#196 in weekly profile views out of
4,827 Law Firms in Los Angeles, CA
#1,022 in weekly profile views out of
314,629 total law firms Overall
Attorney Awards
About Attorney Awards
Climate Change
Climate Change
Manatt’s Climate Change Practice harnesses the firm’s traditional strengths in environmental regulation and energy project development. Our professionals apply a sophisticated understanding of the legislative and administrative arenas in turning a complex regulatory system to a business’s competitive advantage. Headquartered in California—home to a large percentage of new green technology investments in North America—Manatt’s Climate Change Practice spans across five broad disciplines.
Interpreting and Influencing Climate Change Policy
Manatt is recognized as a premier firm in government relations and policy development activities that are crucial to energy and natural resources policy development. We are advocates for clients in legislative and administrative hearings, rulemaking and regulatory proceedings, and legislative lobbying and analysis.
The passage of California’s Global Warming Solutions Act (“AB 32”) placed the state at the forefront of the debate over how to mitigate global warming. As significant is the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (“RGGI”), a substantial program mounted by various states in the Northeast. Many other states are poised to join these efforts and the federal government may soon follow suit. In addition, climate regulation in the United States has created international opportunities for businesses operating across borders.
Manatt attorneys possess a depth of knowledge gained as veterans in a wide array of critical industries and influential positions in the public sector. Our attorneys have served as senior executives, general counsel and board members at companies in such industries as energy, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, real estate and construction, and numerous other key sectors. Our perspective as lawyers, government leaders and businesspeople reflects the dynamics now driving momentum for climate change policies and regulation. The credibility and experience of our attorneys have created an impressive network of working relationships that benefit our clients.
Members of the Climate Change Practice have:
§Helped negotiate AB 32.
§Represented business interests and negotiated technology-transfer provisions as part of the U.S. government’s delegation at the Sixth Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, The Hague, Netherlands.
§Worked with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and served as its congressional liaison.
§Served with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and as energy counsel to the State Assembly’s Energy Cost and Availability Committee.
§Served as energy counsel to the County of Los Angeles.
§Held senior management positions with energy companies, including the nation’s largest natural gas distribution company and a major Latin-American developer of power plants.
§Developed an effective network of contacts in the federal legislative and executive branches, drawing on firm members’ past experience as U.S. ambassadors and foreign service members, U.S. congressmen, senior counsel to legislative leaders, and senior staff members at the White House and for the heads of Cabinet-level departments.
Developing Green Projects and Counseling Businesses
The range of energy technologies being deployed to reduce or eliminate greenhouse gas emissions is expanding rapidly, encompassing not only renewable sources like wind and solar power, but also nuclear energy, hydroelectricity, clean coal technology, carbon sequestration, and numerous other alternatives, including fuels such as cellulosic ethanol and biodiesel. Our clients seek our assistance not only with project siting, but also to maximize their exploitation of complex energy- and utility-oriented regulations. Manatt has complementary experience in representing the energy industry and in siting sizable projects locally.
Climate Change Practice In Action
§Represented real estate developments featuring green building design (LEED), stormwater containment, small hydroelectric usage, and a large-scale solar farm.
§Represented a large-scale commercial provider of solar product installation and grid-sellback services in construction licensing agreements in 15 different states, corporate mergers and acquisitions and entity formation in Delaware and California and energy research, including tariff analysis, in California and Hawaii.
§Represented business in project to create natural gas in a clean coal gasification technology and use by a retrofitted coal-fired electric generation unit.
§Advised business in efforts to remove hydrogen and other gases from coal and petroleum coke for use in electric generation and for carbon dioxide sequestration to enhance oil recovery.
§Advised businesses on how to properly advertise and maximize the value of green claims.
Financing Projects and Procuring and Trading Credits
Of course, before a project can be sited, it must be financed. Manatt’s Climate Change Practice has expertise in identifying capital market investment sources and leveraging government and other incentives that make previously impossible projects feasible.
Venture capitalists increasingly target renewable energy projects, and Manatt’s substantial contacts with the venture capital community enable us to act as advisor to project developers requiring connections with venture and private equity funds. Our clients include such venture capital companies as Bedrock Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Chanin Capital Partners, Communications Ventures, Gerard Klauer Mattison & Co., Sand Hill Capital and Labrador Ventures. We understand how our private equity and venture capital clients think and operate, and work with them as business partners. In energy development transactions we help clients evaluate the risks and rewards, decide which concerns are most important, and complete the transaction to the maximum advantage of everyone involved.
