Allen & Overy (A&O) senior partner David Morley has been appointed to chair a new board set up to oversee social mobility initiative PRIME, as the scheme nears its one-year anniversary.

A raft of senior names from the UK's largest law firms have been appointed to the new six-person board, with Addleshaw Goddard senior partner Monica Burch, CMS Cameron McKenna senior partner Dick Tyler, DLA Piper board member Janet Legrand and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer corporate finance head Barry O'Brien all on the line-up alongside Morley. The final board member is educational charity The Sutton Trust's director of programmes and partnerships James Turner.

The decision to appoint a board to oversee the diversity initiative comes as PRIME gears up for its first annual review later this year, carried out by the National Foundation for Educational Research, to ensure member firms are meeting their stated goals.

PRIME was launched in September 2011 in a bid to increase diversity and access to the legal profession.

It sees participating firms commit to providing a defined number of work experience placements, equivalent to half their annual trainee intake, to disadvantaged children aged between 14-18.

The initiative now has more than 80 member firms and is managed by A&O diversity manager Jane Masey.

PRIME was first initiated by Morley with A&O, Freshfields, Clifford Chance, Linklaters, Slaughter and May, Hogan Lovells, Herbert Smith and Norton Rose among the firms involved in the launch.

Former cabinet minister Alan Milburn praised the project in a report in May this year stating that the legal profession is taking genuine steps to support social mobility and urging banking and accountancy firms to follow suit.