Page 3 - Prime - Marking Ten Years

Welcome
“Our goal is to embed social mobility within the legal profession and to ensure that the path ultimately to partnership is accessible to all of those who have the talent and desire to achieve it.”
PRIME was set up in response to the 2009 Milburn Report on social mobility entitled “Unleashing Aspiration” to address a problem that very few law firm leaders, let alone
law firm partners, even recognised and fewer still were trying to address. Ten years on, social mobility programmes are part of most firms’ recruitment strategies and enormous progress has
been made on widening access to the profession. We can, and should be, proud of that and of the way in which PRIME has drawn together law firms from all over the UK to address this agenda and to do
so through collaboration and sharing of best practice. We have also inspired others to follow our lead and we have been able to share our learning with them.
PRIME’s success cannot, though, be judged by short term successes in widening outreach alone. Our goal is to embed social mobility within the legal profession and to ensure that the path ultimately to partnership is accessible to all of those who have the talent and desire to achieve
it. We cannot yet point to swathes of individuals who have trodden that path, as a result of PRIME, because the journey is a long one. A student who experienced one of the first PRIME programmes eight or nine years ago would still be quite a few years off partnership today. Recent Bridge Group data is telling
us that students from less advantaged socio-economic backgrounds tend to outperform their peers in the early years of their careers so retention and progression must be an area of future focus for the profession as a whole.
These are challenging times. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed more than ever before the stark societal inequalities and inequities that exist in our society. The attainability gap has widened, particularly for the young people that PRIME programmes are designed to reach. Law firms are to be commended for the ways in which they have responded. The move to online outreach has not been without its challenges on all sides but it has provided an opportunity in the longer term to engage with more students across a wider range of schools in all parts of the UK, including those “cold spots” which have been harder to reach to date.
In these pages, we share some of the detail on the people who have helped to make PRIME a success and some of the initiatives that we have implemented. We do so partly to mark our 10th anniversary but primarily to help spread the word and to encourage all law firms in the UK to join us on this important journey. In doing so, you will not only unleash the aspirations of young people, but you will also be enhancing the diversity and strength of your firms.
In a perfect world, PRIME will not need to exist in 10 years’ time but, so long as it does, we will continue to work together with our member firms, partners, the wider profession and the third sector towards levelling the playing field for students from less advantaged socio-economic backgrounds so that they can fulfil their true potential.
Nicholas Cheffings, PRIME Chair, Hogan Lovells