Can Law Firms Go Green?

More on that in a moment.

If anyone has worked in a law firm, they know immediately that when pushing a deadline, everything goes out the window. That most definitely includes the environment. Paper is a major part of any law practice of significant volume and is a significant part of wreaking havoc on our planet. Stop one moment and think of the amount of paper that is thrown out due to printer and copier jams alone. How many times have you printed something and forgotten it on the printer only to print it again.


I'm not pointing fingers. I am as guilty as the next person and am unrepentantly addicted to paper. I am 35 and have attended college and two graduate programs. I claim to be moderately sophisticated when it comes to using and talking about technology applications.

Many moons ago, when I was an undergrad, everything was photocopies and books and paper, paper, paper. As a grad student, although I did plenty of research online and via online databases, I always printed out my sources so I could read and mark them up. Today, I still read books (I collect them) and prefer having documents related to cases I am working on in hand despite my using many legal tech tools to get those documents.

My point is that even today there is still comfort in having something tangible to read and scar.

The firm environment is similar. There is an interesting hodgepodge of tech uses in a typical law firm. Everyone has their own way of working. It's hard to make anyone commit to one way or another. Most, in my experience, work in a hybrid environment. The spectrum is broad.

I recall one particularly extreme example. During one of my first jobs as a paralegal, a partner that I working for had his computer removed from his office after one day because he couldn't warm up to it.

It's hard to ''warm'' up to a computer screen and, logistically, hard to simultaneously research, organize your thoughts and write on a computer (unless, for example, you have multiple screens). Paperless, to my mind, is a lovely dream; but like most dreams not always practical or practicable.

This takes us back to our original thought. Can there be a realistic measure of a firm's carbon footprint? Can there be metrics that suggest where a law office should make changes? Sure. On paper, it sounds great. What about in practice?