Staff networks

Balance

The Balance network is a forum for all staff managing careers and home lives, enabling discussion, support and the exchange of information and ideas, to achieve a balance of opportunity for all.

This network has hosted events on work-life balance and caring responsibilities. They have made recommendations around agile working and supported the adoption of the firms agile working policy.

Our Balance network have been delivering a series of talks on navigating the work-life blend, whether you have children, elderly relatives or other commitments and interests outside work. Some examples of panel discussions that Balance has hosted include "how to support neurodivergent children" and "making it work as a working parent".

REACH (Race, ethnicity and cultural heritage)

The REACH (race, ethnicity and cultural heritage) network is a forum for networking and peer support between ethnic minority staff and allies, which enables the sharing and exchange of information and ideas.

Our REACH network hosts a series of drop-in lunches throughout the year open to the wider REACH network and colleagues who identify as coming from an ethnic minority/mixed background and allies. The REACH network also hosts other lunches regularly to mark cultural and religious events, such as Lunar New Year and Diwali.

We also have several affinity groups under REACH, for example our East and South East Asian Affinity Group.

DAWN (Disability and wellbeing network)

The DAWN network is a forum that focuses on the mental health and wellbeing of all of those at Macfarlanes and also offers support to staff who have direct experience of or support others with disabilities, neurodiverse conditions and other long and short term conditions.

Each year our DAWN network host events to mark Neurodiversity Week in March and Mental Health Awareness Week in May. We have hosted lunch and learns, panel discussions as well as workshops with neurodiversity specialists, Adjust. We also held a panel event during Mental Health Awareness Week last year, where our colleagues shared their mental health journeys and the support they received from the firm.

A recent focus for DAWN has been on hidden disabilities. The group held a panel event on living and working effectively with a long-term health condition and also hosted a speed networking session focusing on disabilities in partnership with InterLaw.

Pride

The Pride network is a forum for networking and peer support, to share LGBTQ+ action and to communicate information to colleagues interested in LGBTQ+ matters.

Each year the network marks LGBTQ+ history month via an online campaign on our intranet. Topics have included celebrating the achievements of LGTBQ+ sportspeople and sharing experiences of ‘coming out’ at work. We also mark Pride month with a firmwide social event.

Our Pride network was recognised as one of the Top 10 in the Network Group Category at the British LGBT Awards 2023. The submission highlighted the great work and events our Pride network delivered over 2022.

We are active members of Stonewall and the InterLaw Diversity Forum.

The Green Network

Macfarlanes is fully committed to reducing the negative environmental impact of our business operations and the continual improvement in our environmental performance. The Green Network is a network for all staff that care about sustainability and the environment, including those who want to actively support the aims and objectives in our ambitious new environmental policy.

The policy includes commitments covering our carbon footprint; emissions; waste; recycling; sustainable procurement of goods and services; office greenery and support for the legal sustainability community. We think that these commitments represent best practice for the legal sector. We have partnered with OLIO – a food sharing platform, to ensure that any surplus food (including prepared food) is given to local low income families, rather than thrown away.

We are members of the Legal Sustainability Alliance (LSA), a group of nearly 180 UK law firms committed to improving the sustainability of their operations and working together to improve sustainability within the legal sector as a whole.

Legal Women’s Network

As we work towards our 2026 and 2030 partnership targets for gender and ethnicity, we have created the Legal Women’s Network in response to feedback from female fee earners. The Legal Women’s Network helps build strong working relationships with women across the firm, while also enabling the firm to gain female perspectives when considering the working environment.

In addition to regular catch ups network members are invited to attend a series of lunch and learns on topics such as; women’s health and business development.

Networks Fair

We host a bi-yearly Networks Fair. The fair is an opportunity for people to find out more about our inclusion Networks, the Green network and Community and Charity Committee. Throughout the afternoon, steering group representatives from across all the networks and committees share their experiences, explain the support available at the firm and how people can get involved.

Watch a video of last year’s Networks Fair below.