South-east firm Matthew Arnold & Baldwin has taken the top spot in this year’s Black Solicitors Network Diversity League Table, published this evening. 

The firm, which has offices in London and Watford, came top of the overall diversity league table – a combination of a firm's position in the 'policy and practice' and 'demographic' tables.

It achieved a steady rise from 10th place in 2011 mainly because of improvements in its demographic league table rankings, while also retaining a consistently high policy and practice score.

A total of 41 firms took part in this year’s analysis, with firm average of 480 fee-earners.

The smaller (relatively speaking) firms dominated the demographic diversity rankings.

International firm Fasken Martineau, with just over 70 fee-earners and a head office in the City of London, came top of the demographic diversity table thanks to a top-five finish in every table apart from the ranking of gender diversity at partner level. All of its trainees are from an ethnic minority background, split almost equally between Asian and black trainees.

The firm also took top spot at associate level, with 37.5% of its associates from an ethnic minority background.

For a record-breaking fifth year, O’Melveny & Myers, which has 50 fee-earners, took the top spot for number of ethnic minority partners (25%), which helped it secure second place in the overall diversity league table rankings.

Matrix Chambers secured the top spot in the overall diversity league table for chambers.

Despite 180 leading chambers being approached for the survey, only 16 chambers responded, compared with 29 last year.