On the surface a lot can change in the legal world in six months. In the time since I went on maternity leave last summer, SJ Berwin has agreed and gone live with its much-trailed combination with King & Wood Mallesons (KWM), Lawrence Graham has finally found a merger partner in the shape of Wragge & Co, and CMS Cameron McKenna? Well, it hasn't yet managed the US link it has publicly set its sights on, but it has agreed a deal with ailing Scots firm Dundas & Wilson.

In many respects though, these developments – with the exception of the KWM merger – seem unlikely to be transformational. Even in KWM's case, the impact it makes will be intrinsically linked to the extent to which the firm can integrate and overcome sizeable cultural differences. Meanwhile, UK mid-market merger activity is increasingly just business as usual for a host of firms scrabbling to improve – or simply maintain – their position in a saturated and highly competitive market. 

It is tempting to view the latest initiative intended to boost social mobility in this same harsh light. This week the diversity recruitment specialist Rare has announced a scheme intended to improve diversity across a range of professional careers, including law. Rather than assessing all graduate candidates equally on the basis of their qualifications, the organisation is pushing firms to measure academic performance against the context of candidates' socio-economic backgrounds, including their schooling.

With the involvement of senior legal figures including former Slaughter and May executive partner Graham White and ex-Simmons & Simmons senior partner Bill Knight, the project has the support of a heavyweight team. The challenge though will lie in the implementation, as law firms are effectively being asked to add another layer of complexity into their recruitment process at precisely the point when they are actively seeking to whittle down the number of candidates. 

Working in its favour is the fact Rare already works with several leading City law firms and that the firms themselves are now required to publish some diversity statistics. In addition, the universities firms hire from are increasingly using a similar contextual approach. But for it to move beyond an admirable concept into something truly transformational for the profession, buy-in from firms, perhaps aided by pressure from clients, needs to be significant.

Given the gulf that still needs to be bridged in terms of retaining women in law or increasing the number of ethnic minority lawyers within City ranks, I'm not yet convinced it will succeed. But I hope I'm proved wrong as, in theory, it would have a more transformational impact on the profession than any single merger ever could.