Upholding our values of diversity, equity and inclusion

Gender equality and the equitable treatment of all our people are essential tenets of our culture at Torys. These values lie at the bedrock of who we are, and they are key to maintaining and growing a culture of inclusivity, respect, and collegiality across all our practices and business services. As a firm, we support our diversity, equity and inclusion goals in multiple tangible ways, including through compensation.

Our people are our most valuable asset, and we are keenly focused on attracting, nurturing and retaining top talent. We make a long-term investment in our people and this is reflected in our compensation model. We recognize that valuable contributions come in different forms. Our partner compensation is an open system, which means it is transparent among all of our partners. Compensation at every level is set by a broad and representative group of people to ensure we are considering different perspectives. We assess effort, experience, performance and success in all dimensions, including leadership, client relationship management, business development, mentoring, training and coaching others and, of course, legal work. We actively monitor compensation levels through the lens of diversity, equity and inclusion as part of the process.

Diversity, equity and inclusion, and in particular the underrepresentation of women and other groups at our firm and in the profession more broadly, remain areas of ongoing focus for us. We are proud of our values and our firm, and are deeply committed to diversity, equity and inclusion. But that is not enough. We also believe we should always look critically at ourselves and consider proactively ways that we can improve. To that end, we are taking further steps to examine the allocation of leadership, client and file opportunities within the firm, the recruitment and retention of women and other underrepresented groups, and related aspects of our compensation system, and we will seek the advice of external experts on best practices in this regard.

We recognize the important role we can play to ensure that the legal profession as a whole better reflects our society. As we strive to achieve equity in our profession, we would support a professional review of the gender gap in the legal profession.