Based on detailed firm submissions and Forward Law Review’s own reporting, Forward Firms profiles 30 leading sustainability law practices and examines what their work reveals about the direction of the global sustainability legal market.
Sustainability law has changed dramatically over the past decade. The questions it raises are no longer confined to specialist advisers or dedicated ESG teams. Climate litigation, sustainability disclosure, supply-chain regulation, energy transition projects and sustainable finance have all become established areas of legal practice in their own right.
That development has created a challenge for clients. Many firms now describe themselves as having sustainability or ESG capabilities. Far fewer have developed practices with the depth, breadth and experience required to advise on the most complex sustainability-related matters. Identifying those firms is not always straightforward. Forward Firms was created to help make that distinction.Produced by Forward Law Review, Forward Firms is an annual review of law firms with established sustainability practices. Its purpose is to identify and profile firms that can be regarded as a safe pair of hands for sophisticated sustainability-related legal work, while also recognising those firms that have developed significant cross-border capabilities in this area.
This first edition brings together 30 firms from across Europe, North America, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region. The group includes global firms, leading national practices and specialist teams with particular expertise in areas such as climate litigation, sustainable finance, energy transition and regulatory compliance.
The firms featured in this guide were not selected solely on the basis of submissions. Forward Law Review covers sustainability law every day. We speak regularly with practitioners, report on legal and regulatory developments across multiple jurisdictions and track the disputes, transactions and policy changes shaping this rapidly evolving market. That reporting provides an important foundation for the project.
At the same time, we wanted Forward Firms to be grounded in evidence rather than reputation alone.
Participating firms were invited to complete a detailed questionnaire designed to provide a factual picture of their sustainability practice. We asked firms to explain how and when their practices developed, how they are structured, which practice areas contribute most heavily to delivery and how sustainability work is coordinated across offices.
Firms were also asked to describe the scope of their work across nine specific categories: governance, policy and regulatory change, disclosure and reporting, supply-chain risk, litigation and investigations, antitrust, sustainable finance, transactional work and transition projects. For each area, firms were asked whether it formed a core or occasional part of their practice, the jurisdictions involved and the nature of the work undertaken.
Beyond practice descriptions, firms were asked to identify key partners, provide recent work highlights, disclose representative clients where possible and explain significant developments within their teams. Optional sections sought additional information about team composition, activity levels, energy transition work, cross-border matters, disputes experience and sustainable finance activity.
The questionnaire was intentionally demanding. Not every firm invited to participate chose to do so. A number indicated that they lacked the bandwidth required to complete a submission of this depth, while others elected not to participate for their own reasons. The firms included in Forward Firms engaged substantively with the process and provided sufficient information to allow meaningful editorial assessment.
Submissions were reviewed alongside Forward Law Review’s own reporting, market knowledge and editorial judgment. Information was tested, challenged and, where necessary, clarified. Draft profiles were then returned to firms for factual verification before publication.
The result is a curated review of 30 sustainability practices rather than a simple directory. The firms included in these pages approach sustainability law in markedly different ways. Some are known for climate disputes. Others are distinguished by their work on sustainable finance, energy transition projects, public policy, supply chains or disclosure obligations. The objective of Forward Firms is not to suggest that there is a single model for success, but to identify firms that have demonstrated meaningful capability in this field and to help readers understand where their particular strengths lie.
The profiles that follow are intended to be useful both to clients seeking advisers and to practitioners seeking to understand how the market is developing. Read individually, they offer insight into specific firms. Read collectively, they provide a unique picture of how sustainability law is evolving across jurisdictions, sectors and practice areas.
That collective picture is perhaps the most valuable aspect of the project. Collectively, the submissions reveal a profession that is changing rapidly. Sustainability law is becoming more specialised in some areas, more integrated into mainstream practice in others and increasingly shaped by questions that barely featured in legal departments a decade ago. The analysis that follows explores those themes in greater detail.