Herbert Smith, a firm of City solicitors, last month announced that it had hired its first ‘inclusivity manager’. There were chortles all round, and the Times ran a short piece about the appointment under the headline ‘Political correctness seems to have broken out at one of London’s top legal firms’. The caravan swiftly moved on, but the recruitment of Carolyn Lee by one of the ‘Magic Circle’ of leading law partnerships is the latest sign that the City is coming to terms with the realities of modern life.
While the number of women in the professional workforce has mushroomed in recent years and a tolerance of male chauvinist piggery has correspondingly diminished, the City has remained a male-dominated bastion where old habits die hard. Earlier this month a former executive at HBOS, the bank formed by the merger between the Halifax and the Bank of Scotland, launched an £11 million lawsuit. Claire Bright, who had been on £600,000 a year as head of asset management until she left the bank last October, claimed that she became suicidal after being harassed and humiliated by her male boss. Her action is small beer compared with a claim filed in the US against the investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein. Six female employees are suing for no less than $1.4 billion, accusing the company of being a sexual predator’s playground, where women are viewed as ‘eye candy’ and one of them was referred to as ‘the Pamela Anderson of trading’. Whatever the merit of these actions, one thing is for sure. Supposedly reputable firms don’t like being pilloried on the front pages of the tabloids or being stung for millions. And if that means getting PC, then they will get PC.
For a guide to how the future will look, there’s no better place to start than the US.
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