In recent years, sustainability officers have been hired by corporations and universities, foundations and government agencies to manage their relationships with the environment on many levels - ecological, social, economic, policy and political, and governmental.

But law firms? No.

Until now.

The international law firm Nixon Peabody LLP today announced the appointment of a chief sustainability officer. Carolyn Kaplan, an attorney in the firm's energy and environmental practice, will serve in the new role.

Nixon Peabody is the first in the legal industry to establish such a position, although many of the firm's clients and global industries have done so as part of corporate commitments to sustainability.

"This new position reflects our commitment to implement sustainable principles at every opportunity in our firm. We are supporting the commitment to sustainable practices that our clients are adopting and implementing," said Harry P. Trueheart III, chairman and managing partner of Nixon Peabody.

"I'm proud to serve in this new role at Nixon Peabody," said Kaplan. "In addition to improving our own performance, I believe we can assist our clients to achieve their business goals while attaining the best environmental result."

In her new role, Kaplan will work closely with Nixon Peabody's operations director to further reduce the firm's carbon footprint and implement internal green initiatives, as well as to look for opportunities to partner with clients and potential clients on joint sustainability activities.

While serving as chief sustainability officer, Kaplan will continue her legal practice in energy, environmental and land use law. Kaplan also co-chairs the firm's Renewable Energy Team and has assisted clients on a variety of renewable energy projects, including the siting of land-based and offshore wind facilities.

Nixon Peabody has been fostering sustainable business practices. Earlier this year, the firm announced the opening of its first green office in San Francisco which is a model of sustainable design, green building techniques, and a healthy work environment.

The office has been certified by the U.S. Green Building Council under the program for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, LEED, making Nixon Peabody the first law firm in the United States to be LEED certified in the category of Commercial Interiors.

In the coming months, other Nixon Peabody offices will also pursue LEED-certification.

All of the firm's offices are implementing sustainability programs, adopting waste minimization practices, switching to eco-friendly building materials and cleaning products, and identifying other ways to reduce the firm's carbon footprint.

With 700 attorneys collaborating across 25 major practice areas in 17 office locations, Nixon Peabody is one of the largest law firms in the United States and is recognized by American Lawyer Media as a "Global 100" firm.

Nixon Peabody has been recognized by FORTUNE magazine as one of its "100 Best Companies To Work For" in 2007 for the second consecutive year. The firm has also been named to the Human Rights Campaign's 2007 "Best Places To Work For GLBT Equality" list.

It didn't: Ross was let go eight days into his tenure because his employer, Ragingwire Inc., said federal law makes marijuana illegal no matter the use.

On Tuesday, the California Supreme Court is due to hear Ross' case, the latest example of the intensifying clash between federal and local authorities over marijuana use.

Ross, 45, contends that Ragingwire discriminated against him because of a back injury and violated the state's fair-employment law by punishing him for legally smoking marijuana at home.

He says he and others using medical marijuana should receive the same workplace protection from discipline that employees with valid painkiller prescriptions do. California voters legalized medicinal marijuana in 1996.

Eleven other states, including Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington state have adopted similar laws and many are now grappling with the same sticky workplace issue of employee use of medicinal marijuana.

The nonprofit marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access, which is representing Ross, estimates that 300,000 Americans use medical marijuana. The Oakland-based group said it has received hundreds of employee discrimination complaints in California since it first began tracking the issue in 2005.

"It's an extremely widespread problem," said Joe Elford, the group's chief lawyer.

Several national medical organizations and disability rights advocates have filed friend-of-the-court papers urging the Supreme Court to rule in Ross' favor.

Ross, who lives in Sacramento, said he permanently injured his back in 1983 while serving as a U.S. Air Force mechanic. He said it wasn't until 1999 that he found true pain relief with marijuana.

The American Medical Association advocates keeping marijuana classified as a tightly controlled and dangerous drug that should not be legalized until more research is conducted.

"I think I'm standing up for everybody else," Ross said. "My motivation is that I don't like to lose and that medical marijuana is effective."

So far, though, Ross has been losing.

Two lower courts have sided with Ragingwire's decision to fire Ross because federal law holds that marijuana is illegal in all guises and a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision declared that state medicinal marijuana laws don't protect users from criminal prosecution.

Ragingwire marketing chief Doug Adams declined to comment on the case.

Ragingwire, a small telecommunications company in Sacramento, has been joined in the Supreme Court by powerful corporate interests such as the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority and the Western Electrical Contractors Association Inc., who said companies could lose federal contracts and grants if they allowed employees to smoke pot.

The conservative nonprofit Pacific Legal Foundation said in a friend-of-the court filing that employers could also be liable for damage done by high workers.

