Legal Commentary

New Orleans -- Consultant/attorney Theodore Banks (right), who spent the bulk of his career as a leader in Kraft Food's legal department, set the tone at the Green Matters conference as he reminded the audience that to successfully promote environment-friendly programs, everyone must remember that "the perfect is the enemy of the good."

Translation: take comfort in small steps, and don't get upset when big goals aren't (immediately) met. That advice probably sums up not just the ambitious Green Matters program, but the current temperature of "going green" within the legal profession. The conference drew high-level speakers, but not as many attendees (about 100) as the organizers would have liked, to discuss topics that most lawyers may nod their heads about but aren't (yet) taking serious steps to address.

The even was organized by Monty and Kathleen Lunn, he a long-time fixture in the legal technology world (formerly with Elite and Huron); she an effective veteran of politics. The couple recently moved back to New Orleans after living in California and Pennsylvania. (Tom O'Connor, another legal tech gray-beard, now director of the Gulf Coast Legal Technology Center, also was an organizer).

Originally named Green Legal Matters and scheduled for April, it was postponed until this week, with a much broader agenda. That was a wise decision, because what has made this event so terrific is the cross-section of participants from government and the legal profession. Like an excellent fusion restaurant that marries exotic flavors, the combination is fiery and inspiring, if slightly imperfect.

New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu kicked off the event Wednesday, one of several mayors who brought all the green talk down to earth, literally. At a compelling Thursday lunch presentation, four mayors discussed how they are implementing and coping with green initiatives, including   Mayor Bob Dixon of Greenburg, Kansas -- which was just about obliviated on May 4, 2007, when a tornado wiped out 95% of the city. Rather than abandon the georgraphy, the town decided to live up to its name, and recreate itself as a eco-strong city. (The process has been documented by a fascinating television series  on Planet Green.) New Jersey City's mayor Jerrammiah Healy told how he turned to litigation to reclaim soiled abandoned land in his small metropolis that is a gateway to New York City, and negotiated with the land's corporate owners to restore it to usable, income-producing venues that improved the city and provided jobs and residences to its citizens.

Despite the conference's moniker change, the event retained its strong legal undercurrent. Susan Dorn, GC of the U.S. Green Building Council, gave the Thursday keynote, outlining the current status of the powerful NGO that created and maintains the popular LEEDs rating system. She discussed a hot-button issue among the legal and architecture crowd: challenges to LEED certifications, and the perishability of those credentials, as LEED certification requirements are  often now built into to development contracts.

Rather than do the usual top-executive fly-in/fly-out, Dorn stayed all day, and her presence at an afternoon session generated some deliciously polite friction with the speakers during "When Green Goes Wrong: Liability and De-Certification Litigation," with Haynes Boone lawyers Bruce Merwin and Bradley Carson (See twitter.com/lawtechnews or #lgmn).

Legal technology consultant (and ILTA leader) Jeff Brandt lead off a pragmatic program on "The Greening of the CIO," describing how CIOs can make small but significant changes in their organizations that can reap significant energy savings, from virtualized servers to replacing equipment earlier rather than later to take advantage of technology improvements. The panel also featured IBM's Florence Hudson, who gets the energizer bunny award for appearing on three panels (so far), and is literally a rocket scientist. She is the energy/environment/cloud computing wizard at IBM talked about her company's global efforts.

Hudson was also a last minute addition to Banks' corporate panel, which also featured GC Elaine Reilly of DuPont, Gillian van Muyden, GC of redevelopment for  Glendale, Calif., and a mesmerizing presentation by Walmart's senior director of environmental compliance, Richard Dailey.

Just as in e-discovery, in the end, it probably will take corporate counsel's insistent to push law firms into green action, observed several audience members, who resonated to the message of the corporate leaders panel.

Ultimately, the GCs told their colleagues,  no one in the legal profession will buy into green if it costs money -- and that's the current perception. To succeed, to be accepted, green must actually be green, e.g, create money.

Dailey gave an example about how Walmart previously paid a lot of money to get rid of the cardboard boxes that housed incoming products for its shelves. Now, he said, Walmart gets more than $1 million in revenue by selling the cardboard to recyclers. Green efforts, he pronounced, "are not sustainable if they don't make business sense."

Walmart's green efforts, said Dailey, have helped dramatically turn around the company's reputation, (which was blemished in the past by bad press, especially about prior labor practices that adversely affected single parents and women). The company now invests in solar and wind options, efficient buildings, fleet improvements, and fuel cells, and even recycles oil and grease from fryers into fuel, he said.

Transparency is crucial, said Dailey.  "We articulate our goals publicly," he noted, and said  that posture drives business. Dailey said the company is not afraid to use its massive power (1.5 million employees) to influence vendors and customers to go green. As an example, he cites the company's campaign for CLF light bulbs, with 137 million sold so far, he notes.

Banks shared the story of an unsuccessful effort to switch Kraft's salad dressing containers to recyclable plastic, which cost five cents more than glass. "Good intentions are not enough. It has to work."

The conference continues today with more sessions ranging from practical ways to green a law office; to greenwashing; to more panels on LEED litigation. This morning, I will be joined by consultants George Socha, Tom O'Connor, and Andrew Adkins, to discuss "Green E-Discovery." Our message will reiterate that "the perfect is the enemy of the good," hopefully reduce some of the fear and anxiety about EDD, and show how using technology can indeed help lawyers produce better, faster, cheaper legal services -- that are also green.

Greensburg picture courtesy of wikipedia.