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A daughter to two lawyers, Shari Shapiro said she "fought for years not to follow in the family business."
And then, in 2002, she applied to law schools.
Evidently, there's only so much a person can do to resist the gene-pool undertow.
With a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania, Shapiro joined the Center City office of Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel L.L.P. in June 2005.
What a life turn it was. The onetime product assistant for Federated Department Stores, where Shapiro tracked sales and priced the cost of new products in intimate apparel, set out to master the male-dominated field of environmental and construction law - specifically, the "green" building sector.
In a recent interview, the mother of one with another child on the way said she was lured into green building law in part because she has always been an environmentalist. A blog and efforts to start a think tank have followed. Now her goal is to get more women to join the green building cause - both in construction and law.
Question: What are the emerging issues in green building law?
Answer: You have breaches of contract: I said that I was going to develop a LEED silver building; it only came in as LEED certified. There is product liability. There are lots of new technologies and building practices. To the extent that those fail to live up to their promises, particularly in the areas of energy efficiency, that will be a liability for the product manufacturers, for the installers, for the architect or contractor who recommended use of those products.
You also have false advertising. You'll see a lot of claims about the environmental friendliness of products that may or may not be substantiated.
Q: When would you say your efforts at green building law began in earnest?
A: In 2007 I got my LEED AP [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Accredited Professional certification from the U.S. Green Building Council].
Q: LEED certification. People think of that for planners or architects. Why a lawyer?
A: If I was to learn ins and outs of green building practice and to be able to help my clients with that and create contracts with their architects, with their design professionals, or resolve conflicts around green building projects, I was really going to have to know the material. Moreover, it gives me a common language to talk to design professionals, owners, engineers, and so forth, which, I believe, makes me a better lawyer.
Q: And the blog, where did that come from?
A: I was having more thoughts and more information on green building, more than could be published in a normal publication cycle of [print journals]. I wanted to also reach a broader audience. I can have a conversation with my readers in real time and it puts me on the leading edge of people who are thinking about these issues. It's very much a young and up-and-coming field, and most of those people are strongly linked in to technology, the Internet world.
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