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A new report from Law Students for Climate Accountability finds that the top 20 law schools in the U.S. News & World Report rankings have produced fossil fuel lawyers at over three times the rate of the average U.S. law school.
Nearly half of U.S. fossil fuel lawyers attended a top-20 law school. The report finds that, among the top 20 law schools, the top producers of fossil fuel lawyers are (1) the University of Texas Law School, (2) the University of Virginia School of Law, (3) Yale Law School, (4) Harvard Law School and (5) Vanderbilt University Law School. The Texas law school produces 12.9 percent more fossil fuel lawyers than the average law school.
“It’s frustrating to see in real time the ways in which schools like mine create a pipeline into work driving climate injustice. We’re encouraged to be curious about ‘the law’ but not about the legal profession,” said Melissa Kay, a second-year law student at Yale Law School and one of the lead authors of the report. “Why does the legal education system make it so much easier for students to get a job destroying the climate than helping it?”
