Law Students for Climate Accountability is a project of Earth Island Institute that pressures law firms, their employees, students, and law schools to disengage from the hydrocarbon fuel industry. ¹

LSCA stigmatizes law firms via the use of a scorecard that grades them based on the amount of representation and advocacy for hydrocarbon fuel companies. Its law school scorecard is based on the number of graduates employed by LSCA-rated law firms. ²

Founding

Law Students for Climate Accountability (LSCA) is a project of the left-of-center Earth Island Institute. It was founded in 2020 by Yale University law students. Membership consists of law students from multiple law schools located throughout the country. ^{3 4}

The organization pressures law firms to phase out representation of companies in the hydrocarbon fuel industry, law schools to inform and encourage students to pursue environmentalist-aligned careers, current law firm employees to find employment outside firms that represent hydrocarbon energy companies, and for law schools to reject faculty employed by named firms. ⁵

Activities

Stigma

Scott Stern and Camila Bustos co-authored an October 2020 blog that defended the use of stigma as a tool to shame law firms and provided justification of their infiltration of a recruitment dinner sponsored by the Paul Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison law firm. ⁶

Scorecard

LSCA published a 2022 “Law Firm Climate Change Scorecard” which graded the 100 largest United States law firms from A to F based on the amount of work that in their words “worsened climate change.” In the 2022 report, 38 firms received a grade of F while two firms received an A grade. ⁷

Based on the ratings, LSCA organized a campaign against Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher that included a protest in front of their offices against their representation of Keystone XL Pipeline-related clients that was joined by 89 student organizations from 40 schools. In a separate action it disrupted a recruiting event for Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in protest of their representation of Chevron. ^{8 9}

Climate Pledge

Law Students for Climate Accountability offers a Climate Pledge for firms that asks them to take the position that hydrocarbon fuel work is incompatible with their ethical standards, to publish the number of cases in which they represent hydrocarbon fuel-related companies, to publish total hours spent and revenue from transactions with the industry, and to declare the hours billed and revenue obtained from lobbying for hydrocarbon fuel organizations. As of July 2023, 16 firms had signed the pledge. ¹⁰

Lawyers and Students Pledge

The organization offers a pledge for lawyers and students that advocates stigmatization and elimination of legal firm complicity in the perpetuation of claimed anthropogenic climate change. It also calls for a pledge to refuse employment by law firms that represent hydrocarbon fuel companies. ¹¹

Law Schools

LSCA issued a report that identified the top 20 law schools that are alma maters for hydrocarbon fuel lawyers. The report calls for law schools to take accountability for their role in climate equal outcomes. It recommends that law schools instead encourage careers in equal social outcomes by subsidizing public-service careers, provide greater clinical experiences in social equal outcomes, and preventing hydrocarbon fuel lawyers from teaching law school courses on the environment. ¹²

Carbon Circle

In May 2023, LSCA released the Carbon Circle report on law firm representation of hydrocarbon fuel companies in the United Kingdom. The report called out 55 firms that it claims facilitated 1.48 trillion pounds in hydrocarbon fuel projects. The report called on law students and lawyers to refuse work for hydrocarbon fuel companies and the firms that represent them. ¹³

Racial Equal Outcomes

LSCA claims that the impacts of a changing climate will fall disproportionately upon Black, indigenous, brown, and low-income communities and that law firms that claim to seek equal racial-outcomes goals must back disengagement from the hydrocarbon fuel industry. ¹⁴

Associated Organizations

Law Students for Climate Accountability is a project of left-of-center Earth Island Institute along with 74 other environmental projects including Plastic Pollution Coalition. ¹⁵

LSCA has shared multiple Twitter posts from Climate Defiance a left-wing group that blockaded the White House Correspondents’ dinner in May 2023. ¹⁶

The left-wing Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), founded by the Institute for Governance and Sustainability Development which is partially funded with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Commerce grants, joined LSCA in a call for submissions from law students that describes a new or emerging legal theory related to climate change and corporate accountability. Submissions were due by April 21, 2023. ^{17 18 19}

People

LSCA was founded by a group of Yale Law School students in 2020. Co-founders include Tim Hirschel-Burns, Camila Bustos, and Alisa White. ^{20 21 22}

The National Director of LSCA is Haley Czarnek. Czarnek is an organizing fellow of United Campus Workers Alabama. ^{23 24}

