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We interview sustainability leaders across industries to learn what they are working on and how they are steering their companies toward a climate-friendly world.
Alex - 00:00:00:
Hi, Pam, welcome to Open Source Sustainability Podcast. We are so excited to have you. Thank you for taking the time to chat today.
Pamela - 00:00:09:
It's very much my pleasure, Alex. Thank you for inviting me.
Alex - 00:00:13:
Well, to start off with, you're running and started the Law Firm Sustainability Network. So let's start there. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and tell us about the Law Firm Sustainability Network and what y'all do?
Pamela - 00:00:25:
Yes, and just to clarify, I didn't actually start Law Firm Sustainability Network. That credit goes to Gayathri Joshi, who served as the executive director for decades. But I am serving on the board for Law Firm Sustainability Network, and I have for quite a while. First of all, in my role at Milliman, which isn't a law firm, but is a global actuarial consulting firm. And we were just embarking on our sustainability journey. So I reached out to LFSN as a way to learn more and then got invited to serve on the board. And I've been serving on the board since. In my role at Milliman, I switched from Chief Marketing Officer to Social Impact and Sustainability Officer in large part because clients were starting to ask us very pointed questions about what we were doing around all elements of ESG and sustainability. And so I moved into that role and served in that role for about five or six years. At the same time, I was building a practice called Amity Advisory that would focus on law firms because I knew this same sort of client pressure or supply chain requirements, however you want to look at it, was going to be hitting law firms as well. So now I'm full-time Amity Advisory helping law firms and other service firms be responsive and proactive when it comes to ESG.
Alex - 00:01:50:
So why would a, because you don't think about, when you think about sustainability, we think about Patagonia, Nike, Allbirds, a lot of times we think about physical products, but I don't think it's common for the general public, I think, to think about a professional service, like a law firm, for example. So can you talk to us a little bit about why are professional services companies and legal services companies needing to think about Sustainability and ESG? Why is that something that's even on their radar today?
Pamela - 00:02:23:
It's funny you should say that the general public doesn't think about law firms or the professions as needing to focus on ESG because many lawyers don't realize that they need to focus on ESG. But here's why. If any of the law firm clients are committed to net zero, a big part of getting there is making sure their vendors and suppliers are on that journey as well. Right. You can't get to net zero without managing your Scope 3, which is vendors and suppliers. And so even if law firms footprint is miniscule compared to manufacturers or retailers or travel companies, the way it works is greenhouse gas emissions is a percentage reduction. So it doesn't matter where you're starting from, the greenhouse gas emissions protocol expects all entities to reduce by a certain percentage. So when a client company and many, many companies have made net zero commitments, when a client company makes that commitment, part of that journey is including their vendors and suppliers. And if they go by spend, law firms are a big part of a company's spend.
Alex - 00:03:38:
I see.
Pamela - 00:03:39:
So law firms are included in that. And what's interesting is when clients send requests to their law firms for greenhouse gas emissions data, many law firms don't even know what GHG stands for, let alone have they been tracking data by office, by location, et cetera. So it's a big task for law firms to start doing this. But yes, everybody has to do their fair share. So even law firms and accounting firms and other service providers have to be responsive to client and stakeholder requests.
Alex - 00:04:10:
So when a company makes a net zero claim and they say we're going net zero, they're now reaching out to their suppliers and in this case their law firms and professional services firms saying, I need you to report into me. Do they need them to, is it an optional thing? Is it a, we're doing this or we're sending you to RFP? Like how is this kind of perceived in the stack of priorities and urgency that you're seeing?
Pamela - 00:04:39:
I think every company is different. And I would guess that for many companies, what their outside law firms do is probably of much less focus than the companies that are supplying their raw materials, for instance, because that obviously is a much bigger sector of their greenhouse gas emissions. But I think many companies expect all of their vendors and suppliers to be with them in spirit and to make commitments and the steps forward to make sure they're moving in the right direction, even if it is only a small component of their entire greenhouse gas emissions. I know of one situation where a client ended a relationship with a professional services firm.
Alex – 00:05:33:
Wow.
Pamela – 00:05:33:
And it wasn't just for the sustainability question, but it was basically your commitment to ESG is insufficient to meet the expectations we have of all of our valued vendors. Thank you very much. And it was a big client. I do know of a number of client organizations, companies who have set goals and targets for their law firms. So for instance, many companies are using equal bodies to assess their supply chain. And there are companies who said, “we expect all of our vendors and suppliers to get to a certain score within X number of years”. They usually give a runway. They usually understand that it's a journey, but they certainly expect to see progress year on year.
