Article Written by Frances Anderson, CEO, Netlaw Media.
Staring wide eyed in amazement 15 STEM focused year 9 girls all aged 13/14 from LSU walked into the firm DAC Beachcroft , where they were invited for a career day via #DELTAS by David Aird and Diane Bryant to meet and hear of the IT operational workings of the firm.
With Ice breakers, laptops taken apart, a hackathon set, the morning was opened by David and then Diane on how she become the Head of IT operations at the firm from starting her journey as Typist. Brilliantly outlaid they described 5 areas of the IT Team; Operations, Strategy & Architecture, Security and Cyber security, Data and Client Development.
The group were then introduced to Sharfaa Shiraaz a Trainee Solicitor at the firm, who engaged the students on how she joined the firm and her journey from an artist to a solicitor with many enthused in her career to date, the words; ‘There is a table, and you all have a seat at that table’ resonated.
The students were then set a brilliant mini-Hackathon where the winning team each won a ‘Cunsieun 6-in-1 Solar Robot Kit’. The Hackathon was ‘Building a new shopping centre in a local park in the UK’ set by David, two teams for the building and one against with 10 points to present to the room. With the senior IT team, Anissa Tennah, Taavo Adams and I joining in and walking the room listening to the discussion and encouraging ideas, it was wonderful to hear the passion each team displayed to strengthen their individual team position with multiple questions then being fired by the opposite team as the presentations continued.
As one of the DELTAS objectives and aims is to encourage young girls to continue #STEM studies at GCSE where 48% of girls have been seen to drop these and then at A Levels encourage young women to consider taking a career in Tech, a brilliant task was set to take apart and then put together laptops whilst a tour of the building took place. Once the groups realised that it was ok to break something, there was no holding them back and their full attention was engaged with Mark Coey and Kelly Smith on what to do.
What does success look like with these initiatives? For me, it is having individual girls come up to us to say, ‘Thank you for a wonderful day’ and ‘How amazing it was to look around the firm’, ‘How big the bathrooms were and have you seen the hand cream?’. But in all seriousness, to have them say, ‘They never realised how many job roles there were, and thanks to David and his team, they now knew there were over 70 in the department’ and ‘I never realised how much fun IT could be’. We are one step closer to changing the image of Legal IT for a more diverse and inclusive future.
Thank you David, Diane, Mark, Kelly and Sharfaa for your efforts and taking the time to create such a brilliant day for them.
#LegalIT #Law #Diversity #NextGen #STEM