This is helpful thank you! I just wonder if this does not in any way mean the policy is any less morally (and potentially legally) discriminatory.
First, just because they must have thought through it does not mean they did that well right? Take Freshfields which has paid a huge financial and legal cost for giving what was later deemed illegal advice on taxes in Germany. I am sure they thought through it but it turns out they were wrong. To look at a non-legal example McKinsey is paying a huge financial and PR cost for giving bad advice on opioids in the US. So, just because it is a big firm and it must have thought through it does not mean they came to the right decision.
On the point of whether they found it a useful way of picking candidates, again this is no excuse. Say you run an analysis and find that BAME applicants get along less well with what is still a predominantly white c-suite executive group (Note: this is just a hypothetical example to make the point and a real analysis would probably disprove this given things are, thankfully, changing) and use that as an excuse for hiring fewer BAME candidates, would this be OK even if the impact is better PEP? Actually finding random typos IS a better way because that is some sort of measure of attention for detail but age is not.
Again, I do appreciate where you are coming from but I really think saying ahh they are a big firm and must have thought of it does not mean they might not have got it wrong and it being potentially useful to discriminate does not make it OK.
Morally - Maybe? That’s why a lot of us potentially struggle to understand it. But we only see the outcome not the rationale behind it, so maybe they do have a moral justification for it too?
Legally? The only way that would be tested is if someone raised an employment tribunal against them, but I still suspect this has been throughly considered by lawyers. The last thing any recruitment team wants is a tribunal case - the effort and PR just isn’t worth the risk, so they must be confident there isn’t a case to be had. Yes, that advice could be wrong, but I’d personally put money on backing a law firm and their legal advisors on this than a lot of unqualified people discussing it on a forum (myself included).
The issue with your example is the assumption that they are hiring less people of a certain age demographic. We don’t know whether this is actually the case. Maybe they can justify the policy as it doesn’t negatively impact the proportion of hires they make from a specific age group?
Attention to detail is something that can be taught. Writing and drafting skills are highly influenced by your education, which in turn correlates to your socio economic background. So heavily weighting those things might not be appropriate for a firm if they know that there are systems or training in place to educate people while they are there.
Of course they are not completely immune from making wrong decisions. I am just pretty confident they have put the time and effort in to consider this carefully. In contrast, we are all just sat here hypothesising on something with nowhere near the level of evidence, understanding, data etc that the firm has, all because it doesn’t sit comfortably with us on a very headline level.