Law and Disorder: How Legal Industries Make Natural Disasters Worse

By Adam Earl King and Gabriella Mata

Camp Mystic, where 27 campers died in Texas this past summer, just announced the reopening of its Cypress Lake site (a part of the camp unaffected by the floods). The floods that swept through the camp far exceeded the 100-year event predicted by FEMA, and it caught many off-guard since Kerr County lacks a flood warning system. 

The decision to reopen the camp reminds us of the over 130 lives lost in the Texas floods earlier this year. These people were not a number. They were our 8-year-olds, our high-school coaches, our campers and counselors. Some of whom are still missing.

This should not be happening.

Over the past decade, extreme weather has killed roughly 700 people in Texas. The state leads the nation in flood deaths, and one in six residents lives or works in a flood hazard zone. Yet, our governments have repeatedly failed to coordinate available funding for a flood warning system in Kerr County.

These catastrophic events are not freak accidents. They are worsened by how the climate reacts when powerful corporations and governments refuse to prioritize our future and families over short-term gain. 

The term “climate change” has become too ubiquitous, detached from daily life, and increasingly the answer to “why did this terrible thing happen.” You may only think of climate change in terms of grandiose federal actions, such as the recent slashing of the green energy sector or EPA’s formal proposal that climate change doesn’t harm people.

But negative climate action is usually much more mundane. Our energy sector runs daily on countless corporate deals, government oversight actions, and legal transactions, all while the energy sector accounts for over 75% of greenhouse gas emissions–overwhelmingly from the fossil fuel industry.

Texas produces about 42% of US crude oil, making it the largest oil producer in the country. So it is no surprise that many law firms and Texas lawyers have a significant stake in supporting the fossil fuel industry. 

Between 2020 and 2024, the four most lucrative oil and gas law firms conducted over $734 billion in fossil fuel transactions. Unsurprisingly, these firms (White & Case, Latham & Watkins, A&O Sherman, and Vinson & Elkins) all have a robust Texas presence, with Vinson & Elkins being headquartered in Houston. These firms’ resources and influence have a massive impact on climate change, and by representing polluters, they make the problem worse.

Lawyers facilitate almost every fossil fuel infrastructure project, propping up an industry that costs Texans through high medical bills and shortened lifespans. Many big law firms also help cover up problems when they happen. Kirkland & Ellis–another large firm actively present in Texas and the eighth most lucrative for oil and gas transactions–helped BP minimize its liability for the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.

Texas attorneys are also found in nearly every hall of power, and, often, oil money puts them there. The oil and gas industry was the largest donor to Governor Greg Abbott’s 2022 campaign. And Christi Craddick, one of Texas’s lead oil and gas regulators, rakes in millions from personal oil rights and oil industry campaign donations. 

So, there is little question why Abbott shifted blame onto renewables for the grid’s failure during winter storm Uri–despite 73% of the outages (measured by MW capacity) coming from coal and natural gas–or, that Craddick’s commission has overseen the mismanagement of thousands of leaking, abandoned, or undocumented oil wells in the Permian Basin.

If attorneys focused more on helping–rather than harming–communities, such as by challenging Trump’s FEMA cuts, future tragedies might be avoided or, at the very least, mitigated.

We hope that, lawyer or not, we all think about our future and how our choices may have profound consequences. But for current and future lawyers in particular, the message we should take from the floods runs counter to what many in power would have you believe:

This should not be happening because we have the power to stop it.