The nation’s top law firms are taking on more work to help mitigate climate change, but fossil fuel interests remain a major client and many firms are failing on the issue of global warming, a new report says.
The scorecard from Law Students for Climate Accountability grades the 100 most prestigious U.S. firms — known as the “Vault 100” — on an A to F scale, based on litigation, lobbying efforts and other legal transactions for the oil and gas industry from 2020 to 2024.
The report is the sixth annual accounting by the student group and finds the industry making “marginal progress” for the second year in a row. A record 14 firms received an A grade for 2025, twice as many as last year.
The report arrives as the legal profession faces mounting pressures, including demands from President Donald Trump who last month directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to take action against lawyers and law firms that “engage in frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation against the United States.”
