Talk:Crowell & Moring

Update
Updated the list of offices to include Cheyenne and affiliate offices in Cairo and Riyadh. Also indicated that the firm size now exceeds 500 attorneys. Edited language to remove perceived promotional tone. Added citations where recommended. November 7, 2013.

Added information on Government Contracts practice area with appropriate citations. Updated the number of offices from 8 to 9. July 25, 2014.

Lobbying activities
Section detailing? Wikipietime (talk) 09:43, 19 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Looks like a deliberate whitewash effort to me. Came here to learn about their lobbying activities and nary a word can be found. Viriditas (talk) 20:45, 27 November 2023 (UTC)


 * I added a WP:COI tag back in 2022 since a contributor to this article, User:Beatlely, discloses on their user page that they work at this company. Marquardtika (talk) 21:00, 27 November 2023 (UTC)


 * We have a serious problem. For only one example: this firm helped the industry-sponsored "Waters Advocacy Coalition" (a bizarre, doublespeak name for a group that does exactly the opposite of what its name says) to gut the provision of the Clean Water Act.  Hardly a form of advocacy for waters, and of course, not a word about their anti-environmental lobbying in the article.  Instead we get quite a bit of greenwashing and lots of prose telling us about their social advocacy.  Quite a slant here. Viriditas (talk) 21:03, 27 November 2023 (UTC)


 * ProPublica listing. Viriditas (talk) 21:13, 27 November 2023 (UTC)


 * The severing of ties with the Edison Electric Institute right as Trump gets into power is super interesting. Viriditas (talk) 21:21, 27 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Peabody Energy, the largest coal producer in the world, represented by the firm in 2007. Peabody received the "worst possible Environmental Impact score" of all time in 2012 by Newsweek. Viriditas (talk) 22:25, 27 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Members of the firm were implicated in helping contribute to the regulatory capture of the EPA (rendering it all but toothless and incapable of enforcing the law) by industrial animal agriculture in 2007 by Sarah C. Wilson in Pace Environmental Law Review, particularly in regards to their representation of Premium Standard Farms, since the firm both helped reach the settlement for their client and drafted the EPA settlement, aka a sweetheart deal for industry. The pattern here is that of "special arrangements between private corporations and government entities, whereby the corporation and sometimes a government official reap the benefits, rather than the public". Viriditas (talk) 23:18, 27 November 2023 (UTC)


 * In 2020, the firm alerted their clients (industrial polluters?) about the increasing focus by environmental organizations on plastic pollution, an issue that Congress has addressed. According to Salcido 2022, "no comprehensive reform has emerged [on plastics, due to a] lack of federal leadership either in Congress or EPA...Citizen activism is taking up space in a growing leadership void...the plastics industry’s outsized influence in government decision-making, and a retread of the same tactics used to evade effective climate regulation."  Seems like more of the same on every issue connected to this firm.  And yet, according to their employee who wrote this article, we are expected to believe otherwise.  The discrepancy between reality and the fiction that is this article is deeply troubling. Viriditas (talk) 22:51, 27 November 2023 (UTC)


 * More evidence for regulatory capture and the revolving door: Ann R. Klee, former general counsel for the EPA under Bush, was a partner for the firm in 2007. In her testimony before Congress regarding the proposed EPA's regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, she participated as a partner of the firm but denied she represented industry or her clients while she gave her opinion about the ruling ("I would like to emphasize that the views that I express today are purely my own.  I am not here on behalf of any client or any industry sector").  But when she made that statement, she was, at least as records indicate in that same year, a registered lobbyist for the fossil fuel industry. Viriditas (talk) 23:07, 27 November 2023 (UTC)


 * All of this is merely a small sample of the literature. None of these lobbying efforts are discussed in the article, hence the NPOV tag. Viriditas (talk) 23:13, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Resolution proposal
I’m willing to remove the NPOV tag if their lobbying is made explicit (as in mentioned) and if some extended note is made of their representation of organizations in terms of their descriptive characteristics (such as their industry affiliation) and their positions in regard to their legal status. I feel that much of this is left unsaid. Viriditas (talk) 00:37, 28 November 2023 (UTC)


 * For anyone wishing to fix this problem, take a look at Jones Day. The writers of that article mention the industry affiliations in the history section and the relevant representation in at least two additional sections. I think that structure and layout could be applied here. Viriditas (talk) 00:47, 28 November 2023 (UTC)