DiCaprio, Other Private Funders of Government Climate Lawsuits Paid Millions of Dollars to “Climate” Lawyers Through Through Charity – Are You Happy ?

From government accountability and oversight

WEBPAGE

New revelations solve the mystery of whether wealthy funders are actually paying millions of dollars for lawyers to file major “climate” lawsuits, despite contracts with taxpayer clients. fixed to pay attorneys millions of points as “contingency fees” from clients’ alleged damages

‘Double-dpping’ when playing? What did these generous politicians know and when did they know it?

The archived web post shows the DiCaprio Foundation boasting for the first time a gift to an organization that promotes green policies, a transfer organization whose IRS records report curious payments to the law firm behind the lawsuit

Those IRS filings appear to have obscured the real purpose but Emails obtained in litigation confirm what millions

This spring, GAO bankrupt story, presented in files ordered by a court to be published in a California Public Records Act lawsuit Government Accountability & Oversight v. Governmentthat Leonardo DiCaprio and at least one Republican green donor (and possibly another, influential Republican donor Andrew Sabin) privately financed a wave of “annoyingly annoying” lawsuits climate” by the law firm Sher Edling, LLP on behalf of government organisations.

That disclosure did not receive much attention, despite reflecting a possible revolution in the legal profession. This seems to be about to change. This is the basis of why.

Several DiCaprio-funded “climate” lawsuits have failed in court, with judges ruling that the lawsuits are an attempt to influence federal environmental policy. This caused the attorneys and plaintiffs to change their approach and emphasize that the real cases are purely local, consumer protection issues. However, it seems that despite the attorneys’ variation in rhetoric and court claims, it was the charity through which it was quietly paying millions of dollars to the law firm that brought the case.

IRS records and internet archives seem to reveal that the same privately funded project is still behind this litigation despite the apparent shift in focus, suggesting nothing has changed. apart from the packaging. As a defendant in a lawsuit in Minnesota shown when bringing the case to federal court:

Although purportedly brought under state law and in the name of consumer protection, this lawsuit by the State of Minnesota, through its attorney general (“Attorney General”), is the culmination of a scheme. years drawn up by plaintiffs’ attorneys, climate activists, and special interests to force an unrealized political and regulatory agenda through decisions of political branch of the federal government. While the Attorney General has the power to disagree with specific statements about climate and energy policy, he is not authorized to use state power to suppress speech and prevent free association as part of of a coordinated campaign to change federal climate and energy policy.

Real. And notably, the same charity behind the series of politically charged lawsuits also reported to the IRS that an unusual series of “charity grants” to the law firm were for environmental causes. , the law firm that received the grant told the court its cases were related to consumer protection and not to federal energy or environmental policy.

The same pleas from the Minnesota defendants raised the prospect that the government lawsuits were indeed privately funded. What makes this prospect all the more interesting to federal taxpayers, as a law professor note on Forbes, the fact that politicians gave Sher Edling huge ‘contingency fee’ arrangements to file these lawsuits on behalf of government clients – i.e. on behalf of their taxpayers – such as San Francisco, Oakland, New York City, Baltimore, Annapolis and Anne Arundel County (MD), Minnesota, and many more.

Contingency fee agreements pay a substantial portion of any judgment or settlement that can ultimately be reached to compensate government plaintiffs for their consequential damages against attorneys. . These agreements allow attorneys to collect a portion of damages for their clients that are attributed to the risk that attorneys take in handling cases without the opportunity for compensation and investment of their time. into risky activities that may never succeed.. And the word of the agree and related records obtained on request open records leave no room for doubt that the charge is the compensation for work.

This is particularly curious, because current documents suggest that these attorneys may have received money from Hollywood sponsors for the same work that they ultimately sought money from. government customers.

Not one but two email released on GAO and Regents insists that “Terry [Tamminen]‘s group” – at the time, Tamminen was the CEO of Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation — and Green Republican donor and law school philanthropist that supports climate lawsuits (Harvard, UCLA) Dan Emmett are “strong advocates” of the Sher Edling case. And their colleagues in a number of businesses that protect the environment and support academia, Sabintargeted to possibly also help fund the attack.

