Climate services for the legal sector: Projecting future demand

At present, awareness - and use - of climate services (CS) by the legal sector is negligible. This is partly due to lack of understanding of climate change and the ways it differentially implicated different practice areas of law. This disposition is steadily changing. Whereas to-date climate change has been narrowly conceived of as the remit of international or environmental law(yers), the profession increasingly recognises the cross-cutting implications that climate change has for almost all practice areas.

Legal services influence demand for climate services in two main ways. First, they can be a direct source of demand through, for example, procuring expert consultancy, reports, and evidence in casework. Second, more significantly, in their more expansive remit advising clients on a broader spectrum of risk and compliance, they can influence clients to procure climate services themselves. This is harder to quantify, but may, for example, include climate risk audits of assets and supply chains.

The scope of lawyers' work is largely client-driven and the duties that the law places on them. As clients across sectors respond to changing legislation and investor (and others') demand to manage climate risk, lawyers will be called-upon to provide trusted advice. Legal services demand climate information that is: practice-specific, accredited, transparent, and (ideally) discursive in form. Information should be at the highest possible resolution as required by given client-groups (i.e. asset-level for investors) whilst meeting legal standards of probability. Information should be presented transparently, accounting for any uncertainties and assumptions, and in rendered in clear narrative.

Legal services that require external consultancy typically develop close relationships with a select trusted partners. At the same time, in many jurisdictions, certain kinds of legal advice are increasingly provided by accredited professionals outside non-traditional law firms (e.g. environmental consultancies). This is part of a shift towards multi-disciplinary consultancy that uses a mix of professional expertise. Climate services may play an increasingly prominent role in providing legal advice directly as they add legal services to their service portfolio. Moreover, legal services are making increasing use of artificial intelligence and other technologies (e.g. in research).