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NLJ this week: The environmental cost of dispute resolution

21 April 2023
Issue: 8021 / Categories: Legal News , Environment , ESG , Procedure & practice , CPR
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Dispute resolution uses an astonishing amount of carbon resources, and it’s time to make it more environmentally sustainable, barrister Dr Mike Wilkinson and commercial director of AI-powered litigation platform TrialView, Eimear McCann write in this week’s NLJ.

Wilkinson, of 18 St John Street Chambers, and McCann, who is a former lawyer, put the case for a profession-wide change of approach. They set out practical measures to reduce carbon and explain the issue, recommend potential solutions and advocate for change. Incredibly, according to the Campaign for Greener Arbitrations, the average international arbitration takes nearly as many as 20,000 trees to offset (although, as offsetting is itself deeply problematic, it is always better to reduce emissions in the first place).

If the environmental reasons don’t change behaviour, however, then client-driven imperatives might. Wilkinson and McCann write: ‘Increasingly, corporate clients are operating within an environmental, social and governance (ESG) framework and are beholden to their stakeholders. They may have contractual commitments to endeavour to reduce their emissions; their funding may even have been subject to such commitments. Increasingly, regulations require companies to report on their carbon emissions and transition plans, and shareholders may call for more environmentally responsible behaviour.’ 

Read the full article on making litigation greener here.

MOVERS & SHAKERS

DWF—19 appointments

DWF—19 appointments

Belfast team bolstered by three senior hires and 16 further appointments

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Firm strengthens leveraged finance team with London partner hire

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

NEWS
In this week's NLJ, Steven Ball of Red Lion Chambers unpacks how advances in forensic science finally unmasked Ryland Headley, jailed in 2025 for the 1967 rape and murder of 75-year-old Louisa Dunne. Preserved swabs and palm prints lay dormant for decades until DNA-17 profiling produced a billion-to-one match
Charlie Mercer and Astrid Gillam of Stewarts crunch the numbers on civil fraud claims in the English courts, in this week's NLJ. New data shows civil fraud claims rising steadily since 2014, with the King’s Bench Division overtaking the Commercial Court as the forum of choice for lower-value disputes
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve reports on Haynes v Thomson, the first judicial application of the Supreme Court’s For Women Scotland ruling in a discrimination claim, in this week's NLJ
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
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