Alex - 00:06:21:
That's really interesting. So I saw a report recently that said something like 80 to 90%, I think it was 87% of law firms have reported that they've seen RFPs that have specifically asked questions related to ESG, which is really prevalent. That's a lot. Have you noticed this change? Is it becoming more, was it always that case right out of the gate or are you seeing this as an increasing pressure?
Pamela - 00:06:53:
It's definitely increasing. It definitely plays a role in the evaluation. I mean, certainly you have to have the expertise and you have to have the right billing structure and so forth. But if it comes down to two or three firms, all of whom meet those previous criteria, it could very well be a deciding factor, right? I don't think it's the factor for choosing, but it could be a deciding factor for eliminating if it's not there. And that's in the RFP stage. What I'm seeing more and more is what we were just talking about the annual evaluation or assessment of current vendors and suppliers. So even once you've got the job, you're still going to be asked to demonstrate progress in ESG in order to maintain that relationship. And those questions are much more rigorous than the RFP questions.
Alex - 00:07:50:
That feels like compliance. It feels like similar to years ago when we started to get into personal identifying information and GDPR and the way we think about our own data, this feels like a compliance issue. If you don't do this, you can lose.
Pamela - 00:08:10:
Right. It very much is for the clients because the clients who are publicly listed or meet certain thresholds for ESG or carbon disclosures, their supply chain has to contribute to those numbers because that's part of their Scope 3. Now we don't yet have those regs here in the US. I expect they'll be coming this fall, but they exist in the EU and the UK and any law firm that is doing even a US-based law firm, if you're doing significant level of business in either the EU or the UK, these regs apply to you as well, even though most law firms are privately held here in the US. In fact, I think all of them are, but yeah, they apply to you if you, if you reach certain revenue thresholds or your clients need that information for their own disclosures.
Alex - 00:09:00:
Mm-hmm. It's really interesting. It's funny because it reminds me of this idea of supply chain risk, reminds me of when Nike had the issues around child labor, the sweatshops back in the, I guess it was in the 90s, I think. And I remember the headline, and I was being pretty young at the time, but I remember the headline being, you know, Nike is, this is a catastrophic incident to maybe the world's most valuable brand. And I remember thinking there's no possibility that anyone could ever think anything less of Nike. It's cool. It's everybody wears it. It's associated with all these really good things. But they take that stuff so seriously. And I think about If this is an extension of that, if you're Microsoft or a bank or a Fortune 1000 or whatever it is, even a public entity, to perceive it from that perspective, if people aren't in line it poses such a threat to my own brand risk that it's not even worth the work at this point. And that is scary. I mean, that's a, I understand why somebody would treat it with that way. Are you seeing law firms treat it with that level of urgency? Do they understand that in the large part?
Pamela - 00:10:21:
Well, I think they initially are beginning to understand it when it comes to recruiting because the up and coming generations, the fresh law school grads are paying attention to how committed is the law firm to all ESG elements, not just sustainability, but certainly DE&I and governance practices and so forth. So I think they recognize that this is a lever for recruiting. Where it will go next, I suspect, is decisions about what type of work the law firm takes on because students and employees recruits, care about that as well. So for instance, there's a difference. Now, I'm not a proponent of, you know, no longer doing work for oil and gas companies. I don't think that's going to get us where we need to be. But I think it's important what type of work are you doing for those oil and gas clients, for example. If I'm helping those oil and gas clients transition to green energy and make commitments to evolve from fossil fuels to whatever comes next. That's really good work. If on the other hand, I am representing fossil fuel companies in Congress lobbying against carbon regulations, that will not be looked on so favorably by the upcoming generations and frankly society at large. So I think law firms are at the point where they have to start making decisions. I think especially those law firms who have historically done a lot of work for the fossil fuel industry, they have to look at it as what are we going to do when this revenue stream dries up and goes away, right? So what can we do to help that sector of our client base evolve and continue to thrive? Even the CEO of British Petroleum or BP said, I don't want to be the CEO of a company where nobody's buying the product in 10 years. So what do we have to do now to be viable 10 years from now? And that's what law firms should be focusing on in helping their clients with this transition or transformation as some people are calling it.
