Biglaw Perk Watch: How Green Was My Valley Law Firm
The latest post in our series on perks / fringe benefits isn't a "perk" per se. But it is, like true perks, a non-monetary factor that some people may take into account when choosing between law firms.
The topic: eco-friendliness, or how "green" a law firm is. From a tipster:
I think you should do a feature on which law firms are promoting eco-friendly office environments / business practices. With the country's increased environmental awareness, I think it could help both law students and attorneys decide where to work. Here are two examples:1. Arnold & Porter: Details of their "green office" policy appear here.
2. Morgan Lewis & Bockius: They described their "program to promote an eco-friendly workplace" in a recent memo (reprinted after the jump).
We offer commentary on that memo after the jump.
Getting Law Firms to Boot Up to Green [Legal Technology News]
Here's the MLB memo. Our comments appear in brackets.
MORGAN, LEWIS & BOCKIUS -- MEMO ON ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES
(Emailed to the D.C. Office on Monday, August 7.)
Our Program to Promote an Eco-Friendly Workplace
Many have responded enthusiastically to the steps we've taken to "green" the Washington office. Your encouragement has led us to consider new ways to expand our efforts by promoting conservation, recycling and use of eco-friendly products. Here's a current list of our 19 green-office practices - with suggestions of how we all can help.
Conservation
1. We are going to install duplex (double sided) printing kits on many more of our high-volume printers. Over time, we hope to outfit most printers for duplex printing. If you're given the option to print on both sides of a page, please use this feature for draft printing and in other cases where practicable.
[Double-sided printing -- who's going to do that? If you like to highlight or mark up your case print-outs, it's not gonna be pretty on double-sided paper. And we know how anal you all get about your cases.]
2. Our building is outfitted with micro-zones for heating and cooling. This is a great energy-saving feature, as small groups of offices or rooms can be heated or cooled without the need for operating the heating or cooling system of an entire floor. Our building engineers are making additional system modifications to improve energy efficiency even further.
[Okay, this is nice. Many of you who work for government know to stay away from work on the weekends during the winter or summer. Trying to get the heat or A/C turned on outside of normal working hours requires a signed order from the President.]
3. We have reduced the number of hours for operating the building's heating and cooling systems.
[Even though, of course, they haven't reduced your billable hours. But look, as long as those "micro-zones" are working, it should be fine.]
4. We have converted most computer monitors from CRT to LCD models that use much less electricity.
5. We're reconfiguring printers and copiers to "sleep" mode when not in use for extended periods of time.
[This is a pet peeve of ours. Don't you just HATE having to wait for a copier to warm up? We once heard a rumor about a how one Biglaw partner, who sometimes liked to make his own photocopies (of sensitive and short documents), wanted the copier near his office in a constant state of readiness. So his secretary would have to get up every fifteen minutes or so to "wake up" the copier.]
6. We're considering motion sensors to turn off lights when a space is unoccupied, but you can help in the meantime by turning off lights when you leave at the end of the day.
[Oh no, this won't do at all! How can you give partners the misleading impression that you're still around, even if you left the building hours ago, if you can't leave your office lights on?]
7. We intend to follow the growing trend of replacing bottled water served in meetings with pitchers of filtered water for use in conference rooms. Otherwise, we'd end up discarding about 26,000 plastic bottles every year! (PS, the national average says that only 14% of plastic water bottles get recycled.)
[We know all about the bottled water crisis -- we read about it in Sunday Styles! But isn't pitchers of tap water kinda low-rent? And what if someone tried to poison it? Maybe use pitchers of water for internal meetings -- it's okay to poison the paralegals -- but bottled water when clients are around.]
8. When you have breakfast or lunch in the dining center, please use the ceramic dishes and stainless steel utensils in place of plastic containers and utensils. We can eliminate a lot of waste by doing this.
[Because you're not truly colleagues until you've swapped spit with someone.]
And, feel free to use these dishes if you take a meal to your office or desk. Simply stack the dishes in a nearby pantry (near the sink) and the housekeeping staff will get the dishes back to the dining center.
9. Please discontinue use of Tyvek envelopes unless appropriate (such as for documents being sent to clients). Paper envelopes should do the trick in almost every case.
10. Over 90% of interior lights in our building are equipped with energy efficient light bulbs, all of which will get recycled at the end of their useful lives instead of ending up in a landfill.
Recycling
11. All of our printer and copier paper contains at least 30% recycled-paper content and we aim to increase this percentage.
[Of course, any good done by this is erased by how the library photocopies and circulates countless useless publications to all associates. When did I sign up for BNA's Energy Law Reporter?]
12. We now have recycling containers in every pantry making it easy to recycle plastic, glass, and metal (aluminum can) items. (Note: containers must be rinsed clean.)
13. We have paper recycling boxes for every office and in every copy
center. Please discard white paper, cardboard, and newspaper in any of
these bins. (PS, all shredded paper is recycled as well.)