We actively monitor the near-term potential for opportunities from international, federal, state, and regional programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, working with clients to achieve emissions reduction goals. Because of our broad industry experience, we have the regulatory, tax, and economic knowledge to help investors maximize their monetization of revenue streams through the use of:
§Renewable Energy Credits
§Renewable Fuel Standard Credits
§Emission Reduction Credits
§Carbon Equivalent Credits/Carbon Credits
§U.S. Emissions Reduction Credits
§Tax/Nontax Incentives
Managing Risk and Promoting Adaptation
Climate change poses varying degrees of risk to every business. Manatt’s traditional strengths in the banking and insurance sectors inform the practice’s approach to advising these industries regarding how to reduce risks. Where there is risk, there is also opportunity. By properly accounting for climate-induced risks, these businesses can safely finance or insure a wider variety of concerns, squeezing more out of increasingly competitive markets. Bankers and insurers may need to encourage progressive steps by their customers to adapt to climate change and mitigate these risks.
Climate Change Practice In Action
§Advised on changes to corporate governance to detect and deal with impending risk from climate change regulation.
§Prepared affirmative public relations messages and required disclosures concerning efforts to protect the climate.
§Represented an entertainment industry association in conjunction with its Solid Waste Packaging Initiative to reduce the waste associated with compact disc packaging and to adopt environmentally sustainable packaging material.
Litigating Climate-Related Matters
In an area as controversial and potentially costly as mitigating and adapting to climate change, litigation will inevitably result. Manatt’s Litigation Division stands ready to assist our clients when the need arises.
Climate Change Practice In Action
§Successfully defended well-known discount store in high-profile litigation brought by well-funded environmental group challenging siting of store in Riverside County. The environmental group advanced claims under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), claiming that the project did not adequately describe and mitigate impacts of the project on climate change. These claims were universally rejected by the Superior Court of Riverside County.
§Advised multiple energy company clients on federal lawsuits alleging nuisance claims for climate change-related damages, including substantial analysis and pretrial motion work on political question, nonjusticiability and causation issues.
§Defended challenges alleging upstream and downstream climate change impacts of issuing permit for petroleum coke facility.
Employee Benefits & Global Compensation, Capital Markets, Employment & Labor, Mergers and Acquisitions, Private Equity, Sports, Tax, Employee Benefits, Business
View More
5.0/5.0
Review for
Benjamin Shatz
by a Sole Practitioner
on 07/03/13
in Appellate Practice
I consider Ben Shatz a role model for appellate attorneys--and attorneys in general. He combines his outstanding legal skills with a remarkable sense of responsibility and commitment toward his legal peers and the legal community.
I consider Ben Shatz a role model for appellate attorneys--and attorneys in general. He combines his outstanding legal skills with a remarkable sense of responsibility and commitment toward his legal peers and the legal community.
Read less
Manatt considers diversity to be a fundamental component of our institutional identity. As a law firm, we have a professional responsibility, and as individuals, we have a personal responsibility to our respective communities. Incorporating diversity into our culture allows us to enhance the high-quality, creativity and excellence in legal services that our clients have come to expect.
Manatt has invested a significant amount of human and financial resources in our own diversity program. Our philosophy is simple: include women and minority lawyers at all levels of Firm leadership and promote diversity in the legal profession through our support and active involvement in various minority civic and bar organizations.
The mix of our minority and women attorneys has consistently exceeded the national average among the country's top law firms. Our talented mix includes minority and women lawyers serving as heads of offices, members of the firm's Board of Directors and management team, and chairs of some of the firm's most important practice groups.
Inclusive Culture
Our progressive culture allows us to maintain a growing mix of women and minority lawyers, and the results illustrate this commitment. The American Lawyer ranked our Firm 29th (in the top 12%) on its Diversity Scorecard for the largest 250 law firms in the country for 2009. Multi Cultural Law Magazine included our Firm on its 2008 lists of the Top 100 Law Firms for Diversity, Top 25 Law Firms for Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders, and Top 25 Law Firms for Openly Gay/Lesbian Americans.
Despite our progress and diversity success, we can do better. Our challenge extends far beyond exceeding national averages. Our plan cannot succeed if we focus only on recruiting minority and women attorneys. The true challenge and measure for achieving success lies in creating and preserving an inclusive environment where our minority and women lawyers will stay, progress, prosper and succeed. We have implemented a formal diversity program designed to enhance our recruiting and retention of diverse attorneys through an executive mentoring program intended to cultivate personally and professionally meaningful relationships between our diverse lawyers and our partners.
Our commitment to diversity exists in a living document – a plan – that is concrete, easy to understand and publicly available. The plan demonstrates to every law school student, lateral associate candidate, lateral partner candidate, recruiter, existing client, and potential client that we are serious about creating a workplace that mirrors the breadth of the communities where we and our clients live and work.
