Portrait of a Legal Brand on Fire
When Herbert Smith Freehills agreed to pay the National Portrait Gallery £35,000 one might assume it was in the hope of being regarded as a cultural benefactor. Instead, it has found itself accused of being a climate change precipitator. The gallery, meanwhile, rather than being congratulated on securing more funds for the Arts, has had its judgment questioned for replacing fossil fuel companies as sponsors with those companies’ legal advisors. What’s going on?
The first thing to be clear about is this is not philanthropy on HSF’s part. This is a transaction about brands. Specifically, HSF has paid NPG in the expectation their brand will be burnished by association with the good name of a national artistic institution. This is a transaction typically attracting VAT as a payment for goods and services. If the intent was to be philanthropic, HSF could have made a donation without the expectation their name would be attached to a prize (and could receive a tax credit in the process). It could still have been named along with other donors in exhibition programmes and in the gallery foyer, but would not have the prominence gained through the agreement it made with NPG.
For HSF, perhaps better on reflection simply to be one name among many appearing as supporters of the arts without needing to bolster their brand further. For NPG, maybe a focus on attracting more law firms with less contentious clients, each paying more modest amounts, would threaten its own reputation less. (Maybe an initiative called Lawyers for Culture, though the Lawyers for Culture Club might give the wrong impression).
NPG Director Nicholas Cullinan complained that “you would be hard pressed to find any bank or law firm that didn’t have investments in energy”. It’s true lots of law firms do some energy work, but not all do; few do as much as HSF; and some are focusing now on supporting only the clean energy or transition activities of such clients. Choosing as sponsor one of the largest oil and gas legal practices in the City suggests either no due diligence was undertaken on their potential sponsor, despite the history of challenges the Gallery had over its relationship with BP, or the Gallery was blind to the implications of what it uncovered.
Cullinan also said museums could not afford to be activists. Whilst his frustration is understandable, both because it makes his job of attracting third party funding harder and because the museum has been plagued by Just Stop Oil activists in recent times, one could argue that on the contrary, none of us can afford not to be activists. What has become increasingly apparent in recent years is how the interconnections between everything are at the heart of the polycrisis we face. They are the reason why it is not possible to look at the sponsorship arrangements of an institution like the NPG in a vacuum which ignores the activities of the partners it selects. They are also why these arrangements are an opportunity for the NPG – and many other charities – to contribute to the cultural shift that is the only way to deliver emissions reductions at the rate necessary to avoid catastrophic global heating.
Activism on the part of charities by exercising discretion around who they partner with, just like activism on the part of law firms like HSF (and other professional service providers) by being more discerning about the work they do and do not take on, has a cumulative impact in influencing the speed at which we embrace the transition to a net zero economy. Activism is not only locking on, throwing paint and stopping traffic.
If Big Law were to do this, even in small numbers to begin with, the signal would resonate a long way. It would invite the clients genuinely interested in transition to demand similar, not only of their lawyers, but other advisors, and this in turn would put pressure on others to adopt a similar approach. This would be an important contribution to the transition, whilst making business sense for forward looking practices. It would also reduce the risk they currently face of being called out for the work they do which remains incompatible with the ambitions of the Paris Agreement. Some law firms, despite Cullinan’s assertion, have recognised this is the inevitable direction of travel and are demonstrating leadership in forging this path through the Legal Charter 1.5.
HSF put themselves in the spotlight with their sponsorship of the NPG and attracted flak for ‘brand laundering’. The members of the Legal Charter 1.5 will do the same if they do not deliver on their commitments. But if they do, or even if they demonstrate a genuine attempt to do so, it should be the laggards and those that refuse to engage that are the focus of opprobrium.
Similarly, cultural institutions and charities can be discerning about whom they associate their good names with and seek to have a positive influence on corporate behaviours and public perceptions in doing so. As the latest science shows how far off track we continue to be and how devastating the consequences, it is clear we need to be open to rethinking everything through the lens of the contributions we can each make. That HSF and NPG are by no means alone in not doing this yet is no defence for them and will not be others treading the same harmful paths.