+ young people since 2018, supporting LGBT+ young adults at a time that is pivotal in their careers by providing them with the network, tools and support they need to reflect on and plan their next steps."

Laura Mackay, CEO, Just Like Us

We understand that real change cannot be driven by any single organisation in isolation. With this in mind, we invite clients to participate in panel discussions, seminars and events focused on a broad range of topics related to inclusivity. These include:

• A panel discussion between Travers Smith and two financial services clients to explore social mobility
  
  
• Retail and consultancy clients have participated in sessions about LGBTQ+ parenting
  
  
• A number of clients – including professional and financial services institutions – have participated in our series of podcasts related to inclusivity
  
  
• We run tours of the British Museum with our clients to mark LGBT+ History Month.
  
  
• For International Women’s Day 2025, we were joined by Cressida Nnyanzi, Compliance Director at Inflexion, and Yushra Raheem, General Counsel at Equistone Partners Europe, for an informative discussion about leadership, career development, high performance and reflections on gender balance.

Our programme of educational and community engagement is student-focused: through our commitment to BEE Scheme, Economic Experts in Schools and Legal Experts in Schools, we support young people in social mobility "cold spots" to develop their reading and economic literacy, and in developing awareness of legal issues that affect them. In addition, we parter with F1 to deliver their award winning "The Next Grand Prix" Programme – a scheme which provides business and employability skills to students from disadvantaged backgrounds. 

We are committed to widening access to the legal profession and have partnered with Rare Recruitment, Aspiring Solicitors and GROW Mentoring to mentor and provide insight days for students from socially disadvantaged backgrounds who are interested in a career in law.  We offer an annual paid week of work experience to solicitors from a lower socio-economic, and we have implemented contextualised recruitment to ensure applications we receive are reviewed in light of wider personal circumstances.

"I’m excited to share that, for the first time, our firm has earned a spot on the Social Mobility Employer Index. While we’ve always been committed to making the legal profession more accessible, since launching our social mobility group, we’ve been able to sharpen our focus on providing opportunities to those who might otherwise find the profession inaccessible."

Polly Richard, Partner and Co-Sponsor of Social Mobility Group

Our commitment to diversity and inclusion is underpinned by a data-led approach that is transparent and accountable. We track and analyse key metrics across through regular monitoring reports, using the insights to identify barriers and shape targeted interventions. 

Our gender and ethnicity pay gap reporting goes beyond just compliance - it helps us understand where progress is being made and where focus is needed. 

By grounding our strategy in data, we’re able to measure impact, share learning and adapt in real time. This rigorous approach ensures that inclusion isn’t just a value we talk about, but a measurable, sustained commitment to creating an equitable culture where everyone has the opportunity to succeed.

Gender Pay Gap

Preview our most recent Pay Gap report

Monitoring data

Diversity at Travers Smith: Monitoring data 2023

Diversity at Travers Smith: Monitoring data 2021

Diversity at Travers Smith: Monitoring data 2019

Diversity at Travers Smith: Monitoring data 2017

Diversity at Travers Smith: Monitoring data 2016

Diversity: Monitoring data 2015