Overview
We know that the support individuals will receive from a prospective employer can be critical to determining a decision to apply for a role – or not. We aim to be clear and want to support you in deciding if DACB is right for you, so you’ll find details of our family policies and offerings below.
One of the key ways we help our colleagues find the right balance between work and family life is Flex Forward, our approach to the when, where and how of work. Glide Your Time gives us maximum flexibility in how we orchestrate our working day, guided by three principles: meeting client demands, collaborating as a team and delivering the outputs of our roles. For colleagues with caring responsibilities, this means no worrying about missing sports day or being there for important family moments. We know from colleague feedback that the ability to glide your time has proven to be really helpful, the flexibility easing what had in the past been a juggle.
Maternity and adoption leave
We offer enhanced maternity / adoption-leave. After a qualifying period our enhanced maternity or adoption pay (inclusive of statutory pay) is 12 weeks at full salary*, 12 weeks at 50% of salary*, 15 weeks at statutory pay, 13 weeks unpaid (*inclusive of statutory pay).
You can choose to take up to 52 weeks of maternity or adoption leave or to give a proportion of your entitlement to your partner/spouse through shared parental leave.
Adoption leave is available to you if you adopt through a legally recognised UK or overseas adoption agency.
Paternity leave
After a qualifying period, we offer two weeks of paternity leave enhanced at full pay. This includes fathers, partners or spouses with parental care responsibilities, secondary adopters and includes same sex partners.
Shared parental leave
We offer an enhanced shared parental leave (ShPL) package. After a qualifying period, our enhanced shared parental leave (ShPL) is full pay up to the first 12 weeks (subject to no other family leave being taken for the same child). You are able to use some of your partner / spouse’s maternity or adoption leave as shared parental leave, provided they curtail their maternity leave for the requisite number of weeks. You are able to take ShPL in one block or up to three separate blocks.
Flexible Working
We’re always happy to talk flexible working, and many of our colleagues work flexibly in different ways. During any recruitment process we’re open to discussing the role and what flexibility means to you.
Our networks
We have a parents network group, amongst other groups, and regularly share details of free webinars and events relevant to parents or carers. We’re proud members of WorkLifeCentral and were named in 2020 as one of the Top 30 Employers for Working Families. We support new parents on their return to work through our internal back-to-work mentoring scheme, an entirely optional and confidential offering for any new parent.
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”My husband and I took Shared Parental Leave with our first child in 2021. We chose to take leave at the same time, so we spent the first 8 weeks of our son’s life together, after which I continued with maternity leave, returning to work when our son was 7 months old. Taking Shared Parental Leave has had so many unexpected benefits. We anticipated that it would make things easier to have both of us around at the beginning, especially as we were first time parents, and in circumstances where we knew upfront that I would have long recovery. However, what we didn’t know was how much it would benefit my husband’s relationship with our son and also our communication with regards to parenting. Working in the same profession and having similar ambitions, it has been important to us to try and create an equal division of labour when it comes to family life. Taking Shared Parental Leave meant that my husband knew and continues to know how to care for our son just as well as I do, but also that our son is happy to seek comfort from either of us, so since being back at work the responsibility to get up in the middle of the night or drop everything when childcare goes wrong, falls equally between us. It worked so well that when our second is due later this year, we will take Shared Parental Leave again, with my husband using 12 weeks this time.”
Harriet Hawkins, Associate
Locations
We offer one of the most comprehensive legal networks in the UK, with 11 offices across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. We have a strong presence globally too, with offices, associations and alliances everywhere from Malaysia to Mexico, Argentina to Australia.
