We are a firm that is committed to diversity of thought, ideas and viewpoints and where all our people, regardless of their background, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, disability or sexual orientation feel they belong.

Inclusion and diversity is high on the agenda for Mewburn Ellis. It’s part of our business plan and is being driven by our management board. For us, inclusion and diversity is more than just a tick-box exercise – it is an issue that’s long been on our agenda and is becoming increasingly ingrained in our business plan and imbedded in our culture. We strive to be leaders in this area, and whilst we have made strong progress to date, there is always more that can be done. We already have strong gender diversity across the firm as a whole with ~1/3 men and ~2/3 women (as at end April 2021) and are focussed on being a more inclusive firm.

Journey so far

We began our journey in early 2021 when we started to work with external specialist consultants Brook Graham. We undertook an audit of our existing culture, processes and practices to help us establish a dedicated I&D strategy for the firm. We also ran an awareness building programme, staff survey and focus groups to explore key themes. We have shared the results of this work with all our people. Our aim has been to make inclusivity a whole firm project.

From our research and with Brook Graham's expertise, we started to develop a strategic I&D framework that explores four key areas. Inclusivity for us is about the people we hire, the careers we nurture, the culture we build and the relationships we have with our clients. We have already started to make changes in these areas. We have created a new board level role of Chief Inclusion & Diversity Officer as well as launched an Inclusion & Diversity Collaboration Group. We are also now proud to be using Rare Recruitment's Contextual Recruitment System (CRS) which allows us to consider an applicant's achievements in the context in which they were gained. 

Strategic I&D framework

I&D Strategy Table Jan 2022

We are using these key areas as the foundations on which to build a firmwide approach to inclusion and diversity that benefits our people, our clients and our business as a whole. We are committed to making sure that Mewburn Ellis is a place where equality and diversity are celebrated, where we have diversity of thought, ideas and viewpoints and that our people, regardless of their background, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, disability or sexual orientation feel they belong and can bring their 'true self' to work. 

 

Chief I&D Officer & Collaboration Group

 
 

Robert Andrews (colour)

 

In January 2022 we launched a new Chief Inclusion & Diversity Officer role and I&D Collaboration Group.

Robert Andrews has joined our Leadership Team as Chief I&D Officer. He is responsible for leading the development and implementation of the strategy and ensuring the firm maintains focus and momentum at the highest level.

As part of his new role he also leads Mewburn Ellis’ recently assembled Inclusion & Collaboration Group, which is a forum empowering our people to take an active role in building and delivering the firm’s inclusion and diversity initiatives.

 

A personal commitment to inclusivity

All members of our Management Board have personally signed up to the IP Inclusive Senior Leader's Pledge.

We are all committed to making real change. We're already well on our way, but we recognise that this is a journey that will take time and our own personal effort.

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Kate O

 

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Jeremy

 

 

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sean

 

We each commit to:

Providing visible and proactive leadership to improve I&D in our organisation, by:
  • Putting our names to this public statement as evidence of our commitment to improve I&D in Mewburn Ellis

  • Demonstrating a personal and collective accountability for leading and delivering a I&D culture
Taking I&D seriously at the
highest level, by:
  • Ensuring that I&D is fully integrated with our firm’s strategic priorities

  • Including I&D as a standing agenda item in our Management Board meetings, Partner meetings and our all firm Town Halls

  • Establishing, monitoring, and sharing our progress with an I&D Dashboard
Embedding and valuing I&D throughout the organisational
culture, by:
  • Helping our leaders to develop the skills and behaviours required to be an inclusive leader, and hard coding those skills and behaviours into our ways of working

  • Building awareness and commitment to I&D in all parts of our business, ensuring an active commitment in every office, team and role

  • Empowering a representative group to support the delivery of our I&D strategy, to provide governance and to track our progress
Building trust and safe spaces throughout the organisation, by:
  • Sharing my own identity and experiences to encourage everyone to bring their whole selves to work and speak openly about their identities

