Equity, Inclusion & Outreach
Louise Woods, Partner, Complex Commercial Litigation Diversity Council Office Lead, Co-Chair of London Women’s Initiative and Talent/Diversity Lead
strive for our partnership to one day look like our incoming Trainee cohorts. We are committed to sustaining our focus on diversity and, in particular, the retention of our women and diverse lawyers, and to do so we work to ensure our initiatives permeate our structure, policies, and programmes. As a Trainee in London, you have the opportunity to be involved in our programming. We have an active Diversity Council that is responsible for running our diversity-focused events, our schools outreach mentoring programme, and our book club, which is focused on thought-provoking texts designed to educate and promote frank and honest discussions with colleagues. The Women’s Initiative in London works to create and sustain a variety of programmes that support our women lawyers, nurture their development, and promote their advancement to all levels of leadership within the firm. The initiative benefits all of our lawyers, as the programming includes business development training, mentoring programmes, and family-friendly initiatives. Other V&E diversity initiatives include our LGBTQ+ Alliance and our New Parent Mentoring Programme, which have both seen a rise in members in our London office.
Leading with Inclusion
At V&E, our inclusion commitment starts at the top with members of our leadership who oversee our firm-wide diversity and inclusion initiatives. I hold an office lead role for a number of the firm’s diversity initiatives to support participation and progress in London, as I believe strongly in the work we are doing to achieve equality — inclusive of diverse interests, backgrounds, perspectives, race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, age, religion, and physical ability. We recognise that being a more diverse firm with a truly inclusive culture will help drive our long-term success, both in retaining our top talent and in serving our clients’ needs. Our participation in diversity-focused career fairs and recruiting programmes allows us to identify top notch legal talent. We have made progress in London with our entry-level Trainee recruitment over recent years, and we
I hope you will make time in your schedule to get to know Vinson & Elkins!
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