1. “Earth Island Projects.” Projects :: Earth Island Institute. Accessed June 26, 2023. https://www.earthisland.org/index.php/project
2.  “Take Action.” Law Students for Climate Accountability. Accessed June 26, 2023. https://www.ls4ca.org/take-action.
3. “Earth Island Projects.” Projects :: Earth Island Institute. Accessed June 26, 2023. https://www.earthisland.org/index.php/project.
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6. Boyd, William, and Duncan Kennedy. “Climate Accountability and the Moral Logic of Stigma.” LPE Project, February 18, 2021. https://lpeproject.org/blog/climate-accountability-and-the-moral-logic-of-stigma/.
7. Strauss, Marty, By, and Marty Strauss. “As Summer Heat Drags on, Law Students for Climate Accountability Publishes Report Exposing Corporate Law Firms’ Continued Complicity in the Climate Crisis.” The Harvard Law Record, July 28, 2022. https://hlrecord.org/as-summer-heat-drags-on-law-students-for-climate-accountability-publishes-report-exposing-corporate-law-firms-continued-complicity-in-the-climate-crisis/.
8. Immediate release Jessica Rahmoune; top La w firms rake … – squarespace. Accessed June 26, 2023. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5f53fa556b708446acb4dcb5/t/62e22e957cd241325143514b/1658990230370/2022+scorecard+press+release.pdf.
9. Olson, Elizabeth. “Law Students Fault Gibson Dunn for Dakota Pipeline, Chevron Work.” Bloomberg Law, April 7, 2021. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/law-students-fault-gibson-dunn-for-dakota-pipeline-chevron-work.
10. “Law Firms.” Law Students for Climate Accountability. Accessed June 26, 2023. https://www.ls4ca.org/law-firms.
11. “Take Action.” Law Students for Climate Accountability. Accessed June 26, 2023. https://www.ls4ca.org/take-action.
12. Patrick Slater | Vermont Law School, US. “Elite US Law Schools Must Take Accountability for Enabling Use of Fossil Fuels: Law Student Group.” Jurist, March 10, 2023. https://www.jurist.org/news/2023/03/elite-law-schools-must-take-accountability-for-enabling-use-of-fossil-fuels-law-student-group/.
13. Kassebaum, Jo Ann. “The Carbon Circle: The UK Legal Industry’s Ties to Fossil Fuel Companies.” Law Students for Climate Accountability, June 18, 2023. https://www.ls4ca.org/blog-show-all/the-carbon-circle.
14. Immediate release Jessica Rahmoune; top La w firms rake … – squarespace. Accessed June 26, 2023. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5f53fa556b708446acb4dcb5/t/62e22e957cd241325143514b/1658990230370/2022+scorecard+press+release.pdf.
15. “Earth Island Projects.” Projects :: Earth Island Institute. Accessed June 26, 2023. https://www.earthisland.org/index.php/project.
16. Defiance, Climate. “Breaking: We Are Blockading the 6-Lane Road Where the President’s Motorcade Is Set Travel. We Are Shutting down the Street Because the League of Conservation Voters Is Trying to Honor Biden for His ‘Climate Ambition.’ Pic.Twitter.Com/NRGSTROKKR.” Twitter, June 14, 2023. https://twitter.com/ClimateDefiance/status/1669130283684188162.
17. The Student Prize for emerging theories of climate … – climate integrity. Accessed June 26, 2023. https://climateintegrity.org/uploads/media/StudentPrize-EmergingTheories-2023.pdf.
18. “The Public Relations Apparatus Supporting the Climate Litigation Campaign.” MFG Accountability Project, August 26, 2019. https://mfgaccountabilityproject.org/2019/08/26/the-public-relations-apparatus-supporting-the-climate-litigation-campaign/.
19. Stilson, Robert. “Green New Deal Supporters Use Taxpayer Dollars.” Capital ResearchCenter, June 21, 2019. https://capitalresearch.org/article/green-new-deal-supporters-use-taxpayer-dollars/.
20. “Our Team.” Law Students for Climate Accountability. Accessed June 26, 2023. https://www.ls4ca.org/our-team.
21. “Q&A: Alisa White ’22 on How Elite Law Firms Exacerbate Climate Change.” Yale Law School, June 23, 2023. https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/qa-alisa-white-22-how-elite-law-firms-exacerbate-climate-change.
22. Julia Brown. 10:41 pm, Sep 06. “YLS Group Releases Second Climate Scorecard, Gives 36 of the 100 Rated Firms ‘F’ Score.” Yale Daily News, September 8, 2021. https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2021/09/06/yls-group-releases-second-climate-scorecard-gives-36-of-the-100-rated-firms-f-score/.
23. “Our Team.” Law Students for Climate Accountability. Accessed June 26, 2023. https://www.ls4ca.org/our-team.
24. Haley Czarnek – National director – Law Students for Accountability. Accessed June 26, https://www.linkedin.com/in/hczarnek/