We focus on the following key areas to accomplish our mission.
Targeted Recruitment Effort
At Manatt, recruiting women and minority attorneys does not end on law school campuses. Our recruiting efforts focus on locating talented women and minority lawyers at all levels. At law schools, we seek out and interview students who share our core values in ways shaped and enhanced by their own experience. Manatt's 2005 Summer Program was the most diverse in the Firm's history. Our nine 2005 Summer Associates included two African-American students, three Hispanic students, one Asian-American student and three Caucasian students. Five of these nine students were women.
Mentoring as a Cornerstone
Minority attorneys who join Manatt as new or lateral hires immediately become the focus of a mentoring program. They are paired with senior attorneys who take an active role in encouraging their career development. Mentors actively work with their protégés, helping them form business plans and involving them in firm-wide marketing and development opportunities. Management holds mentors accountable for their roles and their protégés' progress at the Firm, including reviewing their efforts as part of the evaluation and compensation process.
Access to Opportunity
Success is a matter of talent and opportunity. At Manatt, we believe that the key to retaining talented minority attorneys -- and therefore the key to the success of our diversity efforts -- is providing a distinctive experience that offers clear access to professional accomplishment. We provide women and minority attorneys with important responsibilities and leadership opportunities in client development activities, complex litigation, large transactional matters and high-profile community and civic organizations. We also encourage and support minority and women attorneys who take leadership positions within the firm and outside in the community at large.
Long-Term Commitment
We challenge ourselves to make our young lawyers feel valued, involved and invested in the future of the firm. We know that they will eventually occupy the most important financial, management and executive positions at Manatt. Our professionals thrive in an atmosphere that encourages and supports responsibility, ambition, and entrepreneurship. We offer true opportunity equal to individual commitment to success and advancement. That's the history of opportunity at Manatt, where professionals with talent and drive are rewarded with a nurturing, dynamic and energizing climate.
Promoting Diversity
Promoting diversity in the legal profession requires both an investment of money and time. Our women and minority attorneys are prominently involved and hold leadership positions in some of the most important minority civic and bar organizations in the country including:
Asian Americans of Equality
Asian Pacific American Legal Center
Black Entertainment and Sports Lawyers Association
California Association of Black Lawyers
California Black Chamber of Commerce
California Women's Law Center
Chilean Association of Attorneys
D.C. Commission on Asian & Pacific Islander Affairs
Hispanic National Bar Association
Inner City Law Center
International Human Rights Committee of the Association of the Bar of City of New York
Client Champion awards recognize those attorneys who excel at service as affirmed by their clients. The awards, based on the quantity
and quality of an attorney’s Martindale-Hubbell client reviews, demonstrate an ongoing commitment to delivering excellent client service.
Award recipients stand out from their peers with a platinum, gold or silver icon.
At least three reviews and a score of 4.0 or higher.
At least six reviews and a score of 4.2 or higher.
At least ten reviews and a score of 4.5 or higher.
Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP got this award in 2026
A lawyer who receives a minimum threshold of qualifying responses from fellow attorneys can qualify for one of three prestigious
Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Ratings:
AV Preeminent®: The highest peer rating standard. This rating signifies a large number of the lawyer’s peers rank him
or her at the highest level of professional excellence for their legal knowledge, communication skills and ethical standards.
Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP got this award in 2026
Distinguished: An excellent rating for a lawyer with some experience. This rating indicates the attorney is widely
respected by their peers for high professional achievement and ethical standards.
Notable: This rating indicates that the lawyer has been recognized by a large number of their peers for strong ethical standards.
Avvo Top Contributor: The Avvo Top Contributor Award is granted to attorneys who have earned significant contribution points in a given year on our sister site, Avvo.com. Contribution points are earned by answering questions in Q&A,
publishing Legal Guides, and other useful contributions to the Avvo community.
Avvo Client’s Choice: The Avvo Client's Choice Award Badge is granted to attorneys with a significant number of 4+ star reviews in a given year.
By clicking on the "Submit" button, you agree to the
Terms of Use,
Supplemental Terms
and
Privacy Policy.
You also consent to be contacted at the phone number you provided, including by autodials, text messages and/or pre-recorded calls, from Martindale and its affiliates and from or on behalf of attorneys you request or contact through this site. Consent is not a condition of purchase.
You should not send any sensitive or confidential information through this site. Emails sent through this site do not create an attorney-client relationship and may not be treated as privileged or confidential. The lawyer or law firm you are contacting is not required to, and may choose not to, accept you as a client. The Internet is not necessarily secure and emails sent though this site could be intercepted or read by third parties.