Alex - 00:12:46:
What's good about that is that's an opportunity, right? I mean, I think about that, that's a very pragmatic. Way to view this from BP's perspective and the right. They don't want to work themselves out of the industry. They want to be able to continue to thrive and evolve just like every other business has done over the last 100 years. And thinking about it that way doesn't, to me, doesn't frame this as, hey, we can't do this anymore. We can't take on this business to more, hey, this is the type of business we should be taking on. And this is the good work that should be done. And I was in a conversation recently with a person who oversees ESG and sustainability at the stock exchange. And he said something to me that really struck me that I think is one of the reasons that maybe reminds me of what you're talking about, which is we just live in this world where everyone's going to find out everything. It's just too easy. There's a million reporters. Everyone's got an opinion. Anything that you want, anything that could be seen will be seen. So if there's anything that you're doing, like you said, if you're defending the wrong case and the wrong side of things, or maybe you're taking stances that you ought not to, you have to know that that's going to be available to the public. And you want to be able to say, look, we made these decisions for this reasons, and this is why, because we believe in it. And like you said, it doesn't mean you can't defend people or work with certain clients, but it does mean that people are going to ask that question. I remember maybe two years ago, they said that with advertising agencies. I remember there was a list of, here are the people that ran these campaigns for 10 years, you know, in Congress. And this is where the lobbying money goes and people know. Now people know. So what do you do next? You can't, we aren't going to be able to go back to a world where people won't know information. And so now people have a decision.
Pamela - 00:14:43:
I think transparency is huge to your point. And I also think that all companies, including law firms, have to make decisions about what type of work is it okay for them to do and what type of work they will not to do. And that’s a hard decision for law firm to make. I do know of a Professional Services that has made the decision that they will no longer take on work. That is contrary to achieving the Paris climate Accord. So in other words, they're not going to take on work. If the result of that work is going to hinder progress towards Paris, the Paris climate Accord. So that's a big decision. That is-
Alex - 00:15:24:
It is.
Pamela - 00:15:25:
And for a partnership in particular, when you work within a partnership, getting to those sorts of decisions is really hard.
Alex - 00:15:32:
So, taking a big step back, because there's definitely businesses, especially law firms, that I feel like have polarized. You've got folks on one side that are just really doing this. They're full, two feet in, pushed in that direction. But then there's this reality of everyone else, which is firms that are not good versus evil. They're trying to run a business. They're trying to be successful. They're trying to be a great place to work, all these types of things. For those folks that are getting this pressure, both from upcoming recruits, but also from their vendors and who might be thinking, okay, We need to do something. We can't be perfect, but we need to get on board because I don't want to lose a deal. I don't want to lose a client and I don't want to lose a recruit because of something that we could solve. What do they need to be doing? What is like step one for people here? Like, what are they, what is like the beginnings of this look like to say, “hey, we're going to, we're going to be on board and we're going to, we're going to at least not lose the deal for this”, you know?
Pamela - 00:16:34:
The very first thing I often recommend for particularly law firm clients is to take an inventory of what's already happening because most often in law firms stuff happens in silos and the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. So if you do in an inventory and you figure out what's already happening throughout your footprint, throughout your offices you, you find out that 99% of your offices are already using LED lightning. Like already composting and they're already recycling and they're paperless you know you'll find out things on the sustainability side you will also find out things on, what are we doing to support our communities in all of our locations and often simply because the culture of the firm permeates decisions that people make. You will discover themes like look 78% of our offices support educating children in their communities and I'm just making up but you'll discover themes if you take an inventory. So, at a minimum, if you have your arms around the current state, you can be responsive to client questions at least, right? So that's the baseline. The other thing I recommend firms do is, well, two things. One is do a materiality assessment. What's important to your stakeholders? What's important to our clients? What's important to our employees? What's important to recruits? What's important to the vendors and suppliers we work with? Because that will also help define what you prioritize because you can't do everything, right? It's everything is going to have resource costs associated with it, and it's a trade off. And then the third thing I recommend law firms do if they haven't yet done it is to take the EcoVadis assessment. You don't have to wait for a client to ask you to take the EcoVadis assessment. You can go on the platform, register, and it's a nominal fee. Take the assessment because what you get back from that assessment is your overall score and you get a score in four pillars. Environmental, labor and human rights, ethics and procurement practices. Once you get a score in each of those pillars, you also get here are the things you can do to improve your score. So it's basically a roadmap of what you should do over the next 12 months so that a year from now when we do a reassessment, because the score is only good for 12 months, you will have made steps to improve your score. And there are many, many clients now who are using EcoVadis to manage their vendors and suppliers. So if you've already taken the EcoVadis assessment, when your client asks, you can say, oh yeah, we did that and here's our score and here's what we're doing to improve. So that's absolutely something you can do to prepare because it's coming. If you haven't yet been asked by a client to do EcoVadis, it's just a matter of time. So you might as well do it proactively.
