LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwire - Apr 21, 2011) - In honor of Earth Day 2011, Barkley Court Reporters, a privately owned court reporting firm that serves clients from 18 offices worldwide, will tomorrow fund the planting of the 30,000th tree since the launching of its unique corporate partnership with American Forests.
In 2007, after Barkley earned the distinction of being the nation's first and only court reporting firm to be government-certified as a Green Business, the firm launched an innovative environmental initiative in the document-intensive litigation services industry. Barkley partners with American Forests' "Global ReLeaf" program to fund the planting of one native tree in a forest restoration project for every deposition taken and paperless transcript purchased by a Barkley client anywhere in the world.
"We've made a serious financial commitment over the past three years to help reduce the carbon footprint of our industry, and we're delighted to announce the funding of our 30,000th native tree on Earth Day 2011," said Pat Barkley, founder of Barkley Court Reporters.
Barkley has been at the forefront of the "green business" movement for many years and was the first court reporting company to be certified by a government agency (the City of San Francisco) for making a positive contribution to the environmental well-being of a city.
"By underwriting reforestation projects worldwide every time we are hired to take a deposition and asked to provide a paperless transcript, we enlist our valued clients in an important project to preserve natural resources and better protect our environment from the destructive impact of deforestation," said Mason Farmani, chief executive officer and managing partner of Barkley Court Reporters. "We are committed to being socially responsible in everything we do as a company and to being a leader in our industry."
In addition to its innovative reforestation program, the firm has also created financial incentives for its law firm clients to go paperless for depositions and avoid printing the lengthy transcripts in hard copy. Moreover, Barkley conducts CLE seminars to educate litigators about the environmental implications of how they do business and to promote paperless depositions as a green alternative.
"On those occasions when our clients require a printed deposition transcript -- as well as for all other printing needs throughout all Barkley offices -- we use 50% post-consumer content paper, which also conserves a tremendous amount of energy and natural resources," explained Farmani.
Barkley's funding of the 30,000th tree planting since the inception of the firm's partnership with American Forests was made in conjunction with the 41st annual worldwide Earth Day celebration. In recognition of the power of millions of individual actions, Earth Day 2011 will be organized on April 22, 2011, around the theme of "A Billion Acts of Green" personal, organizational and corporate pledges to live and act sustainably. Earth Day organizers hope that A Billion Acts of Green will become the largest environmental service campaign in the world, with a goal of registering one billion actions in advance of the Earth Summit in Rio in 2012.
For more information about Barkley's "green business" credentials and the firm's partnership with American Forests, please go to