Paul Weiss' ESG & Law Institute - What's In It for Law Schools ...

 " ... he [David Curran] says the biggest challenge is the lack of law school education surrounding ESG.

'We had to put this whole curriculum together at our firm that didn't exist, and the same is true
everywhere else,' Curran said. 'There is no course at a law school about this, but we're hoping that in the next 18 months that changes.'" - Anna Sanders, Law360, April 13, 2022.

It had been two years and one month ago since David Currant had become The Chief Sustainability and ESG Officer at law firm Paul Weiss. That was for its newly launched Sustainability – ESG practice. The innovation had been the first-ever in the US legal sector. Its mission has been to guide corporate leaders through the landmines of ESG (Environmental Social Governance) values. Here is how Paul Weiss puts it:

“We advise on matters such as stakeholder engagement, corporate governance, crisis management, corporate social responsibility, sustainability, diversity and inclusion, ethics and compliance.”

Of course, Paul Weiss anticipated turmoil. However, in the two years and more, ESG has mutated into a Towel of Babel for business, with competing special interests putting in play conflicting narratives.

Yet, during that time law schools have not been able to create value in addressing the multi-dimensional factors associated with ESG. That lack has implications for ESG Investing. Bloomberg estimates the value of ESG assets could total $53 trillion by 2025.

In response, Paul Weiss has established its ESG & Law Institute. Its purpose is to facilitate teaching, solutions-based research, and a dialogue among lawyers, business, and academic institutions about ESG issues. The higher-education focus includes law schools.

So far Paul Weiss has created partnerships with the schools of law at Howard University and the University of California at Berkeley. One aspect is funding student research on the intersection of law, business, and ESG.

It’s in the self-interest of law schools to accelerate the learning curve on ESG matters. Law firms not only have to manage ESG matters for clients. They themselves, as the Mayer Brown upheaval in China showcased, are being caught up in the disruption. In a Bloomberg Law interview, Paul Weiss Chairman Brad Karp had predicted the collapse of boundaries between law firm and client ESG matters.

Editor-in-Chief Jane Genova has special ESG expertise. Now and then she does freelance assignments for law firms such as Paul Weiss.

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