Alex - 00:19:43:
That's really interesting that the recurring theme in this podcast is is getting started is a lot less scary than people I think sometimes believe it to be.
Pamela - 00:19:53:
And especially, I'm sorry to interrupt, but especially because no firm is starting from zero. They just don't realize it. So you have to get a handle over on what's happening. And then you'll realize that, “hey, we're not starting from ground zero. We're already doing some really great things. How can we build on that? How can we structure a narrative around that so that we have a cohesive, holistic story to tell that every firm can do that”.
Alex - 00:20:21:
And that's interesting because I think a lot of people have this anxiety, and we hear this from folks, which is... I'm worried we're going to score poorly. And it's, okay, first of all, you don't know where you are because you haven't done anything. You might find that you've done a bunch of amazing things and you have plenty of things to be proud of. You might find that you do have some problem areas and everyone's got problem areas. So now you know where to focus. The anxiety a lot of times, especially from a partnership or an executive level is not knowing. We all want to know. So go take an assessment, go get us an inventory, figure out where you are, and then you can make a decision about what's important to you and how it's important to your clients and customers and how you can improve.
Pamela - 00:21:04:
That's exactly right. And I think you're spot on when you say, and this is particularly true of law firms, they don't want to do the assessment because they're afraid their score isn't going to be stellar. And I can guarantee you that the first time you take EcoVadis, your score will not be stellar. Hands down, no questions asked. And that's really hard for law firms, right? Lawyers have been A students their whole life. So to suddenly get a score of 28 out of a hundred, that's very upsetting to them. And it's hard, it's hard to make progress. I can give you an example. When I was at Milliman, the first time we did EcoVadis, our score was 28. Five years later, after five years of really hard work, our score was 48. So it is not easy to get stellar score on EcoVadis. But if you can show progress year-on-year, your clients will know that you're on the journey, you're focused, you're making progress, you're moving in the right direction rather than the status quo. So, I encourage firms to be transparent about their EcoVadis journey and their ESG progress overall, but you're right, it is really hard for them to be willing to be transparent about those things.
Alex - 00:22:23:
When it's one of those things where I think did not participate is probably worse than a low score. You want to, by saying did not participate, you're immediately disqualified. You lose, I have this conversation with my six-year-old all the time, which is if you don't participate, you automatically lose. At least give yourself a chance to potentially get there. If you don't enter the race, you can't possibly win. You've taken every win off the table. And that's true, but that is hard. It's hard for high achievers. Every law firm I've ever met, it's like the smartest people I've ever met. And it is hard to do that, especially when you've, these are companies that are built on brand reputation. And that reputation is, it takes a long time to build and it takes an instant to lose. And you are as good as their last 12 months in that business and that's about it. It is fickle and it's important and that's what partnerships do, they build that up over time. I can imagine the, I empathize with that. I understand that's difficult.
Pamela - 00:23:25:
And I guess the only good thing is that the clients who are asking you to fill out EcoVadis understand, cause they're using EcoVadis, they know how hard it is to get a stellar score on EcoVadis, especially right out of the shoot. The other assessment that is really hard to score well on is the CDP, the Carbon Disclosure Project.
Alex – 00:23:48:
Right.
Pamela – 00:23:49:
And there you get an F if you don't participate.
Alex - 00:23:53:
So you immediately lose.
Pamela - 00:23:54:
You immediately lose. If you do participate, but don't do very well, you get a D minus, but it's still better than an F. And again, the first time Milliman did CDP, we got a D minus, but then it was obvious to us what we had to do to get better. And the last time I checked Milliman score was a C. And because they just set net zero targets and have been SBTi certified, I just know that the next time they take the CDP assessment, it's going to be probably a B plus or a B or above. So to me, that shows that that particular firm is on the journey towards improvement. Yes, we started at a D minus, but look how far we've come.
Alex - 00:24:41:
That's such a great way to put it because progress in every way that I've ever seen it is always better than perfection. That's the goal. The goal is to just start. Take an inventory, get where you are, and begin. That is what your clients are expecting you to do and you raise a good point. Anybody that's asking you this stuff. Understands it.
Pamela - 00:25:03:
Yes.
Alex - 00:25:04:
And they know, and we know what their answer will be if you just don't participate. They're not going to be happy with that.
