Bombshell reporting from Fox News has revealed that Hollywood star Leo DiCaprio was an integral part of the climate litigation campaign from the very beginning, teaming up with academics at UCLA to funnel financial resources to Sher Edling, a for-profit plaintiffs’ law firm that is leading the charge in court.
Fox News reports:
“Leonardo DiCaprio’s non-profit foundation awarded grants to a dark money group which, in turn, funneled money to a law firm spearheading climate nuisance lawsuits nationwide, according to emails reviewed by Fox News Digital.
“Correspondence between Dan Emmett, a major philanthropist, and Ann Carlson — a University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) climate professor — in 2017 revealed that the two worked with law firm Sher Edling to raise money for its efforts to sue oil companies over alleged climate change deception on behalf of state and local governments, according to the emails obtained by watchdog group Government Accountability & Oversight (GAO) and shared with Fox News Digital.”
The emails were obtained by the watchdog group Government Accountability & Oversight via open records litigation after a two-year legal battle in California, which reveals the funding from DiCaprio, the MacArthur Foundation, JPB Foundation, and others was funneled through the “Collective Action Fund for Accountability, Resilience and Adaptation” – a fiscal sponsorship of the Resources Legacy Fund and later the New Venture Fund.
The reporting from Fox further demonstrates that the climate litigation campaign is a national effort, and not a loose collection of state and local cases.
In fact, the story is already putting the spotlight on Minnesota, where Attorney General Keith Ellison hired Sher Edling as outside counsel for the climate lawsuit he filed in 2020. Despite Sher Edling already being paid by DiCaprio and other funders, the firm has a contingency fee agreement with Minnesota that would yield the firm “16.67% of the first $150 million recovered, and 7.5% for any portion greater than $150 million” in a favorable settlement in the case.
Jim Schultz, the Republican running against Ellison for the attorney general position in Minnesota, tweeted about the story, calling out the “Hollywood” money supporting Ellison’s case:
Ellison has previously faced immense criticism for his use of Michael Bloomberg-funded attorneys in his office from the NYU School of Law.
DiCaprio Financing Raises Legal and Ethical Questions
It is unclear whether Sher Edling has disclosed its third-party funding sources from DiCaprio and other groups when soliciting plaintiffs for climate lawsuits and when negotiating contingency fee arrangements, including in Minnesota. As George Mason University torts and legal ethics professor Michael Krauss noted in Forbes, the firm’s two revenue sources pose a serious ethics question:
“Can a non-profit funnel donations to a for-profit law firm that has already determined a different form of compensation? … If legislation through litigation is bad, what to make of legislation through litigation subsidized by taxpayers through charitable donations?”
In the case of Minnesota’s climate lawsuit, it appears that Sher Edling did not appear to disclose its outside funding from DiCaprio and other funders through the Collective Action Fund.
The Special Attorney Appointment document requires the attorneys for Sher Edling to “represent that they have the financial capacity to advance these costs, and to absorb them if this case is not successful.” Sher Edling does not disclose its third-party funding sources in the agreement. Given the fact that the law firm is engaged in similar litigation across the country – all at no cost to the various plaintiffs – it is reasonable to question how, if at all, it is able to afford taking on such a broad portfolio of “no-risk” litigation.
Evidence of Sher Edling’s outside funding raises a broader question – should litigation, and particularly litigation in the public interest, be risk-free? On a recent podcast episode discussing Hawaii’s climate litigation, when asked about the risks of pursuing climate litigation, Maui City Councilmember Kelly Takaya King said:
“It was no risk to us, to Maui County, because there was no cost.”
Conclusion
The bombshell report from Fox News that Leo DiCaprio is supporting climate lawsuits by funding Sher Edling puts a major spotlight on the behind-the-scenes workings of the entire climate litigation campaign, especially in Minnesota.
Attorney General Keith Ellison has already been under pressure for his use of Bloomberg-funded lawyers, and now faces even more criticism – and potential legal and ethical questions – for his hiring of a law firm financed by one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.
