Sarah has been a Dispute Resolution partner at Slaughter and May for 17 years and has wide experience in the field. She was the lead Diversity and Inclusion partner at the firm from 2007-2012 and was responsible for defining and driving the D&I strategy within the firm. Sarah was the first partner to take up this role and was successful in raising partners’ awareness on D&I issues, including issues relating to BME lawyers. She introduced training on and awareness of D&I issues at all levels of the firm and was instrumental in the setup of the firm’s, now thriving, eight employee networks, including the BME network.

During this time she also took on the role of graduate recruitment lead partner for the firm, which included developing and expanding the relationship with RARE, a specialised graduate recruitment agency that finds the most talented BME students. To find a solution to the joint challenges of BME and social mobility in the sphere of graduate recruitment, Sarah was a founding member of the RARE contextual graduate recruitment working group that has led to the design of software for graduate recruiters to identity outstanding students who come from non-traditional backgrounds. Slaughter and May were one of the first firms to adopt this software which has now been implemented by many of the magic circle firms and blue chip companies.