Pamela - 00:25:10:
Yes, and I also think that anyone who is in this business or working with their vendors and suppliers, frequently will use the word journey. Like this is a journey. It is not a project that will end someday. Right? I had a lawyer ask me, this is when I was in marketing in a law firm, the lawyer asked me, “when are we going to be done with our website?” And the answer is you are never done. You are never finished with a website, right? It changes on a daily basis. And so we will never be finished with an ESG journey or a sustainability journey. It is a process, not a project. And I think anybody who's in this space, including your clients who are asking law firms to engage, they know this is a journey. It's not a one time done it, you know, one and done sort of thing. So getting that message across to the partnership at law firms is sometimes a challenge because they see things in black and white, they want an A, you know, the first time they do an assessment, it's not going to happen.
Alex - 00:26:15:
Well, and that's one of the things where the conversations that we have with law firms is this idea of if it's a project, it's something we can tackle this year. But is that it? Is the request going to stop? Is the need to keep doing this going to stop? Are we going to complete this one day? And you're right, it becomes an operating challenge. It becomes part of how you do things. And the lens that we take a lot of times is, these aren't in opposition to running your business well. Being more sustainable, having better ESG metrics actually aligns with running your business in a way that's going to make you more successful. You'll hire better, you'll win more deals, sometimes you'll spend less money. You'll stop doing things just because you've always done them and you'll reassess, which is part of the way that businesses have become more efficient and more productive over the last 200 years. We constantly look at ourselves and we say, let's look at our balance sheet and let's assess, do we need that expense or do we not? Do we have overlapping services? When we enter a recessionary period, and I'm in the tech world, it moves to a world of tech consolidation. You start to go to your tech providers and say, “hey, could we save money by you also doing this?” And that's a constantly evolving thing because the business is operating and there's always better ways to do it. And this is opening businesses up to a lot of things they haven't done before. But that's good. Because it turns a light on a lot of things you can improve. Who typically owns this at a law firm? Who are the people that are having these conversations and running these programs?
Pamela - 00:27:59:
Well, that's a very good question. Because in a law firm, ESG has, there's two sides of the coin. One is ESG advisory services so that the lawyers can help their clients with these, projects or this process. And then there's what is the law firm itself doing. So often, in a law firm, the advisory practice will be headed by a lawyer who's the practice chair for ESG. And they're focused on helping clients. On the operational side, it is often coming from the CEO or the COO when I get questions. Because they're the ones who are trying to figure out how does this fit into our overall priorities, our overall budget and so forth. And I also get questions from clients, law firm clients about, well, if we were to hire somebody, where should they sit within a law firm? Is this a legal function? Is it an HR function? Is it a finance function? Is it a marketing communications function? And my response is be really careful where you slot this person. Because if you put it in marketing communications, internally, it sends the unintended message that this is just a PR ploy, right? If you put it in legal, Internally, there's the unintended message that, oh, this is just compliance, right? This is just check the box thing. If you put it in finance, then all of a sudden it's just reporting. You know, it's part of our annual reporting that we have to do. If you put it in HR, people assume it's just DE&I. It's just that diversity initiative we're working on. So what I find, what I have experienced that works best is that the person not be in any of those departments but on par with all of those officers so that he or she can influence things that are happening in each of those siloed departments and have a direct reporting structure to whomever is running the show, whether it's a COO or a CEO. And that allows for the proper infiltration of ESG so that it is not perceived as somebody's job over here and I can just keep doing things the way I've always done things, but how does ESG permeate the way we run our business from a strategic perspective? So it's a very interesting question you raise.
Alex - 00:30:32:
That is really interesting and I think a lot of, as businesses start this path towards A, coming to terms with having to do it, and B, figuring out how they're going to do it. That is a question we get a lot, and it's right. We always say this, it's not a vertical function, it's a horizontal one. Which is one of the reasons why it's so difficult to hire somebody for that because you've got to find somebody who's savvy enough at each one of those things to make an argument that says we should do X and it's going to help marketing in this way, it's going to help finance in this way, it's going to satisfy procurement in this way and that is a very challenging thing. Not many people have that skillset and not many of those also are in the world of ESG sustainability. That's a very strategically difficult job.
