The chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, Trevor Phillips, has accused the legal profession of complacency after a survey of leading firms found that around a third had no partners from an ethnic minority background.

The survey, which was carried out by the Black Solicitors Network (BSN), measured the ethnicity and gender of partners, associates, trainees and paralegals. It found that more than 3% of UK partners were Asian, while less than 0.5% were black, mixed or Chinese.