  • Acting as an ally and trusted advisor to colleagues from under-represented groups
Educating ourselves and our colleagues about I&D issues, by:
  • Self-assessing our own behaviours, seeking feedback from others, and contributing actively to all I&D training and learning opportunities

  • Providing unconscious bias awareness and mitigation training for everyone
Sharing our privileges, by:
  • Continuing to invest in young people in challenging circumstances and helping them develop a love of sciences through our national sponsorship of the CREST awards

  • Continuing to help reduce homelessness and support initiatives such as Help Bristol Homeless and Shelter from the Storm to help get people off the streets

Insisting on equity, by:
  • Committing to meaningful conversations that actively embrace the diversity of our people when collaborating on I&D plans and communications, I&D engagement, and to gather ongoing feedback

  • Creating a talent management strategy, supported by a learning and development programme, that enables inclusive careers for everyone

Working closely with HR and management colleagues to
achieve this, by:
  • Creating a pipeline for diverse talent to join our business in all roles by improving how we attract and recruit new talent

 

 

Other I&D activity at the firm

 
 
 
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Read our Inclusion & Diversity blogs

The Forward Community Programme

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is important to us. The success of our business relies upon our ability to attract, train and retain the best people. We support diversity throughout our business and make every effort to create and maintain an inclusive culture. We recognise our responsibilities in the community and encourage our people to engage in activities that better society and build trust in our local communities. As a forward-looking firm, we understand the importance of minimising our environmental impact. Therefore we are committed to facilitating environmentally friendly working practices by our people and in our offices.

The concept of CSR is in our opinion under developed in our profession. We don’t want to just do what is required like many other firms - but go above and beyond. We have built our business over 150 years by looking ahead and adapting and changing at the right times. Thinking about the future of our planet and society, being a good corporate citizen and doing our bit to make a difference is a high priority for the firm. Our recent rebrand was to capture what we believe is at the very heart of our firm – being forward-looking. To be a truly forward-looking firm, community must be at the very heart of our culture. We are at the beginning of an exciting journey to develop what we believe will be a vital community programme to deliver our CSR initiatives. Our Forward Community Programme covers the following key areas:

Inclusivity

Making sure that equality and diversity are celebrated. We want a firm that has diversity of thought, ideas and viewpoints and where all our people, regardless of their background, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, disability or sexual orientation feel they belong. We have a number of initiatives running including being a member of IP Inclusive, supporting Women in IP through AIPLA and regular inclusivity columns in our magazine Forward, as well as many more planned. We also monitor our gender pay gap figures, even though we aren't legally required to do this yet. Read more about our inclusivity initiatives and a summary of our gender pay gap figures below.

Community

For us this means nurturing our people, helping everyone develop and contributing to the wider communities in which we operate as well as supporting worthy causes with time and money. As a firm we have made a commitment to donate 1% of our profits to charity as well as over 250 days of time to good causes. We support charities at a firmwide and local office level.

This year we have chosen to support Coronavirus related charities at a firmwide level and our people have chosen a local charity for each office. We have also given all our people one community day per year to enable them to support causes they care about. In addition we operate a Give As You Earn (GAYE) scheme so our people can donate to charities of their choice in a simple and tax effective way. Our combined community effort amounts to more than £150,000 of investment and over 250 days of time donated to good causes. Find out more below about our plans for charitable giving of both time and money.

Sustainability

We believe we must play our part in reducing the use of energy, lowering carbon emissions and reducing waste. We are in the process of completely redeveloping our approach to facilities management and bringing in new resources to look after the environmental areas of our Forward Community Programme and drive this area forward.

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Gender Pay Gap: Updated for 2020/21

COMMITTED TO GENDER EQUALITY

We have taken the decision to be open about our Gender Pay Gap figures, even though as a partnership with fewer than 250 employees we are not yet required to report on these statistics. We have been tracking them for the last four years and have produced them for both our staff and our partnership.

