By GAIL North America

“From a purely practical business perspective, lawyers are not serving their clients well by not highlighting the more positive social or environmental pathways that these companies can (and should) be taking because there will ultimately be adverse financial repercussions if they choose short-term gains over long-term benefits.”

Rick Davis, Managing Partner at LOHAS

This series by GAIL North America spotlights our members across the United States and the diverse ways they are practising impact law. Through their stories, you’ll discover how lawyers are using their skills, knowledge, and creativity to drive meaningful change, whether they work in law firms, organisations, non-profits, or as independent practitioners.

Being an impact lawyer isn’t defined by a job title or by practicing impact law full-time. It’s about a commitment: using legal expertise to create positive outcomes for people and the planet. In each installment, we’ll share how members of our community are weaving this commitment into their careers, championing justice, sustainability, and equity in ways big and small.

For this article, we hear from Rick Davis, Managing Partner at LOHAS.

Describe your area of practice

LOHAS is not a law firm. We provide capital activation solutions to socially and environmentally impactful funds, companies, projects, and entertainment productions as well as investors, donors, and foundation grantmakers, delivering structures and strategies that help convert philanthropic contributions into tax-advantaged impact investments.

Specifically, LOHAS serves social and environmental impact company and project leaders, fund managers, and entertainment producers looking for alternative fundraising strategies and the ability to tap into the hundreds of billions of dollars in donor-advised funds and family and corporate foundation grant funds (in the U.S. alone).

LOHAS also supports individual and family donors as well as families and corporations with foundations and philanthropic funds in reimagining how they use their charitable contributions to invest in for-profit initiatives benefiting people and planet that the donors and grantors care about most, helping to unlock philanthropic funding for catalytic impact investing globally – often alongside their and others’ investment portfolio capital.

Please share your view on what it means to be an ‘impact lawyer’

To my knowledge, “impact lawyers” (outside of the nonprofit or NGO sectors) did not exist when I was a young lawyer. If they had, perhaps I would have remained in the profession. I am encouraged to see that attorneys today are using their legal skills and insight to guide clients that would like to improve the lives of others or our natural environment (whether those lawyers are supporting those impactful pursuits from inside the legal profession or not).

Why do you think it is important for lawyers to think about their work from an impact perspective? 

From a purely practical business perspective, lawyers are not serving their clients well by not highlighting the more positive social or environmental pathways that these companies can (and should) be taking because there will ultimately be adverse financial repercussions if they choose short-term gains over long-term benefits. As or more important, lawyers that cannot find purpose within their work will inevitably find their work unfulfilling, and as a consequence neither they nor their clients will receive the best efforts these lawyers have to offer.

Briefly describe your journey as a lawyer and how you came to focus your practice on making a positive impact on people and planet?

With extensive experience in the social and environmental impact sectors serving in strategy, business development, company funding, and project financing roles, my professional career has spanned legal, technology, financial, and entrepreneurial pursuits, with leadership roles in private, venture-backed, and publicly traded companies advising Fortune 500 CEO’s, sustainable project developers, social entrepreneurs, fund managers, entertainment producers, family offices, HNWIs, foundations, and governments around the world. Over my many professional years, I ultimately found that, once I had an opportunity to earn income as part of an effort to try and achieve some good in the world, it was impossible for me to contemplate going back to pursuing money only.

What drew you to GAIL?

After leaving a legal career many years ago in which I did not find great purpose, it was extremely encouraging to learn that there was an organization that not only contained like-minded attorneys but also one that fostered and supported those lawyers’ impact activities.

What’s something you’re surprisingly good at that’s not on your resume? 

Complex travel logistics – perhaps I should have been a travel agent.

Find out more about joining GAIL here.

Hear from other impact lawyers as the series continues.