Lawyers’ associations have been urged to play a more active role in
persuading corporate lawyers to become involved in socially responsible
business practice.
A new study from the International Institute for Environment and
Development concludes that some national legal associations have made
efforts to engage their members on CSR, but ‘there is still some way to
go’.
The study, Corporate responsibility and the business of law, says the
American Bar Association and the Council of Bars and Law Societies of
Europe are at the forefront of these efforts. However, it criticizes
the CCBE’s latest guide on the subject for European lawyers (EP5, issue
6, p12) for failing to strike a sufficiently ‘positive’ or
‘progressive’ stance on corporate lawyers’ role, and says an ABA task
force downplayed ‘the potential role of lawyers in promoting the
highest possible standards of CSR’.
The report says legal associations ‘could play a significant role in
building understanding on what is needed for business lawyers to
maximize their contribution’. However, it regrets that at present they
have an essentially mechanistic approach, concentrating on lawyers
serving their corporate clients’ immediate interests rather than taking
a more holistic view of CSR ‘beyond the pure context of legal rights’.
Halina Ward, the IIED’s corporate responsibility director and author of
the report, says greater direction is needed from professional
associations because it appears lawyers will increasingly be forced to
consider a wide range of factors, including reputation, when advising
on tax avoidance, foreign investment contracts and other issues.
Peter McNamee, legal adviser at the CCBE, which represents 700,000
European lawyers, told EP: ‘We’re only really beginning to get into
this area, and as things progress we’ll develop our role to a greater
extent. But even at this stage I think we have done pretty well in
terms of producing our guide for lawyers, and we’ll enhance our role in
the near future by producing real-life case studies illustrating why
the legal profession should be getting more involved in CSR.’