In summary for 2020/21 our median pay gap was 26.5%. This is an increase from the 2019 figure of 22.3%. In terms of our bonus gap, there is still no median gap as men and women are paid the same.

The gender split of our teams remains biased towards women at 65% and men at 35%, This is a change from 59% women and 41% men in 2019/20.  We still have significantly more women at 60% in upper middle positions than men at 40%. At the upper level, the split has changed from 45% men and 55% women in 2019/20 to 49% men and 51% women in 2020/21.

We currently have 48 partners in total. 73% of our partners are male and 27% are female. In our lower and middle quartiles our partnership remains 58% men and 42% women. We are making strong improvements in these partnership quartiles and are committed to having a diverse partnership. 

We are not evenly split in our upper quartiles. We want to change this, but evolving the make-up of our partnership will take time. Upper quartile partners have been at the firm for 25-30 years and at the time they joined the firm, there were far fewer women studying STEM qualifications. It is important to note that our partnership continually expands, rather than specific spaces being allocated or a 'one in one out' system being in place; this also affects the rate gender balance can change. 

Gender Pay Gap Statistics - Employees & Partners

Employee Statistics

  • Hourly median pay gap for 2020/21 was 26.5%, up from 22.3% 2019/20
  • Median bonus gap 0% (no change from 2018/19)
  • We continue have significantly more women in upper middle positions than men. This has changed considerably since 2017
  • At the upper level, we continue to have more women in upper level positions than men, although it has dropped slightly from 55% to 51%


  Lower Middle Upper Middle Upper
2020/21 - Men 12  /  21% 18 / 31% 23 / 40% 29 / 49%
2020/21 - Women 46 / 79% 40 / 69% 35 / 60% 30 / 51%
         
2019/20 - Men 15  /  29% 11 / 21% 21 / 40% 24 / 45%
2019/20 - Women 37 / 71% 42 79% 32 / 60% 29 / 55%
         
2018/19 - Men 14 / 29% 12 / 24% 17 / 34% 26 / 52%
2018/19 - Women 35 / 71% 38 / 76% 33 / 66% 24 / 48%

 

Partner Statistics

  • We have 48 partners in total – an increase of one from 2019/20
  • 73% of our partners are men and 27% are women
  • Changing the make-up of our partnership will take time – upper quartile partners have been here for 25-30 years
  • Our partnership continually expands, rather than specific spaces being allocated
  • We are making strong improvements in the lower and middle partnership quartiles where the split is more even
  • This shift illustrates our commitment to having a diverse partnership

  Lower Middle Upper Middle Upper
2020/21 - Men 8 / 67% 6 / 50% 9 / 82% 12 / 92%
2020/21 - Women 4 / 33% 6 / 50% 2 / 18% 1 / 8%
         
2019/20 - Men 7 / 58% 7 / 58% 10 / 83% 10 / 91%
2019/20 - Women 5 / 42% 5 / 42% 2 / 17% 1 / 9%
         
2018/19 - Men 6 / 55% 7 / 58% 10 / 83% 10 / 91%
2018/19 - Women 5 / 45% 5 / 42% 2 / 17% 1 / 9%

 

Talk to us about Inclusion & Diversity

Robert Andrews Resized

Robert Andrews

Partner, Patent Attorney
Chief Inclusion & Diversity Officer

Richard Clegg resized-1

Richard Clegg

Managing Partner, Patent Attorney

Lillian Cunliffe Feb-21-1

Lillian Cunliffe

Head of HR

Forward Magazines Overlapping 6

Mewburn Ellis

FORWARD MAGAZINE

Mewburn Ellis Forward is a biannual publication that celebrates the best of innovation and exploration. We run regular columns in the magazine on inclusivity and many of our articles have a focus on sustainability.

Our magazine is printed on paper that has been sourced from sustainably managed forests which adhere to environmentally approved standards. This paper has less carbon footprint than recycled paper. The full magazine, including the cover, can be recycled and the wrapper that is used to protect the magazine is made from starch-based biopolymers, meaning it is compostable. 

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