Law firm Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison has long held itself up as a trailblazer on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. It launched one of the legal industry’s early standalone ESG advisory practices in 2020 to guide clients on things like climate disclosures and labor practices. A year later, it created the ESG and Law Institute, a “thought leadership forum” that partnered with universities and convened conferences to further the industry’s grasp of these topics.
All of this has recently vanished. Just weeks after the law firm’s deal to stave off an attack from the Trump administration, the ESG and Law Institute’s website is no longer functioning. Paul Weiss has also quietly removed its ESG advisory practice from its website, along with a slew of reports and webinars touching on this subject.
These changes occurred sometime last month, according to archived versions of its website, though it’s not clear if they happened before or after a March 14 executive order from President Donald Trump. That order accused Paul Weiss of engaging in “harmful activity,” such as its pro bono lawsuit against individuals involved with the Jan. 6 riot, and it sought to block federal contractors from doing business with the law firm. Although some other law firms have fought similar orders, Paul Weiss settled with the Trump administration, agreeing to perform $40 million in pro bono work for causes favored by Trump, among other concessions.
Several Paul Weiss officials, including David Curran, who ran the ESG and Law Institute, didn’t respond to numerous requests for comment.
While ESG wasn’t mentioned in either the executive order or the settlement, legal experts see the abrupt shift as part of an effort by the firm to avoid attacks by Trump and Republicans, who have long expressed disdain for including environmental and social considerations in business and investment decisions.
“I was very surprised that Paul Weiss retreated from ESG so swiftly,” said Amelia Miazad, a law professor at the University of California at Davis, who was on the advisory board for the ESG and Law Institute. She said that the firm hasn’t communicated with her about why it shuttered the institute’s website.
As Trump continues to attack law firms, it raises a question: Will other legal shops also begin backpedaling on ESG? After all, at least three dozenfirms recently deleted or altered their commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) — a top target of the Trump administration — according to a spreadsheet maintained by a grassroots group of law students.
But a Bloomberg Green review of the websites of more than 40 Big Law firms indicates that Paul Weiss is in the minority when it comes to ESG. Most have made little or no public-facing change to their practices. That includes Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, which also recently settled with the Trump administration, yet maintains a robust description of its ESG capabilities, including advising clients on issues from climate change initiatives to equal pay audits to DEI in management and boards. A Skadden spokesperson didn’t respond to requests for comment.
A key reason may be that corporations are hungry for this expertise as they grapple with a sharp increase in new rules. According to ESG Book, a sustainability data firm, the number of new ESG regulations around the world increased 155% over the past decade. This touches on everything from greenhouse-gas disclosures to supply-chain transparency rules.
“Clients want law firms who can think about this holistically,” said Adrian Walker, a London-based partner at Hogan Lovells, who leads the law firm’s ESG practice. “It’s a brisk and growing business.”
But attacks on ESG have ramped up just as it has become more commonplace. In 2022, a survey by Wolters Kluwer NV found that 50% of law firms in the US and Europe had created an ESG practice in the previous three years. That same year, however, five Republican senators sent letters to over 50 law firms, stating that “the ESG movement attempts to weaponize corporations to reshape society,” and instructed the firms to “preserve relevant documents” in anticipation of federal investigations.
In response, attorneys at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz penned an essay lamenting that the framework had become so badly misconstrued. “ESG, properly understood, is inherently apolitical,” they argued. “It merely refers to various types of policies, practices, and risks that are material to long-term sustainability and value-creation, and that must be considered and balanced (along with and against all other factors and policies, practices, and risks that are material) by companies and boards.”
Paul Weiss had been grappling with this growing controversy in the months before its retreat. On a podcast last October, Curran, who ran the ESG and Law Institute, acknowledged the acronym had become a political “lightning rod” but strongly defended the need for these legal practices. “The landscape is littered with companies that have gotten into trouble for documents that were not reviewed by lawyers, for programs and policies not reviewed by lawyers, for governance programs not reviewed or even involving lawyers,” he said.
Even with most law firms maintaining their ESG practices for now, Paul Weiss isn’t the only firm to pull back. Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman recently took down its ESG page, which once promised to give clients “the insights needed to seize the enormous opportunity ESG presents, while also helping navigate the associated business, legal and regulatory challenges.” The firm didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Walker, the attorney at Hogan Lovells, doesn’t expect to see a widespread retreat by the legal profession, which, he said, is simply responding to customer needs. “Law firms are here to service that demand,” he said. “Otherwise, you’d be opting out of the law.”
Photo: President Donald Trump arrives for an executive order signing ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on April 8. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg
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