The Uncertain Solicitor on ... Interdependence
Interdependence is ‘having a moment’, in public perception terms at least, although this is a strange way to look at a fundamental characteristic of life. The pandemic has had something to do with it, of course, as we have been forced to confront how closely public health and the economy, and individual and collective freedoms and responsibilities are interwoven. It has led to a lot of lip service being offered to acknowledging how intricately connected all life on earth is. Even the UK Prime Minister, in launching the Dasgupta Review of The Economics of Biodiversity early in 2021 referenced it as an incontrovertible fact. Yet, its influence on actual changes to policy and practice, behaviours and business decisions, is harder to detect.
It is not hard to work out why. To engage meaningfully with the implications of interdependence is to challenge core assumptions upon which our culture has been constructed. This can be uncomfortable on a personal level (I like feeling independent, thanks very much) and divisive when voiced publicly (who, in a commercial law firm wants to debate hierarchy, patriarchy and human supremacy over nature are just how things are, seriously?). Not to do so though, increasingly feels disingenuous at best and dishonest at worst.
A common cause of the multiple crises we are confronted with (whether of climate heating and biodiversity loss, accelerating inequality or threats to the rule of law, peace and democracy in national and international contexts) are the imbalances that have developed in humanity’s relationships. This is in terms of our relationships with the rest of the living planet that is our home and sustenance; between one another; and between our own interests and those of future generations. It feels like the immediate focus, for the foreseeable future, must be on restoring a better balance between these things.
One part of this needs to be a shift away from perceiving everything in binary terms. Our tendency, deliberately cultivated in some quarters, is to regard every issue as being a simple for or against, whether private sector versus public; profit versus non-profit; competition versus collaboration; individual versus societal; human versus non-human. In every case, of course, each element has something to contribute, as do combinations of each, yet the conversation often proceeds on the basis that if you support one, you must be against the other.
We need both a more nuanced approach to how we engage with these questions and a re-evaluation of what our ultimate goals are. The process of working this through brings with it messiness and uncertainty – the opposite of what clients want when they engage a lawyer, and not the typical lawyer’s comfort zone. However, if we leave this in the too difficult pile, we will continue to exacerbate those crises and make the situation worse for our clients and ourselves, in what might have been perceived the long, but is increasingly the short, term for us all.
My experience is that it is one thing to acknowledge this at a theoretical level. It is quite something else to work out how to translate this into practice. In a profession still dominated by chargeable hours, hourly billing and profits-per-partner, it is hard to see where the room is for conversations to explore whether this is a live concern for clients and colleagues, and if so, is it one they are willing to invest time and resource in exploring new approaches to. And if some are, what might those new approaches look like?
Maybe the B Corp movement offers some lessons. B Corps, as part of their certification, make a Declaration of Interdependence. This is largely symbolic, but what if it was annexed to each B Corps’ governance document and there was a formal commitment to “aspire to do no harm and benefit all” and to act “with the understanding that we are each dependent upon another and thus responsible for each other and future generations”? What if this was taken up by non B Corps; if investors started favouring businesses adopting this approach; if customers did? How might this change the approach to contracting and the details of legal agreements? How might this change the role of law firms – not least as businesses themselves – and what it means to act in the best interests of their clients?
These are just some of the questions I want to explore, in my work and in this column, over the coming weeks, months and years. In doing so, I hope I (and others engaging with the same and similar questions) can remember that any new structures we build will reinforce the assumptions under which they were built. We must therefore be very intentional about what our long term goal is – whether net zero emissions by 2050, the protection and restoration of at least 30% of the earth’s natural resources by 2030, material contributions to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, and/or more – and not allow this year’s targets, or taking the easy option, to deflect us from it.