Only this morning at 7am whilst listening to the dulcet tones of drilling over the road for somebody who has decided the most important thing in 2019 is to have a car parking space hewn out of sandstone did i think about highlighting both those law firms who are actively pursuing a meaningful future and then also those law firms still aggresively defending carbon and other related polluters.
So it’s great to see this piece in Australian Lawyers Weekly wher they name the good the bad and the indifferent. It’s time to put pressure on the bad and indifferent
ALW write by way of introduction…
Sydney-based boutique Marque Lawyers is also particularly vocal about the environment: managing partner Michael Bradley regularly tweets on the subject, including yesterday’s scathing indictment against our elected representatives: “It is beyond idiotic that our fire services are forced to beg the public for the adequacy of funding that they are being denied by the government, because the government is ideologically opposed to admitting there’s a problem at all,” Mr Bradley tweeted.
Mr Bradley has previously spoken about the importance of law firms being politically active: “law firms, and lawyers generally, have really substantial power to influence debate and help make change happen. We create and maintain the law, so it’s our thing,” he told us last year.
In light of all this, we decided to check in on almost three dozen firms in the “big end of town” to see who believes that action is required and who is taking such action.
What we asked law firms
Lawyers Weekly reached out to 35 large firms in Australia with four questions:
- What is your firm’s response to the findings from the Ethics Index that 90 per cent of Australians see an urgent ethical obligation for businesses such as law firms to act on climate change?
2. Does your firm accept the settled science of climate change on the natural environment, as well as the man-made contributing factors?
3. How does your firm advocate for or assist in the protection of the natural environment, if at all?
4. Assuming your firm is environmentally active, why is it important, in your firm’s opinion, for legal institutions to step up and take such action?
At the time of filling this story, the following firms had not responded to our questions: Colin Biggers & Paisley, DWF, Gadens, HBA Legal, HWL Ebsworth, King & Wood Mallesons, McCullough Robertson and Norton Rose Fulbright.
Allens and K&L Gates opted not to respond to our questions, but instead directed us to web links espousing their respective efforts with clients and in-house initiatives on sustainability.
Johnson Winter & Slattery, Maddocks, MinterEllison and Piper Alderman all declined to participate in any capacity.
Other firms, however, did provide answers to our questions.
What is your firm’s response to the findings from the Ethics Index that 90 per cent of Australians see an urgent ethical obligation for businesses such as law firms to act on climate change?
Just eight of the 35 firms approached responded to this query.
Read the full article and see how law firms answer questions posed to them by Australian Lawyers Weekly