Harvard Regulation Faculty college students protest Exxon Mobil over defending fossil gas pursuits

A gaggle of Harvard Regulation Faculty college students on Wednesday shouted down audio system and stalled a campus recruitment dinner hosted by a significant legislation agency that represents fossil gas pursuits in local weather change lawsuits.

Holding a banner studying “Drop Exxon,” greater than two dozen college students in blazers and ties chanted, “We received’t give you the results you want should you work for them,” at recruiters from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, a legislation agency that employs greater than 1,000 attorneys all over the world.

“We’ve got only a few years left to handle the local weather disaster. Meaning stopping company polluters from persevering with to dam local weather motion and evading accountability for his or her malfeasance,” mentioned first-year legislation pupil Aaron Regunberg, amplified with a human microphone. “And what’s the most crucial device these companies use to get away with local weather homicide? It’s this proper right here.”

Regulation college recruitment dinners like these are often high-end, low-key, genteel affairs, in response to college students. The venue for the Paul Weiss dinner was the Catalyst Restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts, replete with an open bar, complete lobsters, and an ice sculpture, and greater than 100 college students have been in attendance.

So a raucous protest like this served as a jarring new tactic to stress greenhouse gasoline emitters: focusing on the white-collar staff that shield them.

Paul Weiss has a fame for siding with progressive causes. The agency helped reverse “separate however equal” within the Brown v. Board of Training Supreme Courtroom case and paved the way in which for same-sex marriage by representing Edith Windsor in her problem of the Protection of Marriage Act. Within the 2018 election cycle, greater than 93 percent of Paul Weiss donations went to Democrats.

However the agency additionally represents Exxon, the world’s largest investor-owned oil firm, in various climate lawsuits filed by metropolis and native governments. Lots of the fits allege that Exxon has created a public nuisance with its merchandise by exacerbating issues like sea degree rise that threaten coastal cities.

The message mirrors that of the current world wave of youth-led climate activism, with college students all over the world happening strike from college to protest inaction on local weather change. It additionally echoes the climate divestment movement at Harvard that’s pushing the varsity to withdraw its almost $40 billion endowment from fossil gas holdings.

There are almost 2,000 college students at Harvard Regulation, so the protesters on Wednesday represented a tiny slice of the scholar physique. However given the status of one of many top-ranked legislation colleges within the nation, the demonstrators are hoping to encourage different legislation college students to issue local weather develop into their profession choices. Such a motion might power legislation companies to rethink who they symbolize and make fossil gas firms extra prepared to yield to authorized stress.

Native governments are suing fossil gas firms. Regulation college students wish to stress the companies defending them.

Campaigners mentioned the authorized sector is an simply neglected factor of the combat towards local weather change, which is why they wish to draw consideration to the establishments that shield a number of the worst actors.

Particularly, local weather lawsuits have emerged as an more and more standard approach to attempt to maintain fossil gas firms to account for the impacts of their greenhouse gasoline emissions, though lots of the fits are nonetheless underway and a few have already been dismissed. One motive some instances have dragged on for thus lengthy is that the defendants have retained highly effective authorized illustration, together with companies like Paul Weiss.

With the protest Wednesday night time at one of many nation’s most prestigious legislation colleges, some legislation college students are hoping to chip away at that authorized armor from the opposite aspect. Past pressuring Paul Weiss to drop Exxon as a consumer, protesters need their classmates to rethink working for such a agency after they shield fossil gas firms, thereby throttling their pipeline of elite expertise.

Local weather activists are additionally attempting to vary the tradition of legislation college that routes graduates to company legislation companies

Activists mentioned there’s a robust present drawing legislation college graduates towards elite legislation companies moderately than public curiosity teams. Courses are sometimes taught as summary authorized workouts moderately than weighing real-world impacts. The college’s profession companies workplace is concentrated on putting graduates in company legislation companies. And legislation college debt, which might simply run into six figures, pushes college students to search for high-paying jobs.

“I might describe the entire establishment as a manufacturing unit for the following technology of company legal professionals,” mentioned Kurt Walters, a third-year legislation pupil at Harvard.

The result’s that almost all college students abandon the idealism of their admissions essays after they sort up their résumés as commencement approaches. The “public interest drift” amongst legislation college students has been a long-running concern amongst some authorized educators.

With the local weather protest, activists try to construct a counternarrative that there are values past what’s taught at school that should be thought-about, each by college students and by the companies that rent them. They usually say student-led stress campaigns have labored earlier than. Kirkland Ellis, the most important legislation agency on this planet, deserted forced arbitration clauses in its employment contracts with staff final 12 months after a marketing campaign by legislation college students.

Main legislation companies additionally make worth judgments concerning the purchasers they symbolize, typically declining to work with non-public jail firms, anti-LGBTQ rights campaigners, and tobacco firms. Some have turned down purchasers just because they might convey bad publicity.

Exxon itself has proven that it considers litigation a critical risk. In 2018, Exxon went so far as to again a marketing campaign for a carbon tax, with the availability that it might be granted immunity from lawsuits.

College students at Yale Regulation Faculty and Boston College Faculty of Regulation additionally voiced solidarity for the protest at Harvard.

“I used to be proud to hitch in solidarity with the Harvard Regulation neighborhood at tonight’s historic motion and stay up for spreading this crucial motion to Boston College and different legislation colleges to finish the authorized trade’s protection of our local weather’s destruction,” Karen Anderson, a co-chair of the Yale Environmental Regulation Affiliation, mentioned in a press release.

So the marketing campaign to erode the authorized bulwark round fossil fuels might solely proceed gathering power.