LGBT History Month: Living honest lives

LGBT History Month in February is an opportunity to look back and celebrate how far we have come in the UK, and to recognise how far there is still to go. Equality in law is an important step, but true equality across all areas of diversity is far from being achieved.

To launch the month, the Law Society hosted an event to reflect on how the legal profession has and should respond to LGBT diversity, where CEO Catherine Dixon praised the significant and world-leading steps that have already been made in this sector. Nevertheless, though we enjoy some of the best legal protections in the world, there continues to be a struggle for some to be who they truly are and to live honest lives.

In response to this challenge, the Law Society has launched its LGBT lawyers division. Alongside those for women, disabled, and Black, Asian, and minority ethnic solicitors, the division will be made up of practising solicitors from a broad range of backgrounds and experiences. There will be a responsibility to promote positive messages and profile role models, not only to support and encourage those entering the profession, but also those who may have been in practice for many years. How that support is given may not yet be clear, but recognising that the job is not yet done is welcome and is another step in the right direction.

Law firms have, in many ways, led the positive change in workplace policies and practice, influencing other sectors to follow suit. This has been recognised in Stonewall's annual equality index, which saw 12 firms ranked in the top 100. It is not only large national and international firms that can have an impact, however.

Partners and senior lawyers who demonstrate fairness, thoughtfulness, equality, and who have open minds are themselves role models for all employees and aspiring lawyers. Not only is it the role of all partners, as business owners and employers, to be true diversity champions for their firms, it is expected of them by their clients and by the profession. People aren't appointed role models - they assume that status by being who they are, not by being given a badge or being rolled out from time to time as the spokesperson for diversity.

Like those belonging to other diversity groups, LGBT lawyers don't fall neatly into one camp or another. As a consequence, different treatment is rarely obvious when observed from afar. That's not to say that aspiring solicitors and partners do not still experience direct bars on their progress because of their sexuality or status.

Recognising differences and responding to them is the real difficulty. It may still be typical for a man to have a wife or girlfriend but that is not the only option, and even throwaway comments in conversation or flawed assumptions can be challenging to deal with. This is especially true in firms where certain stereotypes persist. Changing these stereotypes will take more than a month, but now is the time to push forward with change. 

Kevin Poulter is an employment lawyer @kevinpoulter editorial@solicitorsjournal.co.uk