Letters roundup: 23 June 2023

Law firms facing green dilemma

Law Students for Climate Accountability has turned the spotlight on a shadowy and uncomfortable dilemma for the legal industry.

 

US-based LSCA published its first UK report in May, with contributions from legal students at universities including Bath and Bristol. Among the findings were that London firms facilitated £1.48 trillion in fossil fuel projects between 2018 and 2022.

 

Firms named by the report’s authors include many which, ostensibly, have been at the vanguard of those making significant operational changes and committing to robust targets with respect to net zero – including some of the first to have their carbon reduction targets validated by the Science Based Targets initiative.

 

Here, then, is the key dilemma for many firms.

 

Most will have limited Scope 1 and 2 emissions in practice, particularly as more people work from home and business travel becomes less frequent. Even Scope 3 emissions are likely to be marginal.

 

Getting to grips with, and being transparent on, these areas is now a ‘table stake’ [minimum entry requirement] for most firms.

 

The proof in the sustainability pudding for many stakeholders will therefore increasingly be Scope 4 or ‘advised emissions’. That is, just what kinds of activities are facilitated by a firm’s services and how far are they compatible with the Paris Agreement mission.

 

Sophisticated buyers of legal services want to know how far a potential partner aligns with their values and mission, and how far they will help or hinder their own net zero journey.  

 

Likewise, and as evidenced by the no-holds-barred work undertaken by LSCA, the next generation of talent seem set to vote with their feet and choose to work with firms who are seen to be taking climate change seriously.

 

The Law Society’s recent guidance on climate change, including ‘advised emissions’, addresses this issue – highlighting the factors that climate-related communications must consider, not least the UK’s Green Claims Code.

 

One thing is clear. Scrutiny of individual firms – and the industry as a whole – is intensifying. Expectations are increasing, and climate is now a critical battleground in the war for talent, and for work. Wherever their businesses are with respect to the net zero transition, firms must be prepared to effectively communicate their position. It will be fundamental to the attractiveness of their brand and the resilience of their reputations.  

 

Tal Donahue

Senior associate director, Infinite Global, London EC4

Nothing patronising about ‘support staff’

I would like to comment on John Hyde’s article ‘"Support Staff” is such a patronising term: firms are lost without them’.

 

I wholeheartly agree that as a fee-earner, I would be lost without support staff. That said, I do not see the need for changes in traditional titles because some may see them as patronising. There is a more important issue at stake than pride, empowerment or progressive thinking – that of language.

 

Just yesterday I found myself speaking on the phone with a gentleman at a large high street optician. He introduced himself as a consultant. Thinking that he was a consultant optician, I started to explain a medical matter. But he interrupted me and said that he was not an optician – he could take my contact details for a callback (if he was a trainee he would have asked a couple of basic questions). Nor did I believe he was self-employed.

 

When did retail staff start using the term consultant? Why can’t a salesman, saleswoman or salesperson be called just that? Someone who conducts the sale of goods/services through associating the customer’s needs with the related product.

 

The use of consultant in this context is imprecise and such imprecision may have serious (for example, tax) consequences.

 

After I left school in the early 1980s without A-levels, I was lucky to get jobs as a dishwasher, runner and salesman. I was happy to be associated with my job titles. They demonstrated that I was separate from management and carried less responsibility.

 

What is wrong with the title of ‘support staff’? The title has pedigree. Support staff roles have helped win wars, founded treaties and made scientific discoveries. Call me old-fashioned, but ‘team member’ sounds even more generic and patronising – a team member of what? The school rugby XV?

 

Peter Strecker

Tooting, London

Keep calm on AI

This month a New York lawyer faced a ‘cringe-inducing’ hearing, when he was asked to explain how he thought ChatGPT could not make mistakes. His firm had used the AI tool for legal research in a client’s case, resulting in them citing no fewer than six legal precedents that simply did not exist.

 

On both sides of the Atlantic, some lawyers are pointing to this as proof that the robots should not be allowed to take over lawyers’ jobs, to support their cause of stemming the tide of AI in law. But many lawyers, both in-house and in private practice, are embracing this and other AI technology highly effectively and without incident.  

 

The critical point is that lawyers retain responsibility for delegating legal work wisely, whether to people or technology: and deciding which strata of legal issues within a client’s business are best handled purely by human lawyers; which by technology-only; and which by technology with ‘lawyers in the loop’ to fact-check and provide quality control on the technology’s output.

 

Ziad Mantoura

Senior vice president and general manager, Enterprise Legal and Consulting Solutions, Epiq, New York