Boston Bar Association Convenes Task Force on Environmental Sustainability

Saying that “a culture of environmental sustainability is becoming an important indicator of professional excellence for lawyers and law firms,” Boston Bar Association President Lisa C. Goodheart today announced that she has appointed a 19-person Task Force on Environmental Sustainability. The Task Force will be co-chaired by Michelle N. O’Brien, a shareholder at Mackie Shea O’Brien and Benjamin Ericson of the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General.

“Providing first-rate service to clients is just one critical component of professional excellence for lawyers in 2011,” said Goodheart. “Two other essential components are doing meaningful pro bono work, and making serious efforts to advance diversity and inclusion.  Going forward, we need to recognize a commitment to environmental sustainability as another key component of excellence in the legal profession.”

Goodheart has charged the Task Force with expanding the BBA’s pro bono and community service capacity to include volunteer opportunities that benefit the environment, and also gathering and sharing information about best practices for greening the practice of law for lawyers in a variety of practice settings. Operating under the mantra, “all of us need to take ownership of environmental sustainability, regardless of the size or nature of our practice,” the new BBA Task Force is expected to provide opportunities for engagement by members of all 24 of the BBA’s Sections.

“Environmental sustainability needs to be woven into the fabric of everything we do as lawyers,” said Goodheart. “My ultimate goal for this Task Force is simultaneously a modest and ambitious one. My vision of success for this initiative is that a commitment to environmental sustainability will become part and parcel of our broader and ongoing conversations about excellent lawyering.”

In addition to Michelle O’Brien and Benjamin Ericson, the Task Force on Environmental Sustainability will also include Amy Boyd, Foley Hoag; Christopher Davis, Ceres, Inc.; Gary Davis, MA Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs; Jonathan Ettinger, Foley Hoag; Pamela Harvey, MA Department of Environmental Protection; James Hunt, City of Boston; Carolyn Kaplan, Nixon Peabody;  Mike Koehler, Keegan Werlin; Cynthia Lewis, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Michael Mooney, Nutter, McClennen & Fish; Colin Owyang, National Grid USA; Carolyn Rosenthal, Goodwin Procter; Dylan Sanders, Sugarman, Rogers, Barshak & Cohen; Julie Taylor, Noble & Wickersham; Danah Tench, Environment Northeast; Robert Tuchmann, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr; and Colin Van Dyke, Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo.