Reignite programme helps women advance as firms compete in war for talent

Ruth Green, IBA Multimedia Journalist

Each firm pays a membership fee to participate in the programme, but there’s no obligation to recruit. Unlike similar returnships offered in the US, candidates do not pay to be on the programme and receive a salary commensurate with their experience. CMS, Macfarlanes, Orrick, Reed Smith, Sidley Austin and White & Case took part in the January-June 2019 intake. Eight candidates accepted permanent offers or contract extensions with their placement firms. A ninth has found a role elsewhere, working in-house.

The initiative’s success was recognised in September as the six firms were crowned winners of the Innovation in Diversity and Inclusion category of the FT European Innovative Lawyer Awards 2019. The Reignite Academy now has 17 active member firms. Several firms will take on a second intake of candidates from January 2020.

Mehrnaz Afshar joined the programme in January 2019. Despite having trained and qualified in structured finance at a magic circle firm and practised in London and Tokyo, a six-year career break for family reasons had her struggling to get past recruiters. In June, after a successful six months on the programme, Reed Smith offered her a permanent contract as a senior associate.

Afshar says programmes like Reignite could be transformative for how the legal profession approaches recruitment. ‘Law firms might say that they support women and returners, but when it comes to recruiting they automatically filter out certain people,’ she says. ‘I and the other Reignite candidates had been falling into the gap. Now I’m hoping that the success of the programme will help them think differently when it comes to their recruiting policies, the filters they apply and it will open a lot more doors.’

Reignite has also helped candidates like Anne Todd, who carved out a hugely successful in-house career before finding the role of general counsel incompatible with caring for a young family. After taking a step back for several years as a consultant, she felt her career had irrecoverably ‘plateaued’. She joined the programme in January 2019 and is now a senior commercial solicitor at Macfarlanes.

Todd says Reignite can really help lawyers with non-linear career paths get back on track. ‘There’s a lot of wasted talent that could be brought into City law firms,’ says Todd. ‘Whether it’s mothers or fathers who stop when they have kids or, people like me, who are treading water. When you’ve got commercial experience, either from working in a completely different sector or working in-house, you bring a lot of knowledge to law firms.’

Nola Beirne, vice-chair of Reed Smith's Financial Industry Group, says the programme opens up opportunities for lawyers who haven’t had a conventional career trajectory. ‘The key achievement is that Reignite links candidates with people who are looking to recruit,’ she says. ‘It’s reflective of the way the profession and the world are moving; to be more innovative, think more creatively and less hidebound by the way we’ve always done it. That’s partly driven by the war for talent. If you can expand the pool then that’s to everyone’s benefit.’

The billable hours culture of private practice is often blamed for deterring women juggling demanding workloads with caring responsibilities. Jeyda Yilmaz, a Recruitment Manager at Macfarlanes, says the programme has really grasped that people re-entering the workforce need greater support. ‘It’s something that we’re very mindful to offer to make sure that we’re giving [candidates] the best chance,’ she says. ‘Had somebody gone through a traditional method of recruiting they perhaps wouldn’t have had those same opportunities, which wouldn’t have set them up with the best chance of success.’

Nell Scott, a corporate partner at Orrick, agrees that Reignite’s approach of lowering targets for candidates during the six-month ‘transition period’ has helped foster a hugely supportive working environment. ‘There’s the sense that they’re on ramping during this period,’ she says. ‘They’re not expected to come in at 100% and they’ll need time to get oriented and reacquainted with how the practice of law works.’

Chris Watson is Co-Chair of the IBA Diversity & Inclusion Council and Head of the CMS Technology, Media and Communications Group. He says programmes like Reignite could resolve one of the biggest recruiting and retention problems facing the profession. ‘Once a pipe is leaking it’s very difficult to get water back into it,’ he says. ‘[Programmes like these] allow people to step in and out of the profession easily; if you can’t do that, it is one of the big causes of leakage.’

Scott believes Reignite’s approach to recruitment could even prompt a broader re-think on how law firms approach diversity and inclusion in the face of an aging workforce. ‘People who are a little bit older and have life experience bring a lot of strong skills to the workplace,’ she says. ‘We need to think more holistically to make sure our workplaces are conducive, friendly and open to people in their 40s, 50s and 60s who are not senior managers. If we can do more to encourage more people like that to stay or re-enter the workplace then I think that’s going to make firms stronger.’