By Trevor Sterling2020-12-18T14:30:00+00:00 For law firms, increasing the numbers of black and minority ethnic (BAME) lawyers and ensuring they get the same chances to progress in their careers has been a focus point for some time. In 2020, as the Black Lives Matter movement has gained momentum around the world, the spotlight is very much on race issues in our profession as in the wider world. We need to be asking ourselves, does the legal sector have a race problem, and if so, what more can be done to tackle it? Trevor Sterling The latest analysis by the Solicitors Regulations Authority shows that BAME lawyers account for around a fifth of all lawyers working in law firms and that a similar proportion of partners are BAME – seemingly not too bad considering that 13% of the workforce at large identifies as BAME. However, closer inspection of the figures reveals that just 3% are black, and that both black and Asian lawyers are significantly under-represented at partnership level in mid and large size firms. This suggests that, while many law firms have been working hard to deliver equal opportunities and improve diversity and inclusion, it is still far from a perfect system given the lack of equity in terms of leadership.