Biglaw

How Much Does Your Biglaw Firm Contributes To Climate Change?

Biglaw firms tend to gravitate to the wrong kind of green.

By  
on

Everyone is entitled to an attorney and lawyers are free to take on unpopular positions in pursuit of zealous advocacy. Now that we’ve got the platitudes out of the way, in reality, major law firms don’t pick up multiple millions from hard luck clients walking in off the street, they actively seek out the sort of legal work they take on. Indeed, firms build expertise in specific practice areas that they want to be in.

A new report from Law Students for Climate Accountability set out to answer a simple question: how much do the Vault 100 firms contribute to anthropogenic climate change? The answer is, as you might imagine, a lot.

  • Worked on ten times as many cases exacerbating climate change as addressing climate change: 286 cases compared to 27 cases.
  • Were legal advisers on five times more transactional work for the fossil fuel industry than the renewable energy industry: $1.3 trillion of transactions compared to $271 billion of transactions.
  • Lobbied five times more for fossil fuel companies than renewable energy companies: for $36.5 million in compensation compared to $6.8 million in compensation.

It’s not surprising that the deep pockets in the energy sector would reflect its dirtiest technologies. Decades on top leaves these technologies with more financial wherewithal that alternatives and unfortunately Biglaw operates as the shadow of the the most powerful global business entities. It might be nice to see more firms cross into the other lane:

“The fossil fuel industry does everything it can to avoid responsibility for the massive damage it’s done to our planet. One of the strongest weapons in that fight is litigation carried out by some of the most established law firms in the legal world,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. “It’s past time these firms reconsidered how they represent one of the most destructive industries in history, and there’s no reason law students should not consider this representation in deciding how to direct their careers. I applaud this important effort.”

Convincing some high-powered firms to lend their services to technologies of the future would offer a tangible benefit to the planet and having the pool of law students educated on what individual firms choose to do to make money can hit firms in the only place they care about almost as much as the bottom line: recruitment.

The website allows you to search individual firms for their climate report card, which looks like this:

Sponsored

It’s worth digging into all the data that they’ve compiled. The full report is available here, but we’ve got the appendix with every Vault 100 report card here.

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

Sponsored

1 2Next »

Topics

, , ,