“At the end of the day, every single lawyer has to be an ESG lawyer,” says Timothy Wilkins, global partner for client sustainability at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP. “If we don’t train our lawyers, regardless of practice groups, to spot ESG issues,” he continues, “we’re letting down our clients.”

When Wilkins took on his current role at Freshfields in March 2020, it was one of the first of its kind at a major law firm. Things quickly changed. By June 2021 more than 40 percent of major U.S. law firms had practices centered on ESG (environmental, social, and governance), according to Thomson Reuters—a number that has since grown.

Similarly, dedicated positions like Wilkins’s have correspondingly proliferated, with almost all major firms now naming partners in charge of ESG explicitly, or sustainability more broadly. Law firms have also begun to view ESG as part of their wider missions, including through investing in thought leadership and law school opportunities to train and educate the next generation of ESG lawyers. (For more on this, see “Charting new courses in law and business.”) In this story, we explore this emergent area, documenting why ESG has become an essential tool for every lawyer and law firm in today’s competitive atmosphere.

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