Mia Kala­jdžić of Bardek, Lisac, Mušec, Skoko (in co-op­er­a­tion with CMS Reich-Rohr­wig Hainz) and Den­nis Fromm of CMS Ger­many dis­cuss how law firms can de­liv­er on their en­vir­on­ment­al, so­cial and gov­ernance tar­gets.En­vir­on­ment­al, so­cial and gov­ernance (ESG) is a phrase that has been thrown around with­in the leg­al in­dustry for quite some time now. However, many law firms have re­cently be­gun to real­ise that the oc­ca­sion­al pro bono or char­it­able ac­tion here and there in sup­port of sus­tain­ab­il­ity com­mit­ments does not lead to suc­cess­ful ESG ad­op­tion with­in their firms. As a res­ult, there is still huge po­ten­tial for im­prove­ment in the leg­al mar­ket.The di­men­sions of sus­tain­able busi­ness are widely un­der­es­tim­ated and pro­fes­sion­al sus­tain­ab­il­ity stand­ards are of­ten not ad­hered to. This leads to in­tens­i­fied gre­en­wash­ing, blue­wash­ing or pink­wash­ing, rather than an act­ive con­tri­bu­tion to­wards a more sus­tain­able world.Against this back­drop, there are six im­port­ant areas to con­sider when ad­dress­ing ESG per­form­ance with­in law firms: Car­bon foot­print The term ESG im­plies quite clearly that there are more than just en­vir­on­ment­al is­sues linked to sus­tain­ab­il­ity. Fur­ther­more, the term in­dic­ates that en­vir­on­ment­al, so­cial and gov­ernance is­sues are con­nec­ted. Law firms are ser­vice pro­viders. There­fore, law­yers are faced with a range of sus­tain­ab­il­ity is­sues that are spe­cif­ic to the pro­vi­sion of leg­al ser­vices. These dif­fer from is­sues that an air­line might face, for in­stance, or those that af­fect a loc­al en­ergy pro­vider, where car­bon foot­print is very much the main con­cern in terms of sus­tain­ab­il­ity im­pact. As a gen­er­al rule, cor­por­ate sus­tain­ab­il­ity is about re­du­cing a law firm’s neg­at­ive im­pact and in­creas­ing its pos­it­ive im­pact in sev­er­al areas. To identi­fy these areas, a ma­ter­i­al­ity ana­lys­is will need to be car­ried out for the firm (see box “Ma­ter­i­al­ity ana­lys­is”). While the find­ings of a ma­ter­i­al­ity ana­lys­is are in­di­vidu­al, there are in­dustry spe­cif­ics. For law firms, one of these spe­cif­ics is that the “S” and the “G” in ESG are more sig­ni­fic­ant than the “E”, as a law firm’s en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact is re­l­at­ively low. There­fore, a law firm’s ESG ap­proach should in­clude a lot more than just its car­bon foot­print.

Lex­icon of most im­port­ant terms and phrases with­in the So­cial as­pect of ESG

Ef­fect­ive im­me­di­ately, CMS Croa­tia and CMS Slov­e­nia are each pro­mot­ing one seni­or as­so­ci­ate to part­ner, and CMS Slov­e­nia is also pro­mot­ing one to coun­sel. Mia Kala­jdžić, formerly seni­or as­so­ci­ate in the em­ploy­ment as well as the real es­tate and con­struc­tion teams in Croa­tia, will now head the Croa­tian Em­ploy­ment Prac­tice Area Group. Saša Sodja, formerly seni­or as­so­ci­ate in the cor­por­ate and M&A team in Slov­e­nia, will now head the Slov­e­ni­an Cor­por­ate and M&A Prac­tice. Irena Šik Bukovnik from Slov­e­nia has been pro­moted to coun­sel and will con­tin­ue to fo­cus on bank­ing and fin­ance and re­struc­tur­ing mat­ters. Mia Kala­jdžić has close to a total of 10 years’ ex­per­i­ence and six years of post-qual­i­fic­a­tion ex­per­i­ence, mostly in em­ploy­ment law mat­ters, ad­vising in­ter­na­tion­al groups and com­pan­ies on the full scope of em­ploy­ment and la­bour mat­ters, wheth­er they arise from daily work or from trans­ac­tion­al and re­struc­tur­ing mat­ters. Mia’s as­sist­ance to the man­age­ment board mem­bers and HR de­part­ments is of­ten stra­tegic, in­clud­ing high level of im­ple­ment­a­tion­al and op­er­a­tion­al sup­port. CMS Croa­tia is Mia’s first law firm. Saša Sodja is a leg­al pro­fes­sion­al with more than 15 years of hands-on ex­per­i­ence ad­vising in­ter­na­tion­al and loc­al cli­ents in the leg­al sec­tor. She has played an act­ive role in most of the loc­al and cross-bor­der cap­it­al mar­ket trans­ac­tions as well as mer­gers and ac­quis­i­tions en­gage­ments handled by the Slov­e­ni­an team. Saša provides all-round sup­port and ad­vice to cli­ents from vari­ous in­dus­tries all the way from or­gan­ising and man­aging an M&A deal team to post-mer­ger in­teg­ra­tions. On top of reg­u­lar leg­al en­gage­ments, Saša is also in­volved in activ­it­ies that are shap­ing the fu­ture de­vel­op­ment of our firm such as sus­tain­able busi­ness, a ment­or­ship pro­gramme and last but not least di­git­al­isa­tion. CMS Slov­e­nia has also pro­moted Irena Šik Bukovnik to the po­s­i­tion of coun­sel for the firm in its Bank­ing & Fin­ance prac­tice. Irena is a long-serving law­yer with CMS. She has more than 10 years of work­ing ex­per­i­ence in the leg­al branch, is a hold­er of an LL.M. from the Uni­versity of Vir­gin­ia School of Law and is a mem­ber of the New York State Bar. Irena has ex­pert­ise in bank­ing & fin­ance, in­solv­ency & re­struc­tur­ing.Com­ment­ing on the ap­point­ments, Gregor Famira, Man­aging Part­ner of both CMS Croa­tia and CMS Slov­e­nia, said: “With these pro­mo­tions we are ac­know­ledging high mo­tiv­a­tion, ex­em­plary know-how, team spir­it, in­nov­at­ive mind­sets and a cli­ent-fo­cused ap­proach—the qual­it­ies CMS is look­ing for in their fu­ture lead­ers. Con­grat­u­la­tions to all three of them.”Mia Kala­jdžić com­men­ted: “I see my pro­mo­tion to the po­s­i­tion of part­ner as an hon­our and a re­spons­ib­il­ity, both to­wards our cli­ents and my CMS team. I very much look for­ward to my fu­ture path in the firm and am ex­cited about the chal­lenges ahead.”Saša Sodja said: “I see my ap­point­ment as part­ner not just as an hon­our but also as re­cog­ni­tion that I have the trust both of my team as well as my su­per­i­ors and the wider CMS net­work. I'm ready for the fu­ture: I ex­pect to see changes in the way law firms op­er­ate and, hav­ing be­come a part­ner, I am de­lighted that I will be able to play an even great­er part in this.”

State au­thor­it­ies and courts are weigh­ing in on the power of the Gig Eco­nomy: What will the out­come be?  Few forms of em­ploy­ment have im­pacted the mod­ern eco­nom­ies of the west­ern world as pro­foundly...