Environmental & Energy Law in BigLaw

Ten years ago, environmental law in BigLaw meant defending companies against EPA enforcement actions and permitting disputes. It was important but niche. Today, the energy transition has turned this into one of the fastest-growing practice areas in the Am Law 100.

Every major infrastructure project, solar farms, wind installations, battery storage, LNG terminals, hydrogen facilities, carbon capture, needs environmental review, permitting, regulatory compliance, and financing. BigLaw firms are staffing up accordingly.

What Associates Actually Do

Environmental and energy work in BigLaw splits into a few distinct buckets:

Project Finance and Development. This is the transactional side. You are helping clients finance and build energy projects. A junior associate might draft or review power purchase agreements, negotiate EPC contracts, structure tax equity deals for renewable projects, or work on project finance closings. If you like deals but want them connected to something tangible, this is it.

Regulatory and Permitting. Every energy project needs permits, NEPA reviews, Clean Air Act compliance, endangered species consultations, state-level environmental impact reviews. Associates in this area spend time drafting comment letters, preparing permit applications, and advising clients on compliance strategies. The work is detail-oriented and requires understanding how federal and state agencies actually operate.

Environmental Litigation and Enforcement. When things go wrong, contamination, permit violations, Superfund liability, companies need defense counsel. This can involve responding to EPA information requests, negotiating consent decrees, managing remediation obligations, and occasionally going to trial. It is litigation, but with a heavy scientific and regulatory overlay.

ESG and Sustainability Advisory. This is newer and still evolving. Large companies are making sustainability commitments and need lawyers to help them navigate disclosure requirements, greenwashing risks, and the rapidly changing rules around ESG. The SEC climate disclosure rules have created an entire new compliance workstream.

Which Firms Lead

Latham & Watkins has the largest environmental and energy practice in BigLaw by headcount and revenue. Their clean energy and project finance work is enormous, they have been involved in many of the largest renewable energy financings in the U.S.

Baker Botts and Vinson & Elkins are dominant in traditional energy (oil and gas, LNG, pipelines) and have expanded aggressively into renewables. Both are based in Houston, which remains the capital of the energy industry.

Kirkland & Ellis does significant energy-related PE work, particularly in power and infrastructure funds.

Covington and Arnold & Porter are strong on the regulatory side, particularly in DC where they interface with EPA, FERC, and other agencies.

What Makes This Area Different

Unlike M&A or litigation, environmental and energy work connects directly to physical projects and real-world outcomes. You can drive past a wind farm your team helped finance. You can point to a contaminated site your team helped remediate. For people who want their legal work to feel connected to something concrete, this is appealing.

The work also tends to be more interdisciplinary than other BigLaw practices. You regularly work with engineers, environmental scientists, and policy experts. If you find pure contract drafting tedious, the variety here might be a better fit.

Hours and Lifestyle

Environmental and energy practices at BigLaw firms still have BigLaw hours. But the work tends to be more predictable than M&A, project timelines are measured in months, not frantic deal sprints. There are busy periods around financing closings and regulatory deadlines, but you are less likely to get the 2 AM fire drill that corporate associates know well.

Who Should Consider This

If you have a science or engineering background, that is a significant advantage, particularly for environmental litigation and regulatory work. But it is not required. Most environmental associates in BigLaw come from traditional law school backgrounds.

The key question is whether you are interested in the intersection of law, regulation, and real-world infrastructure. If you find energy policy interesting, if you care about how things get built and financed, or if you want a practice area that is growing rather than contracting, this is worth a serious look.