Interesting report from Bloomberg that illustrates how law firms are running to keep up with the challenges of the Climate Emergency and how to manage resources in houseto create efficient practice / business units across a plethora of practice areas. Strangely it reminds us of how they have had to handle regulated cannabis in the US but writ much much larger
Here’s a taste of the piece
From a Big Law perspective, the Davos conference attracted at least one familiar face, Baker McKenzie’s chairman Milton Cheng. This make sense, as his firm has the highest rated global climate change practice, according to Chambers and Partners.
Davos highlights an urgent business question for Big Law leaders. As investors, activists, and politicians increasingly pressure businesses to reduce their carbon footprint, how do firms plan to respond to climate change? I don’t mean partners printing out fewer e-mails (though that would certainly be nice). I mean from a business standpoint.
Big Law’s emerging strategy has mostly involved launching “climate change” branded practices, which are as varied as the number of firms who have launched them. Some are made up of environmental lawyers. Some are rebranded energy industry practices.
“Pick a big firm website,” said Lynn Grayson, a lawyer at Nijman Franzetti in Chicago and the former chair of Jenner & Block’s environmental practice. “It’s like: Climate change? Yes, we do it.”
One of the challenges climate change presents for Big Law firms is its interdisciplinary nature. “Climate law” is still very much a work in progress, and there isn’t one specific industry that will be impacted by climate change.
That presents both management and marketing problems. Firms must decide which lawyers play on the climate change team, and how they market those services to clients.
Take Hunton Andrews Kurth, for instance, which has a top-ranked climate change practice in the U.S. by Chambers. The firm’s bedrock experience in the area is largely its environmental practice, which has significant experience with the Clean Air Act. The firm says it has “the largest air practice” in the country with more than 33 “air-focused lawyers.”
Partner Allison Wood represented clients before the U.S. Supreme Court in three cases debating, as early as 2006, whether and how the Clean Air Act allows the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon emissions. (It does, but not so much for car emissions, and it precludes lawsuits to stop carbon emissions.)
But recent developments like the BlackRock letter show how broad the practice area has become, said Shannon Broome, a San Francisco-based Hunton Andrews Kurth partner who has represented oil and gas companies in climate-nuisance cases.
Read full article at https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/like-ceos-at-davos-law-firm-leaders-face-climate-quandaries-too