One of the UK’s leading law firms has taken a lead to drop the use of the traditional “Dear Sirs” from its legal documentation in favour of a more gender neutral term “Dear Sir or Madam”.
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer said it has stopped using the phrase from this weekend. In the UK, the firm will now address all communications to “Dear Sir or Madam”, while in the US all correspondence will start with “Dear ladies and Gentlemen”.
Equivalents in Cantonese, Mandarin and European languages have also been agreed across Freshfields’ global network.