Law firms get green

12 March 2009

Tessa Laws

Tessa Laws, a partner with business law firm Rosenblatt, is clear as to the pressure law firms are under to keep their clients ahead of the game.

‘There has to be regulation in place as we all aim towards meeting our targets in 2020. It is our job as lawyers to keep up to date with the latest developments for our clients, whatever the industry.’

Laws was initially led to the cleantech sector due to the movement in the market towards environmentally-friendly technologies and products.

‘We had more and more clients investing in this space so two and a half years ago we became involved with the funding of a wind farm in Cyprus. On that back of that, we were able to leverage more wind deals and started to get noticed by some of the investment banks who were investing in clean energy and one thing led to another.’

As the world comes face-to-face with a crippling economic crisis, attentions have turned towards cleantech as a winner against a backdrop of flailing markets. Laws does not believe the attraction will be short-term, ‘I think cleantech is so prevalent because it is a necessity which is driven by need rather than anything else.’ It is hard to escape the fact that the environment calls for a change in mentality, ‘Children come home from school and tell you off for leaving the tap running or not recycling your paper. What people do within their homes is of course up to them but a cleaner, greener attitude is hard to avoid.’

However, that is not to say that cleantech has found the current depression plain sailing. ‘The challenges we currently face are the same as every other market,’ Laws concedes. ‘There really is no debt available and government need to kick start the debt market which is a huge challenge. Although deals are more likely to complete in this space rather than any other space , cleantech will not come away unscathed.’

In addition to the financial effects, Laws believes that stiff competition amongst market players will keep law firms on their toes.

‘There are a lot of small companies out there who have invested in the technologies of students fresh out of university with the next big cleantech idea. The challenge there is the fact that there might not be enough room in the market for everybody.’

Rosenblatt’s clients range from small start-ups to more experienced, well- known FTSE 250 companies, but Laws says that the approach they take is very much up to the client. ‘As a firm, we hand-hold hugely. We look after our clients and like to wrap them in cotton wool. We deal with both small companies and very large companies and the level of looking after is something we gauge but is very much driven by the clients.’

The firm works across the cleantech sector and Laws says there is an altruistic element to attaching yourself to the environmental sector. ‘To operate in a market which allows you to end the day feeling good that you’ve done something to benefit your kids is a good place to be ,’ Laws added. ‘That said, at the end of the day we run a business like any other business.’

Copyright © 2009 newnet

Tags: energy efficiency, renewable energy

This story was published on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 3:48 pm and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to article entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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