Goin’ Green
 July 7, 2008

Becoming more environmentally friendly has become a priority for many law firms.  Being “Green” is viewed as a strong recruiting tool for both lawyers and staff but is also a consideration in many client RFP’s.  NALP has been cataloging the Green activities of law firms.  Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft’s New York office has perhaps the highest profile in the legal community for their environmental efforts.  Among their initiatives are:

·         placing blue recycling bins in their conference rooms.

·         stopping the use of water bottles in the conference rooms; when an employee requests water for a meeting, a pitcher of water is provided to reduce the number of plastic water bottles used in the firm.

·         Styrofoam has also been completely phased out from the dining room and pantries with ceramic mugs have been placed throughout the firm for hot beverages and plastic cups for cold beverages. Paper cups are also available in the dining room for take away. In addition, the firm has placed recycling bins for glass and plastic bottles in the dining room and pantries, along with another recycling bin for the brown cardboard take away boxes. Although the firm is researching different plate, bowl, and silverware options, they are encouraging all employees to use real silverware and china if they are dining in.

·         On Earth Day in 2008, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft encouraged employees to place a new tagline under their email signatures to remind people to “please consider the environment before printing this email.”

Among the most common activities are the creation of Green Teams (Cadwalder, Drinker Biddle, Freshfields, Weil Gotshal, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, O’Melveny & Myers and Seyfarth Shaw).  Reed Smith gave gifts of reusable grocery sacks.  A number of firms, including Kattan Muchen and Linklaters gave out “Go Green” mugs.  Benesch Friedlander is installing motion sensor lights in their offices and Davies (Montreal) is planning to mandate double-sided printing throughout the firm.  Weil Gotshal DC has replaced sedan service with hybrid black cars.