Law firms provide indispensable services to the fossil fuel industry and other greenhouse gas (GHG)-emitting industries. No pipeline, no coal-fired power plant could be constructed or operate without law firms advising on project finance, permitting, litigation, and more. But law firms’ integral role in advising GHG-emitting projects is overlooked in existing GHG emissions accounting and disclosures. The law firms that currently disclose their emissions include emissions from their offices and work travel but fail to account for their advised emissions: the GHG emissions associated with projects and matters on which they advise. This stands in contrast to other professional service provider industries that already have efforts to quantify the GHG emissions they facilitate. Financial institutions, for example, already have an industry-wide standard to quantify and disclose the GHG emissions associated with their financial activities.

But law firms are facing increasing pressure to address their role in climate change and consider their advised emissions. Some legal professional bodies outside the United States have already recognized advised emissions and some law firms have begun developing a methodology to quantify advised emissions. This Article applies theories of corporate GHG emissions disclosures to understand the motivations for the legal industry to quantify and disclose advised emissions. It then considers how an emerging advised emissions framework interacts with the lawyer’s role as a public citizen and ethical principles in the legal profession. It explores how advised emissions disclosures could align with the lawyer’s role as a public citizen, increasing transparency and helping the bar regulate itself in the public interest. It further identifies how an advised emissions framework does not wholly conflict with existing principles of neutrality and non-accountability but may prompt us to reflect on these principles in a time of climate crisis. This Article then provides initial considerations for a methodology for quantifying advised emissions. It further considers how bar association resolutions, updates to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol standards, and California’s mandatory disclosure regime could shape advised emissions disclosures. Lawyers and law firms should be aware of this emerging landscape and prepared for the possibility of an advised emissions framework in the near future.