Photos
Press Release
[FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE]
CLIMATE CRISIS EXHIBITION HELD OUTSIDE FOSSIL FUEL ENABLING LAW FIRMS A&O SHEARMAN AND AKIN
Today, Wednesday 13th November 2024, Lawyers are Responsible in collaboration with Fossil Free London brought the reality of climate and ecological catastrophe closer to home for A&O Shearman and Akin. Some 35 people held arresting portraits by acclaimed photographer Gideon Mendel, in Bishops Square where these firms are located. The portraits were part of Mendel’s ‘Drowning World’ collection which explores the global impact of flooding. The flood victims stare at the camera from an environmental catastrophe that has devastated their lives – challenging the onlooker’s collective culpability for their situation.
A&O Shearman and Akin were chosen as the location of the climate crisis exhibition due to their significant role as fossil fuel industry enablers. Both firms have been given the worst rating ‘F’ in the Law Students for Climate Accountability (LS4CA) 2024 scorecard. (This was true individually of Allen & Overy and Shearman Sterling prior to their merger earlier in 2024). In the case of A&O Shearman, Lawyers are Responsible have been canvassing there for over a year and sent letters in 2023 to their senior and managing partner regarding their responsibility to withhold legal services in relation to any new projects to extract fossil fuels, but the firm did not respond. Allen & Overy prior to its merger conducted £89 billion worth of transactional work between 2018 and 2022 according to LS4CA ‘Carbon Circle’ report, published Oct 2023 (page 13). A longstanding client of A&O Shearman is Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, ADNOC, which is currently significantly expanding oil and gas production.
US law firm Akin is well known for its work with the petrochemical industry, boasting on its website: “For more than 75 years, Akin has empowered U.S. domestic and international oil & gas leaders to fuel the world.” Akin’s commitment to the fossil fuel industry is explicit on various pages of the firm’s website: “Akin is an elite global energy law firm with deep roots in the oil & gas industry. We are extremely well positioned to partner with our clients in creating value and sustainable business models in volatile markets and uncertain political climates.” The firm also has a huge team of more than 75 lawyers specialising in political lobbying, including for the fossil fuel industry. Akin is a member of the International Energy Trading Association (IETA). Global green coalition Kick Big Polluters Out identified the IETA as the biggest fossil fuel lobbyist at last year’s COP 28 in the UAE: the IETA brought 116 people including representatives from Big Polluters Shell, TotalEnergies and Norway’s Equinor. Akin also attended COP 28. The IETA’s other members include: Chevron, ExxonMobil, Drax, Eni, Shell, BP, BNP Paribas, to name a few. Groups like the IETA frustrate attempts at effective global climate action in favour of the fossil fuel industry, and make a mockery of the COP process. Akin received $7.92m from fossil fuel lobbying for the period 2019-2023 according to Law Students for Climate Accountability Climate Scorecard 2024 report (page 35).
Melanie Strickland from Lawyers are Responsible said:
“It is unacceptable that these firms are enabling climate and ecological breakdown whilst so many people and other living beings are experiencing the effects of this catastrophe right now. We lawyers work in a public profession. As lawyers, we are granted professional status on behalf of the public. It is privilege, and it entails certain responsibilities to uphold the public interest. Yet these firms, A&O Shearman and Akin, operate on the basis of commercialism rather than professionalism, and are aggressively pursuing their clients’ interest at the expense of the planet, our shared home, and everyone else, and massively lining their own pockets in doing so. We believe that it is possible for lawyers to be part of the solution and we want our fellow professionals in these firms to be part of the solution.”
Joanna Warrington, campaigner at Fossil Free London said:
“Standing outside London’s top legal firms, justice is nowhere to be seen.
“Lawyers here are raking in millions by defending the corporations wrecking our planet.
“They’re not just complicit—they’re profiting from climate disaster while the world’s most vulnerable pay the price.”
Rheian Davies, Legal Director, Good Law Project said:
“The law holds itself to be a profession of the highest ethical standards, founded on hundreds of years of practice. It is about time that we caught up with the reality of a climate that is changed and set ourselves as lawyers ethical environmental standards. Lawyers can potentially play such a positive and powerful role in preventing climate disaster and we are here to remind them of the action that our planet and all of us need them to take.”
Monika Sobiecki from Lawyers are Responsible said:
“The scientific consensus is clear: to avoid ongoing mass loss of life and other catastrophic harm to human health, and to avert the existential threat to our society, the essential first step is to stop any new fossil fuel projects that expand infrastructure, hence productive capacity, and start to reduce existing fossil fuel infrastructure. As lawyers, we all value the Rule of Law in ensuring that we have a fair, stable and prosperous society. In a world devastated by climate chaos, there is a serious risk to the Rule of Law. Yet these firms, by continuing to work with fossil fuel companies, are accelerating us further along the path of climate collapse. That must change.”