In 2019 the InterLaw Diversity Forum signed an MOU with the American Bar Association (“ABA”) to adapt the ABA’s US Model Diversity Survey ("ABA MDS") for use in the United Kingdom. The ABA MDS is now in its seventh year with over 150 Client Signatories and nearly 500 Law Firm Participants in the United States. In 2020 we solidified this arrangement with the ABA by signing a further “Collaboration Agreement”. Our UK adaptation is entitled the InterLaw Diversity Forum UK Model Diversity Survey ("UK MDS").
The UK Model Diversity Survey (“UK MDS”) is used by corporate and financial institutions (“Signatories”) to collect diversity data from their panel law firms / legal services providers, in addition to gathering relevant insights on firm policy and governance. The purpose of the survey is to serve as the standard for law firms’ reporting of their diversity metrics. The benefits the survey has are data uniformity, time efficiency, and trending year over year in aggregate and for individual firms.
The UK MDS currently has 42 Client Signatories from a wide range of corporates and financial institutions and 36 Law Firm Participants from a broad range of firms based on size and geography.
Now starting our fifth data collection cycle, the UK MDS is based on the 2021 version of the America Bar Association's Model Diversity Survey ("ABA MDS") in the United States. We will continue our collaboration with the ABA and future iterations of both surveys will continue to mirror each other as much as possible and will cross-pollinate as we share improvements back and forth. We work with the same service provider to run the online system, the Law School Admission Council (LSAC), a not-for-profit testing organisation in the US, whose generous support has made the system development possible.
The UK MDS and the ABA MDS run as two parallel but totally separate and independent systems but have nearly identical user interfaces and functionality. These two systems can easily be used in conjunction with each other to give you the full picture of the compositions and cultures of your US and UK firms.
As part of our adaptation for the UK market, we consulted with the SRA to ensure all our diversity categories and definitions fully align with what the SRA required law firms to collect starting in Summer 2021.
We received GDPR advice for the UK MDS from Reed Smith with support from Paul Hastings and have produced a Data Protection Impact Assessment ("DPIA”).
Our data experts, as well as data experts from several of the UK MDS Signatories, have determined that there are no GDPR issues with the UK MDS.
As part of the development of the UK MDS, we assembled a working group of general counsel, senior in-house lawyers, D&I experts, and law firm representatives to consult on the project. We consulted and coordinated with the SRA to ensure our diversity and social mobility categories are the same as those the SRA required law firms to collect on in Summer 2021 and again in 2023. We are working with the same supplier as the ABA, the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC), who developed the infrastructure and systems needed to launch the UK version.
