The 2020 Law Firm Climate Change Scorecard [full report]
"The 2020 Law Firm Climate Change Scorecard", October 2020.
...When future generations look back at the origins of the climate crisis, they will see that too many law firms were on the wrong side of history. Law firms constitute an indispensable pillar of support for the fossil fuel industry. When fossil fuel companies want to build new pipelines and refineries, law firms write the contracts and advise the project financing. Law firms lobby public officials to roll back environmental regulations and give tax breaks to polluters...
The 2020 Law Firm Climate Change Scorecard is the first to detail the scale of top law firms’ role in the climate crisis. Using the best data available, the 2020 Law Firm Climate Change Scorecard analyzes litigation, transactional, and lobbying work conducted by the 2020 Vault Law 100 law firms — the 100 most prestigious law firms in the United States — from 2015 to 2019. Each firm receives an overall Climate Score reflecting its contribution to the climate crisis based on the data in these three categories...
As this report elucidates, law firms are not neutral actors. The Vault 100 firms have no shortage of clients to choose from, and too many have chosen the side of the actors destroying humanity’s chance to avert the climate crisis. The firms included in this report often defend their reputations by pointing to their pro bono work and sustainability projects. While these efforts are valuable, firms’ work on behalf of paying clients holds much more significance in the fight against climate change...