14. Instead of discarding batteries in the trash, please place them
in the battery-recycling container located in the supply room on the 6th floor.
15. We recycle toner cartridges and purchase recycled products.
Use of Eco-friendly Products
16. Our dining center staff, evening cleaning crew, and
conference-center staff no longer use cleaning products containing chlorine, phosphorus, or other toxic ingredients, and all of our cleaning products are certified as eco-friendly.
[Just because they're illegal aliens undocumented Americans doesn't mean they're not entitled to clean with eco-friendly products!]
17. Long ago, we eliminated the use of Styrofoam products and now
use paper cups, wooden stir sticks, along with paper towels and napkins made from recycled paper.
18. If you choose to use plastic containers from the dining center,
please discard these products in recycling bins rather than with regular trash. We may, over time, consider replacement products that are biodegradable. Until then, please be considerate about minimizing use of plastic disposable wares.
19. We're working with our vendors and service providers to maximize
use of eco-friendly products. For example, we avoid use of VOCs (volatile organic compounds) in paints, sealants, and cleaning agents as much as practicable.
Thank you for your cooperation and support. I'd also like to thank Ken Rubin for focusing our attention on this important issue and Jim Dixon for taking the lead in developing our initiative. Please feel free to share suggestions about expanding or improving this important program.
(41) Comments
this is the weakest of a long line of weak ass posts
who cares? Have the hippy granola global warming idiots really taken charge? I happily drink from styrofoam and toss my cans in the trash, where they belong.
i think it's great. what about a bike room?
LAT - seriously, how about a post on layoffs and which firms have had them recently (say, last ten years). There was a story - http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1188205348282&rss=newswire - linked in the wsj law blog and the comments suggest that Duane recently laid off some attorneys. Not getting canned is a serious perk.
I know this is a bit off topic, but since Morgan is Lewis is mentioned...Does anyone have any info on MLB's Princeton office? QOL info and salary structure info ( is it exactly like Philly?).
This is a pathetic excuse for a "perk."
DLA Piper has an addendum to each of its emails asking you not to print the email out, for fear of cutting down too many trees. How noble.
I second 3:16's comment.
Fried Frank has a bike room now -- now if only some of the attorneys took showers after riding their bikes into work
Sidley's new building in Chicago is some sort of environmentally-certified building. Not sure what it means, but it's supposed to be a good thing.
Boy do I ever not give two sh!ts about this one.
Lat,
I HATE that too!! It can take up to 4 or 5 minutes for one of the high-speed printers we have to warm up.
Many printer manufacturers make printers that have zero or negligible (sp?) warm-up time. A great example is the HP 4300 Laserjet, which can print from idle mode in less than 10 seconds. I wish there were more of these around my office!
a bike room is only truly green if associates are chained to the bikes and forced to generate electricity.
We all know this is an attempt by LaMonte to impose his fetishistic love of Mother Nature upon us sane folks.
While I agree that most of these are not truly "perks," these changes would definitely improve my state of happiness at work. (A bike room would be a "perk," and a cool one at that.)
Latham LA just started encouraging everyone to take a glass of water with lunch instead of a plastic bottle, which honestly made me feel a little better about coming to the office every day. They still have these atrocious styro to-go lunch containers in the cafeteria though. Switching those out should be the next step.
In Houston we dump our trash in Louisiana. Unfortunately, it all came back after the hurricane. . . . . We are lookign for a new green policy. I put a call into Bush, bu no return call. I called BP and they said if you blowe up a refinery after use noone will know it was ever there.
i don't understand what the negative impact of being environmentally
sound is....i mean some things are technically a sacrifice, but i don't
understand the instinctive "you are a granola eating hippie" reaction.
is it 'cool' to drink from styrofoam cups?3:09, you douche.
Yes, it is. The point that we are trying to make is not that drinking from a styrofoam cup is cooler than recycled plastic one (although it is) we are simply more concerned with more practical matters (thinking on the macro scale). Getting 40 mpg instead of 20 mpg isnt going to stop global warming, so fuck your hybrids. you douche.
But why not do both? What is the harm in drinking out of a recycled cup or using a lower energy lamp or getting 40 MPG? None of it will stop global warming on its own obv, but it does not HURT. So why the rabid resistance? What is inherently wrong with a hybrid or energy efficient windows? Plus, I have no idea what "practical" or "macro" mean in the context of this debate. Explain.
At my firm we of course have the special attachment to our wastebaskets for paper, but the janitors who collect the trash frequently don't give a shit, they just dump it all into the garbage and off they go....
I do not have a "fetishistic" love of Mother Nature. In fact, I'm quite a realist about the environment. People need to simply take small steps in their daily lives to create a better environment for the children. Besides that, have faith in the Lord, go on runs, and listen to some jazz music, and you've got a good life in my book.
