You should.
A new report published by Bloomberg says that ice melting has already reached "worst case" levels. This should be required reading for every law firm.
Sooner or later -- and probably much sooner than we have expected -- rising sea levels caused by persistent global warming will affect every economy on the planet. This poses three"green" strategic challenges for law firms.
The first challenge is to ensure that your law firm has already anticipated and has at least the outline of a plan to cope with the effects of rising sea levels on the economies where they are located and on the daily lives of their people. For example, if you live in Miami, how would a 3 centimeter rise of the level of Biscayne Bay required possible changes in the way that you work?
The second challenge is to begin now to anticipate how these same changes might affect the business performance and management challenges faced by your clients. Law firms that have not anticipated these challenges and are not ready to deliver cost-effective, practical legal solutions and services to meet them will lose many of their previously most loyal clients.
Third, law firms and lawyers, as leaders in the communities they serve, should start now to demonstrate environmentally responsible behaviors in their day-to-day operations.
We recommend that law firms should consider adding a "green plank" to their strategic plans and priorities, outlining the firm-specific and market-specific challenges that might emerge over the next ten to twenty years and the first steps that each firm can begin to take now to be prepared for that future.
Norman Clark
