"There should be no glory in striving for diversity; it's about jointly improving access to the legal profession for the brightest and best irrespective of social advantage or other personal characteristics," says Barry Matthews, director of legal affairs and third-party sales at ITV.

Matthews is referring to the work of the Legal Social Mobility Partnership (LSMP), a joint in-house and private practice work placement scheme originally launched by Matthews and ITV group legal director Andrew Garard in 2014.

The scheme, which now has more than 40 institutions signed up – including Barclays, Saatchi & Saatchi, Microsoft and Adidas from the in-house side and Slaughter and May, Ashurst, White & Case and DLA Piper among the law firms – will this year provide opportunities to more than 200 socially disadvantaged young adults.

With the industry still dominated by white male lawyers educated at a narrow band of elite schools and universities, diversity – and alongside it, social mobility – has risen up the agenda in recent years.

Many law firms have signed up to schemes that promote opportunities to young adults who would not otherwise be able to get exposure to the corporate world, while the cross-firm work experience initiative PRIME now has 89 firms signed up.

But through the LSMP, the in-house community is taking PRIME a step further, adding longer-term mentoring and career guidance to work experience in a bid to tackle the persistent lack of diversity within the profession.

CSR beginnings

ITV has long been at the forefront of improving access to the profession. Since joining the broadcaster in 2007, Garard has shaken up how ITV manages both its diversity programme and its wider corporate social responsibility (CSR) offering.

What we wanted to do is show young people that wherever you come from you can make it as a lawyer 

One of his first projects saw him overhaul ITV's then 50-strong external legal panel. He slashed the number of firms on the roster to eight and introduced a number of CSR criteria that firms had to meet in order to secure a place, as well as forcing firms to move away from billable hours.

"When I first joined in 2007, we looked to buy legal services in a very different way; ie we didn't pay by reference to units of time," says Garard (pictured right). "From an ITV perspective, that really put our team on the map. We also made it a requirement for joining the panel that law firms had to be active in pro bono and CSR and asked how could we work with them so that two and two makes five rather than three or four."

The introduction of a pro bono clinic around the same time became another standout project. At the time, you couldn't run a pro bono case as an in-house counsel unless you got specific insurance. But by working in conjunction with Matthews' old firm, legacy Lovells, ITV was able to get around this issue. With the SRA subsequently changing regulations, the ITV team has recently hit the million-pound mark in terms of the value of advice provided through its clinic.

With the pro bono initiative catching the attention of the wider company, responsibility for ITV's entire CSR programme now sits under Garard's more than 220-strong team, which also handles governance and information (rights management) as well as legal.

The diversity agenda

Matthews and Garard see tackling the diversity and social mobility issue as the next logical focus.

Garard explains: "ITV operates across Britain; we have teams out filming across the country and we have programmes on air that cover all walks of life and we needed to make sure that we were representative of the communities we operate in.

"Law tends to be seen as the preserve of the better-off because of the expense of putting yourself through university, law school and training contracts. We are great believers that the best lawyers don't necessarily come from the magic circle firms, the Oxbridge set or the best schools – they can come from anywhere. What we wanted to do is show young people that wherever you come from you can make it as a lawyer. This is not only a corporate thing but a personal thing because Barry and I were the first members of our respective families to go to university."

Matthews adds: "The diversity debate had long ignored social background as a key determinant of whether our profession was inclusive. But could we really say we had achieved true diversity if we reached a goal of balance in respect of protected characteristics like race and gender, but the profession was [still] populated by people from a similar social background?"

Born out of an initial tie-up with Slaughters, the LSMP is now in its third year. In its nascent form, the scheme offered opportunities to 20 students from four London schools, largely drawn from existing links established through the PRIME initiative. Since 2014, the LSMP has expanded at pace, this year adding new hubs in Leeds and Birmingham in addition to an offering in Greater Manchester, which was rolled out last year.

More than 40 in-house teams and law firms are now signed up to provide various parts of a two-week package of work experience and career advice to more than 200 students. Although in its early days it was very much an ITV project, it has now grown to become a pan-organisation partnership, though Matthews and the wider ITV team still have heavy involvement.

Participants spend a week at one of the law firms signed up, in addition to days spent with a number of in-house teams, all covering a different aspect of working in law.

"What we don't want to do is invite young people in to our offices to watch LSMP partners working or deliver a series of lectures on what they do," Matthews explains. "There is a heavy emphasis on interactive, business-focused workshops; this approach gives students the opportunity to develop anecdotes so once they get to university or job interviews they can respond to questions like 'show me a time when you have solved a problem, shown leadership etc'."

The scheme also has links to a number of rugby clubs including Harlequins, Wigan Warriors and Leeds Rhinos. Professional sports psychologists and athletes talk to students about topics including teamwork and dealing with failure.

Matthews adds: "Some of the lessons/tools you learn in terms of resilience and achieving goals as a professional sportsman are directly relevant to pursuing a career in law. It is a highly competitive profession – you will be lucky to avoid rejection and will need to plan how to achieve your goal of becoming a qualified solicitor.

"The sports psychologists from Quins and Rhinos teach the students not take it personally and to move on. We compliment these lessons with player interaction, which helps to bring the issues to life. This generally involves 20-stone blokes talking about the vulnerabilities they feel in the runup to a big game. They come in and say: 'Look, I am a local hero but I am absolutely petrified every time I walk onto that pitch because of the pressure and this is how I deal with it'."

ITV believes one of the big advantages the LSMP has is its alumni element. While PRIME has come in for criticism for a perceived lack of follow-up opportunities for participants, the LSMP runs a LinkedIn group where former participants can keep in touch and attend events. There is also an email address, manned by LSMP partners on rotation, which students can use for advice on matters such as CVs, personal statements and interviews.

Apprenticeships

Alongside the LSMP, ITV this year became the first in-house company to sign up to the government's Trailblazer Apprenticeship scheme.

The six-year training programme will see a student spend time with ITV alongside formal education at City University to gain qualification. The litigation and property aspects of the training will be provided by a law firm.

If I had a pound for every time someone said 'law's not for me because the people aren't like me', I'd be a very rich man

ITV is working with contextual recruitment company Rare to find future apprentices. It has not set hard grade criteria and instead is searching for someone who has outperformed their local peers from similar socioeconomic backgrounds.

"It's not about lowering the bar," Matthews explains. "It's about addressing the issue that many bright students don't have the confidence or access to support to help them through the journey to qualification. My kids don't need any more help. Most of my friends work in the City and they meet these people. For them going to work at ITV or a law firm is natural because that is what dad does and that's what dad's friends do.

"From my time as a volunteer youth worker, if I had a pound for every time someone said 'law's not for me because the people aren't like me', I'd be a very rich man. We, as a profession, need to address this."

In addition to benefiting the profession as a whole, the initiatives also have benefits for the broadcaster itself.

For a start, Garard believes that working with law firms on these projects has brought them much closer.

That said, while both are supportive of initiatives like PRIME, they also believe it will be easier for in-house teams to make a difference.

"It's quite easy to be critical of law firms in this area and that is probably unjust," says Garard. "Law firms are there to make money for partners – so anything done in this area is a positive. Law firms by their nature are competitive; they fight for clients and they fight for fees. So in that respect, expecting them to collaborate is, to a degree, unrealistic. [Because of that], a client-led initiative is probably easier. We can be the lightning rod."

He concludes: "Hopefully, young people come into a corporate or a law firm and realise that they are just populated by people. Things like interviews can feel like trial by ordeal and if we can give these people the confidence to realise they can be their best and just be who they are, then that is an easy give for us."