A Democrat and two Republicans on the Baltimore County Council are united in opposition to a proposal from the county’s legal office to potentially pursue a climate lawsuit and award a no-bid contract to Sher Edling LLP, the San Francisco-based plaintiffs’ law firm that has received financial support from Leonardo DiCaprio and wealthy foundations.

The proposed contract with Sher Edling – which would pay the law firm up to 25 percent of any recovery if the potential litigation is successful – was brought before the county council during a November 15 meeting where the Baltimore Sun reported that “council members express[ed] doubts.”

Tom Quirk, a Democratic council member, didn’t hold back his deep skepticism of pursuing a lawsuit, saying it would just enrich plaintiffs’ attorneys and not advance actual solutions to address climate change:

“I’m also not very inclined to jump on some of these ambulance-chasing type of legal strategies out there nationwide that I think often are more about feeding law firms as opposed to really doing good work.” (emphasis added)

Read the full blog at EIDClimate.org.