Pamela - 00:31:22:
Yes, yes it is and especially if you're coming in cold to the company, you don't have any relationships. I think one of the things that worked to my advantage at Milliman when I moved into this role, number one is they sent me back to graduate school so I could get well-versed in social impact and sustainability but having been there for 15 years as CMO, I had really deep meaningful relationships with all the other corporate officers. I knew how to get things done, I knew who the partners were, I knew what the priorities were for the firm and frankly in the short time that I was there as social impact and sustainability, I feel like because of that, I was able to get a lot more done than if I had come in cold to the position and had tried to figure out all of that while also implementing ESG. That would have been an incredible challenge. So I often talk to my law firm clients about who internally is passionate about this, is already known and loved by the partners and vice versa, who understands the culture of this firm because it is much easier to send that person to ESG school or whatever education program you want and have them implement than to bring somebody in cold who then has to also learn the culture of your firm. So don't, don't rule out internal people when you're looking to fill this role.
Alex - 00:32:47:
Well, to me, that's a pretty exciting thing because there are a number of people that we've met through the years at firms who do have a strong passion for this and they've been running grassroots green teams, you know, trash pickups and small things over the last 20 years. And now they get a chance to actually build a career out of it and potentially get the executive approval to do so, which is really exciting. And I think a great thing. And I agree with you. I think being able to promote from within, especially on something like this, because Sustainability ESG is very, very specific to every business. No business is the same, and until you understand all those nuances, it's hard. So what is some of the work that you do at Amity and how have you helped businesses and professional services law firms get there? What does a typical kind of engagement typically look like?
Pamela - 00:33:37:
Well, some of it I've already described because often law firms will engage me to provide some baseline education, help them conduct the inventory, which we talked about. Run a materiality assessment. Talk to stakeholders. Do the focus groups. And then as a result of that, lay out what we discovered and what the best next steps will be in 12 months and 24 months. So my work usually takes about six to eight months, that description that I just provided, and then I provide a roadmap for the next 12, the next 24 months. Often, I will also help law firms and frankly other clients because other clients are are now coming to me for EcoVadis support. I recently trained as EcoVadis consultants. So now I can help companies go through the EcoVadis assessment. And often when I'm working with law firms, that's part of the package is to get them through their first EcoVadis assessment. And then also, other companies come to me for just that, just help me with the EcoVadis assessment. Because as I mentioned earlier, taking the EcoVadis assessment will give you a roadmap of what to do next. So that's probably the least expensive way to get started. You don't even need to hire a consultant to do that. You can just take the EcoVadis assessment and you'll get a list of things you should do. With no hesitation.
Alex - 00:35:10:
Is there something that you wish, like what is one thing that you wish that every law firm knew about this but didn't. Is there something that you wish you could tell everybody and say, look, if you just knew this, what would it be?
Pamela - 00:35:27:
Well, and this isn't the first time I've said this, people who know me will know that I preach this all the time. Law firms have been really quick to jump on the potential revenue around ESG. Like let's position, let's package our team so we can say we have an ESG team to help clients. And I think that's great. This is the biggest opportunity of our generation, frankly, as far as I'm concerned. They should be doing that. But if you do that without also making sure your firm is on the journey. It's only a matter of time before a prospective client is going to say to you, “oh really, you want to help me with my ESG? Tell me what you're doing for your firm.
Pamela - 00:36:12:
Where are you on the journey? What is your equal modest score? What are your commitments to net zero?” And if the lawyer goes, the buh buh, we haven't started that yet. It's just your credibility goes out the door. So they should not be separate. Part of advising clients is experiencing what your own firm is going through and changes your own firm is making in order. Because then you can say, “well, here's what we did, or here's what we found worked, or here's what isn't working for us” Right? That gives you a whole level of credibility. Plus your firm will be making progress as well. So if you feel qualified to promote yourself as ESG advisors to your clients, you should also be advising your own firm and taking that same recommendations.
Alex - 00:37:04:
And what a great way to empathize and understand their journey better than to be doing and drinking your own Kool-Aid and doing it yourself.
Pamela - 00:37:14:
It's like the cobbler's children not having shoes, right? If you're out there advising clients on ESG, but ignoring it as your own firm, it's not a good look.
Alex - 00:37:25:
Yeah, yeah, that makes total sense. Well, Pam, this has been a super, super great conversation. I sincerely appreciate you taking so much time to talk to us. Thank you so much for taking an hour and discussing what you're doing. I think it's super exciting. I think this is something that I'm energized that law firms and professional services are coming to terms with, but I'm very optimistic and I know that there's a lot that we have to do, but I'm excited to know that they've got folks that can help them like yourself and networks like the Law Firm Sustainability Network to be able to get some community in this and get some group help on that as well. But thank you very much for your time today.
Pamela - 00:38:03:
Thank you. It was my pleasure, Alex. Keep up the good work.