‘Mission-Driven’ Firm Eschews Big Oil and Embraces Lower Hours

Welcome back to the Big Law Business column. I’m Roy Strom, and today we look at a boutique law firm that’s taking a fresh approach to two issues: Climate change and lawyer burnout. Sign up to receive this column in your Inbox on Thursday mornings.

A boutique law firm is carving out a unique business model: strictly working on clean energy projects while asking its lawyers to bill less than two-thirds the hours of a traditional Big Law associate.

Clean Energy Counsel calls itself a “mission-driven” firm that’s focused on advancing the renewable energy transition. The roughly 30-lawyer firm won’t work on fossil fuel energy projects, but its leaders say business is booming as solar energy projects, electric vehicle charging stations, and battery energy storage plants proliferate.

Junior lawyers at the firm are required to bill 1,200 hours a year. That’s a far cry from the 2,000 hours young lawyers are often expected to toll at Big Law firms.

Clean Energy Counsel’s starting salaries are lower than the prevailing Big Law wage, but lawyers can make up the difference: the firm provides a bonus for every hour billed above the 1,200-hour threshold and gives associates origination credit.

“The idea is that hour-for-hour you’ll do as well here or probably better” than at Big Law, said Zach Crowley, a San Francisco-based partner who joined the firm from Wilson Sonsini in 2021. Crowley said he billed around 1,200 hours in his first year with the firm and made Big Law-scale compensation—thanks to his efforts bringing in work—all while still holding the associate title.

The lower billing requirement is part of the firm’s “sustainability” ethos according to its leaders. They want lawyers to have a balanced life and to stay at Clean Energy Counsel for their entire careers, eschewing Big Law’s grinding hours and its up-or-out model.

The approach has attracted alumni from firms including Wilson Sonsini, Cooley, Winston & Strawn, Milbank, and Orrick. Part of the attraction for climate-minded lawyers is that, unlike at many Big Law energy practices, they don’t have to split time between oil and gas and renewable clients. They can also work remotely and live in less expensive cities.

“We are working in a sustainable industry and we want our firm to last as well,” said partner Brad DeJean. “One of the ways to do that is just to really make sure that your people have a workload that they can manage without getting burned out.”

DeJean, who works out of San Francisco, cofounded the firm in 2014 with Steve Holman. Both had worked in Big Law, including time spent together at now-defunct firm Thelen, and spent time in-house at renewable energy companies.

The firm initially hired junior lawyers as independent contractors, but business ramped up around 2019 and it began formally employing associates.

Clean Energy Counsel, which has no physical offices, is on the hunt for more lawyers in a competitive space. Big Law firms are ramping up hiring in the area, and some lawyers say the supply of renewable energy experts is outstripped by demand for them.

A Clean Energy Counsel job opening for an associate with minimum three years’ experience notes the salary discussion starts at $185,000 a year. That’s about 60% of what a similarly experienced lawyer can earn at Big Law after an annual bonus.

The gap can be winnowed down by working more hours, but lawyers said there is no pressure to do so and few, if any, choose to work as much as they did at their previous firms. Clean Energy Counsel’s origination credit for entrepreneurial associates is a perk Big Law firms typically don’t match. The firm has a deeper bench of associates to spread out the work, and partners said they accept lower profitability as part of the tradeoff.

“We want to earn a good, comfortable living but our goal is not to maximize profits in any given year,” DeJean said.

The firm declined to provide revenue or profitability figures.

Headcount at Clean Energy Counsel has more than doubled since 2021, and it now is arguably one of the larger groups dedicated to renewable energy at any law firm.

Only two of the largest law firms, Norton Rose Fulbright and Orrick, have more than 40 lawyers with renewable energy specialties, according to Leopard Solutions, which tracks law firm hiring and headcounts.

Large law firms have experienced a boom in renewable energy work, as I wrote last month. The surge is driven in large part by tax credits for renewable energy project developers provided through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Clean Energy Counsel lawyers said that has also supercharged their practice, and the firm now competes directly for deals with large firms.

A November election win for Donald Trump could threaten IRA-driven growth, especially for the green energy sector, through targeted cuts to tax incentives, Bloomberg Intelligence said in a June report.

“We live in a competitive world with these other much, much larger firms and we’re doing the work they’re doing,” Crowley said.

Clean Energy Counsel represented Reactivate LLC, a company developing community solar and renewables projects, on issues including corporate structuring, developing solar projects in New York and Illinois. Its lawyers served as transaction counsel for a tax equity partnership with US Bank and Wal-Mart to monetize federal investment tax credits.

Kristen Berry joined the firm last year after working across from its lawyers on a deal while at Wilson Sonsini. The Seattle resident has been in renewable energy since graduating in 2016 from Yale with a JD and an MBA.

“I’m doing the same type of work I was doing in Big Law, thinking through the same complex questions, but I have more breathing room and I can do it with more creativity and teamwork,” she said. “Plus I can spend more time with my daughter and my husband and other family members.”

Beyond the firm’s lower hourly requirements, lawyers said they joined because they were aligned with the firm’s mission to accelerate the renewables transition.

“I feel like I’m living out my passion and not going against the things I believe in,” said Anisha Chheda, a Denver-based real estate associate who joined from Benesch last year.

Jordan Dansby said he became concerned with climate change growing up as a skier and snowboarder in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. As snowstorms turned over the years into sleet or rain, “it was depressing,” he said.

While working at Hogan Lovells in Washington, he reached out to Holman, the Clean Energy Counsel cofounder who is an alum of the big firm. He joined Holman’s firm nearly seven years ago, moved to Denver, and he’s now a partner. He said he’d be content finishing his career at the firm.

As for the Virginia snow forecasts, he’s lost track.

“I haven’t been there in a long time,” he said. “I still peek in from time to time, and it doesn’t look good.”

Worth Your Time

On Kirkland & Ellis: The world’s largest firm by revenue is extending a bumped-up $50,000 referral bonus through January. Associates who successfully recruit a new lawyer to the firm will earn the sum as Kirkland experiences growing demand in litigation and corporate work, Meghan Tribe and I report.

On Judicial Misconduct: A federal judge is struggling to determine what questions former bankruptcy judge David R. Jones must answer to help determine whether lawyers at Jackson Walker knew about his romance with an erstwhile partner who appeared in cases before him, James Nani reports.

On Diversity Challenges: Former corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion leaders are turning to the courts to address what they say is discrimination against them. A suit brought against Armstrong Teasdale is a prime example, reports Khorri Atkinson.

That’s it for this week! Thanks for reading and please send me your thoughts, critiques, and tips.