Biglaw Firms Ranked On How Much Their Work Contributes To ... - Above the Law
Biglaw Firms Ranked On How Much Their Work Contributes To Climate Change (2023) - Above the Law
Biglaw Firms Ranked On How Much Their Work Contributes To Climate Change (2023)
The majority of Biglaw firms did quite poorly in this new ranking.
Students who graduate from our nation’s top law schools are too often faced with a choice between morality and prestige when making decisions about their career paths. When the best law schools facilitate a job search that feeds into the “Biglaw or bust” mentality, success is measured by the number of graduates who have secured positions at firms serving clients that represent the worst of the worst when it comes to our planet’s ongoing climate crisis.
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 climate change? The answer is, as you might imagine, a lot.
Biglaw firms continue to be a “hotbed of fossil fuel activity.” Here’s a breakdown of what that means: per LSCA, Vault 100 firms conducted 502 representations in cases exacerbating climate change, facilitated $3.05 trillion of fossil fuel transactions, and received millions upon millions in compensation for fossil fuel lobbying between 2017 and 2021.
Sponsored
Survey Results: A Perspective On The Private Markets
“There will always be firms that represent Exxon, Shell or Chevron. “Stopping that is not our end goal,” second-year NYU Law student Nathaniel Waldman, a member of the LSCA leadership committee, told the American Lawyer. “What we do want to do is stigmatize that work because it is adding to the global disasters we see every day. We want people to be aware of the work these firms are doing and not let them sweep it under the rug.”
LSCA’s work has not been in vain — this year, in the group’s fourth annual Climate Scorecard, a record number of Biglaw firms received “A” scores. Of course, the majority of other Vault 100 firms received scores of “D” and “F,” but let’s concentrate on the positive news. So, which firms performed the best compared to their peers? Take a look at the firms that did the best in LSCA’s latest scorecard.
(Image via Law Students for Climate Accountability)
Congratulations to Cooley; Foley Hoag; Schulte Roth & Zabel; Sheppard Mullin; and Wilson Sonsini. None of these firms represented a single fossil fuel company, earning them the top spot in LSCA’s ranking.
Sponsored
Sponsored
The Digital Transformation Imperative
Sponsored
Documenting Secured Transactions: A New Guide For Practitioners
Sponsored
LawPay Pro Offers Upgraded Time And Billing Essentials
Sponsored
Documenting Secured Transactions: A New Guide For Practitioners
LSCA’s full report and 2023 Climate Scorecard can be found here.
“We want to work with firms,” Waldman told Am Law. “We want to have firms come to us and talk to us about what they can do better. That is the point of this. To do better. More renewable energy, less fossil fuel work.”
Good luck to Law Students for Climate Accountability as they do their best to make Biglaw do better, to make the future better for all of us.
2023 Climate Scorecard[Law Students for Climate Accountability] ‘We Want to Stigmatize That Work’: Report Focuses on Big Law’s Ties to Fossil Fuel Industry[American Lawyer]
Sponsored
Sponsored
Survey Results: A Perspective On The Private Markets
Sponsored
Clio Users: New Ways To Add Value To Your Practice!
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to Threads or connect with her on
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”