Why does everyone on this website love the word "douche" so much? Just curious, since before reading this site I hadn't really heard that word since the 6th grade. If it is a lawyer thing, I would like to be brought up to speed.
Happy to update you. 'Douche' is a term most often used to describe people who deliberately and without purpose or benefit harm their environment by proudly using styrofoam cups when an easy alternative exists in their particular office, and who criticize others' choices to not do so in some sort of weirdly defensive, possibly guilt-ridden posting on websites such as these. Commonly, these 'douches' prefer to drive Hummers to make up for their below average penis sizes, or if they can not afford regular Hummers, they buy H3s. They can regularly be seen at gas stations.
I have always been mildly confounded by the weird, piggish reaction to green policies exemplified by some of the posts above. I guess a lot of people just don't care one way or another (they just want to drink out of a cup, or go from point A to point B) and don't want to be bothered any more than that, so they get all up in arms when asked to change. Selfish idiocy.
But it's also this kind of thing that makes office policies (law firm or otherwise) that reduce energy/paper/water effective, by using that idiotic selfishness, making people work harder to print 1-sided (makig it the default), generate trash (no paper cups to be found), etc. than not.
It's also ultimately a lot cheaper: you use a lot less energy, paper, light bulbs, whatever... that stuff adds up. And when they start taxing carbon, y'all better be ready.
4:45--The problem with hybrids is not the hybrid itself. It is the cloud of smug associated with hybrid ownership. When that cloud of smug collides with George Clooney's speech from the Oscars, it could destroy San Francisco.
4:26 gets it. I don't dump oil down the drain, and I do recycle (although I personally believe that it probably expends more energy to recycle, and thus actually does more harm than good). My point was, you mindless 20somethings can actually have a serious conversation about such an inane topic. It is mind boggling. Having a recycle bin is not a perk.
and carbon footprint is a joke. The earth will be cooling again before they get to tax my "carbon footprint."
I think I'll go have a tangerine, flown in especially for me on a smog producing airplane, then jump in my Suburban and drive the 25 miles to my home, where I will fire up the hot tub and every light in the house, sit back, and drink some wine from a plastic cup.
Nobody's going to tax your carbon footprint. They're going to tax the manufacturers of the products you use, who are going to pass the cost on to you. Enjoy your tangerine.
I too have noticed the excessive use of the word douche and its variations (d-bag, d*bag, db, etc...). I was hesitant to comment on it because I am relatively new to this blog and I didnt know if there was a reason/story as to why so many posters use such a juvenile word. But now that others have also noticed the same things that I have I have to ask...why that word? I honestly laugh every time I see someone use it because it is so middle school.
This is great! It might not be a perk, but it's still important. Good to see some firms taking a lead. Btw If you hadn't called it a "perk" the comments on the board may have been different.
I second the confusion over people who resist simple changes that have obviously postitive environmental changes when done on a grand scale. It just makes intuitive sense that using a re-usable, rather than disposable, cup is better for the environment. Especially when 300 million people do it. That even relatively intelligent people such as those who read this blog resist this change is disheartening, and makes me wonder how long it will take for the human race to live up to its potential. It's really sad.
I'd be happier if my firm recycled the hundreds of pounds of paper I throw away each year.
each recycle bin and motion sensor = smaller bonus.
Fuck the earth. Pay me.
No, fuck you. Pay the earth.
1102
You are both a douche and a doosh-baiig-uh. This blog is exactly like middle school. You'll figure it out.
11:35
each motion sensor is money saved on your Firm's electric bill.
ignorant putz
Great post Lat. I think office policies like these will become the norm. Simple, effective means of cutting costs are a great way to maintain salaries in the wake of increasing client backlash to rising billing rates. I'm going to bring these to the attention of my firm.
I'm going to bring these to the attention of my firm.
And thereafter, the balance of the associate class should kick the shit out of you in the dark recesses of the parking garage.
I know this post is really old, but I thought I'd comment anyway, in hopes of catching recruiters' eyes and encouraging more of this. I think this is awesome. I noticed recycling bins when in some DC offices during callbacks. To me it says great things about a firm and it might honestly make a difference in where I end up. I'm considering offers from both these firms (Morgan Lewis & A&P), and several others in the DC area. I like a few of them equally, so far as I can tell, and the recycling (and the fact that people care enough to at least not protest such policies and some enough to push for them) says good things about those offices to me.
Thanks for this post - I agree that this information is really useful. As a new associate, I wish I had been aware of my firm's unsustainable practices when I was making job choices. Now I collect bottles and cans after meetings and take them home to recycle. I had to special order legal pads made from recycled paper, and I have to use a printer 5 floors away if I want things double sided. It doesn't make economic sense for firms (or anyone) to squander resources. And the angry mobs on this site can attack me all they want but I do good work and get great performance reviews, and every time I feel isolated for caring about the environment I come one step closer to leaving. I doubt I'll stay here a year, which makes the money the firm spent recruiting me and training me a pretty big waste.