More Women Leaders, better Corporate Social Responsibility Rana Abu Samaha, Legal Consultant DLA Piper Abu Dhabi

Introduction – DLA Piper Who we are

What is Corporate Responsibility (CR)? Diversity Community Engagement Environmental Sustainability Pro Bono "Good Corporate Responsibility is good business at DLA Piper and underpins our strategy for success as a global law firm. CR is reflected throughout the firm from the way in which we support and develop our people to the way we engage with our clients, our suppliers and the community. I am immensely proud of our CR programmes that have a positive impact upon our communities and are also highly valued by our people and our clients" Sir Nigel Knowles

Pro Bono As a law firm, Pro Bono is a fundamental way for our people to achieve significant impact through the provision of legal advice that would otherwise be unattainable for individuals and not-for-profit organisations. Role of women in Pro Bono Some of the Pro Bono work we do focusses on Diversity and Equality and in many cases on empowering women. Such as: Child Marriage in Yemen Zimbabwean Women's Rights

Community Engagement Our community programmes focus on the following three areas: Women are important as deliverers and recipients of our community projects. Our female colleagues are the most likely to participate in our Community and pro bono programmes and outnumber our male colleagues 60/40. Interestingly some of the key programmes we support in the Middle East, including our flagship partnership with INJAZ al-Arab, have more women as recipients of their services. Education Equality Economic Empowerment

Equality and diversity – Gender Diversity "We are defined by our people. Our people are our global identity as an organisation. Our brand is based on relationships and our people define our relationships. Diversity at DLA Piper goes to the heart of the DLA Piper values ". Sir Nigel Knowles, CEO We are committed to equality and diversity Equality and diversity are key to our global identity However, we have particular challenges on gender diversity and we work hard to address these challenges Despite having an even split of women and men at entry level and up to four years qualified. The representation of women drops significantly at Partner level to 20% of all Partners.

Diversity and Empowering women - Middle East Diversity in the Middle East The key challenge for us in the Middle East, is increasing the number of Arabic speaking lawyers. There is an even gender split in the majority of our offices but again with the same issues at partner level. Example of the Saudi Arabia office DLA Piper Saudi Arabia has made a significant commitment to women. We are one of the only International law firms able to hire women and we have a number of full time female lawyers. We only hire female vacation scheme placements in Saudi Arabia We conduct talks at a number of the women only Universities to inspire and mentor young women to join the profession.

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