Diversity and Inclusion highlights Chambers Canada 2022

As the Chambers Canada Guide continues its evolution in keeping with client demands, technology and sector developments, the 2022 guide and legal coverage provides more detailed insights on leading law firms and lawyers than ever before.  

While the Covid-19 pandemic and its lasting impact has dominated the news, firms have been doubling down on commitments to inclusion and expanding the scope of their diversity initiatives across Canada, while clients continue to drive change with a variety of measures.  

At Chambers, we have updated the submission document template to include department diversity statistics, enabling us to clearly measure the presence of diverse lawyers in each department within a law firm. This information increases our understanding of the demographics of practice areas, enabling us to better reflect the diversity of the profession.  

As a consequence of this positive action taken by our editorial, D&I and leadership teams, the headline figure shows that the percentage of individual rankings held by women in the 2022 Guide stands at 22.5%, up from 21.1% in 2021. Since the 2018 guide, this percentage has grown by 5.5%. Significantly, the total number of women ranked in the guide has grown by 63% in the last five years.  

There was also steady growth across the different ranking bands, with the proportion of women ranked steadily increasing in most bands. Of particular note, the proportion of women ranked as Star Individuals increased dramatically from zero in 2021 to 11% in 2022. In the numbered rankings, band 2 saw the biggest increase in women ranked year-on-year, from 19% to 22%.  

The data clearly indicates that diversity initiatives and the continued progression of women in the legal profession is having a positive impact on the gender balance that, in years to come, will significantly shift the highest rankings. The proportion of women noted as Associate-to-Watch increased from 27% in 2021 to 31% in 2022. The Up-and-Coming category saw an even greater year-on-year increase, from 39% to 46%.  

These results are positive, but we know there remains a long way to go to ensure our rankings are reflective of the diversity of the profession. By working together on this vital movement, together we can achieve this goal. We do not currently have data for lawyers that do not identify within the gender binary, but welcome disclosure of this information and hope to include this data in future analysis. 

These changes build on the D&I initiatives we have rolled out in North America, with seminars taking place since 2013 and Canada's inclusion in the awards since 2020. This year's Chambers D&I Awards: North America took place virtually on 17^th June. Find out more here. Submissions will open for the 2022 awards in January.  

This data was collected on Chambers Business Intelligence, utilising data collected through our research. Chambers BI provides actionable insights and intelligence to support decision making, allowing firms to easily identify market trends, risks and new opportunities.