New Law Society guidance
The Law Society has issued new diversity and inclusion guidance urging law firms to ditch “Dear Sirs”, a standard legal greeting dating back to a time when the profession was predominantly male.
The guidance stresses that the phrase no longer reflects the reality of the legal profession, explaining that the Society wants to “account for and represent the broad scope of recipients, including women and individuals with other gender identities, including non-binary”.
“This gendered greeting perpetuates the assumption that the recipients of correspondence are by default men,” the Society says.
“Dear Sirs” has traditionally been used when the recipient’s name is unknown. The Law Society has now published a list of alternative greetings that avoid gendered language.
When unsure of the recipient’s name, organisations are encouraged to use neutral phrases such as “Dear team”, “good morning/afternoon”, or “Dear all”. Other alternatives include addressing the recipient using their role (“Dear managing partner”) or the more formal “To whom it may concern”.
These alternatives, the Law Society says, “maintain professionalism while ensuring your communication is respective of all gender identities”.
Although the guidance was only released this month, Legal Cheek previously reported that several firms — including Freshfields, Clifford Chance, Withers and Quinn Emanuel — had already gone public with their decisions to remove gendered language from their communications.
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