In one of these emails, we see an email forwarded from the head[] of this new organization behind the lawsuits” — Sher Edling, non-attorney, public relations person and sponsor of the LLP, Chuck Savitt – who called the funding for climate suits”Collective Action Fund“.

That term is new to GAO, now also see the phrase used by Hewlett Establish in announcing a gift to the new Venture Fund “The Collective Action Fund for Accountability, Resilience and Adaptability.” That foundation also claims that it is supporting such litigation, and so it seems a safe bet for what Savitt is referring to. That fund takee.g. $3 million from the MacArthur Foundation in 2020 for three years of employment.

It looks like Savitt is in fact referring to a difference The “Collective Action Fund” also underwrites the campaign (read more). Whatever the case, dollars are actually piling up to pay lawyers millions of dollars to file “contingency fees” lawsuits!

As the GAO noted when the DiCaprio disclosure first surfaced during the production of this document, one particularly notable aspect is the company’s contingency arrangements that promise to raise tens of millions of dollars more. la for each case in case they prevail or settle. After all, companies run the risk of not being paid. Or so, it appears that at least some taxpayer-plaintiffs may have been hypothetical when promising huge “contingency fee” payments.

The GAO points out that something called the Heritage Resource Fund (RLF) IRS filing offers a bunch of quirky reasons why it’s providing a private, for-profit corporation every day. million dollars in charitable grants, no reason suggests what the emails show as grants’ purposes: to file lawsuits (on behalf of clients, who have also contracted with the company to pay tens of millions of dollars from alleged taxpayer losses if they score big).

These reasons when the campaign was being held and some of the first lawsuits were filed were: “conserve land or sea” (2017) ($432,129), “promote healthy communities” (2018) ($1,319,625), seems to have run out of words “conserve land or sea, promote education and/or healthy communities” (2019) ($1.1 million).

However, while GAO and Regents produced, by proving the “Collective Action Fund” was private, silently funded Sher Edling’s climate lawsuits – huge ‘contingency fee’ arrangements to pay for the work, albeit – there is still some ambiguity as to whether millions have brought Sher Edling in charity allowance by RLF actually for climate lawsuits.

The emails suggested a useful way for people to look through the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. Stored on Back camera we saw a 2017 post confirming that this Collective Action Fund went to the fund of the RLF that is paying the torture company over climate nuisance suits, as discussed in the emails.

This post happened to come from the first LDF page available on Wayback, September 30, 2017. It was deleted sometime after May 2021. LDF since then. unify with other groups into one”environmental powerhouse” Is called Earth Alliance.

With this, the GAO raises once again the obvious questions raised by the disclosure that the company is being paid millions of dollars to prosecute government lawsuits that, according to public records, , it was paid. but only get paid tens and tens of millions of dollars (per customer) if won or settled:

Did the law firm disclose to its client, for example, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, that they were paid to proceed with this litigation?

That is, did the MN Legislative Advisory Committee know this when it approved the Ellison/Sher Edling contract, as a good government watchdog? If not, maybe Professor Krauss can update think about these arrangements.

The attorney provided by Michael Bloomberg in Minnesota (not to mention others like DC, RI and elsewhere), knew this when she released Sher Edling, the LLP attorney representing the state in the case. of it, promises to adhere to the Minnesota Code of Professional Conduct? (GAO’s attorney readers may recall Rule 1.8 (f) of the Model Code of Professional Conduct, adopted in claimant states such as Minnesota and Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia among other jurisdictions. It will be very how surprising really if we don’t hear more about that later.)

But if the company do disclose this about the private financing of Minnesota’s lawsuit against Ellisonthen taxpayers (and the Legislative Advisory Committee) may wonder if Ellison has informed the Commission of the full financial arrangements as he seeks approval for his Sher Edling contingency fee contract. Because that revelation doesn’t appear in material issued under Minnesota’s open records law (scroll down to about 70%).

Curious and curious people.