"History abounds with cases of employers found liable," the Sacramento-based foundation wrote, "because their employees were driving vehicles, operating heavy equipment or otherwise performing tasks made more dangerous by their being under the influence of alcohol or drugs."

In the Department of Revenue of Kentucky vs. Davis, the court must decide if Kentucky can give tax breaks on interest from municipal bonds sold within its borders, while taxing interest earned on bonds sold in other states.

Justice David Souter disagreed with a characterization by Eric Brunstad, a lawyer for George and Catherine Davis -- Kentucky residents who hold out-of-state bonds -- that municipal bonds, like other securities, were traded like commodities.

"Yes, but it's not taxing an out-of-state commodity in the sense of a commodity which is manufactured or produced out-of-state," Souter said.

Still, Justice Anthony Kennedy said the tax breaks go against the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution.

"All states want to protect their residents and make it look like they're doing something for their residents. And that's exactly the purpose of commerce clause prohibition against explicit discrimination, which is what this is," he said.

The justices also plumbed the strength of the municipal bond market. Justice Souter noted it was "enormous" and the Supreme Court did not know what would happen if it were interrupted.

The justices appeared to support the pandering provision of a 2003 federal law that makes it a crime to promote, distribute or solicit material in a way intended to cause others to believe it contains child pornography.

They were hearing arguments in a case brought by the Bush administration urging them to uphold the law, after a U.S. appeals court struck down that provision on the grounds the government cannot suppress lawful free speech.

Bush administration lawyer Paul Clement argued that the law does not illegally infringe on free-speech or other rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

He said the law does not inhibit legitimate creative expression, and drew a distinction between mainstream movies and illegal child pornography.

"If you're taking a movie like 'Traffic' or 'American Beauty', which is not child pornography, and you're simply truthfully promoting it, you have nothing to worry about with this statute," Clement told the justices.

"Traffic" has a scene with the high-school daughter of the nation's drug czar appearing to have sex with a drug dealer; "Lolita" portrayed a middle-aged man's obsession with a young girl; "Titanic" depicted a love affair by a young couple on a doomed ship; and "American Beauty" involved a 42-year-old man's attraction to his daughter's best friend.

Chief Justice John Roberts asked the attorney who is challenging the law about the government's distinction between legitimate films and illegal child pornography.

"Not many lawyers of color end up in the Supreme Court and most of those who do are in the area of civil rights litigation," said Robert Harris, who argued once before the court in his career as a lawyer for Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

"We don't have as many of those cases as we used to so clearly that opportunity is not there for many African-American lawyers," said Harris, who is black.

Although the Supreme Court does not keep racial breakdowns of lawyers who argue before the justices, records indicate that the first black to appear before the justices was J. Alexander Chiles in 1910.

Long before he became a judge, Thurgood Marshall regularly argued civil rights cases at the Supreme Court in the 1940s and 1950s. Marshall was a rarity in those years of segregation, a black lawyer in an otherwise white world.

Under President Lyndon Johnson, he was the first black to be solicitor general, the Justice Department's top Supreme Court lawyer. Since then, two other black men — Days and Wade McCree — have held that job.

Two black men, Marshall and Clarence Thomas, have been Supreme Court justices.

Several factors account for the dearth of minorities at the court: continuing problems in recruiting and retaining blacks and other minorities at the top law firms; the rise of a small group of lawyers who focus on Supreme Court cases; the decline in civil rights cases that make it to the high court; and the court's dwindling caseload.

"It breaks my heart. It's the minority pipeline, the dwindling caseload, all of these things," Days told The Associated Press.

Days said he, too, has trouble attracting black lawyers to his firm. He recounted how he lost out to a philanthropic foundation over the services of a former clerk for a Supreme Court justice.

Two recent studies point up the trends. Of 46 Washington law offices with more than 100 attorneys, 28 reported that less than 3 percent of their partners are black. Seven firms had no black partners, according to a report by Building a Better Legal Profession, a group of law students who compiled data provided by the firms.

Morrison & Foerster's Washington office, where Days works, has just two black partners, although that placed the firm fourth in the Washington rankings at 5.6 percent. Blacks are better represented among associates at these firms.

Two-thirds of minority lawyers leave their firms within the first four years of practice, generally too short a period in which to make partner, the American Bar Association has said.

Nationally, about 5 percent of law firm partners are black, a number that has crept higher over the past 30 years. Partners typically share in firms' profits or losses, while associates are employees.

At the same time, a fairly small circle of lawyers controls more and more of the court's caseload even as the number of cases the justices accept is going down, Georgetown University law professor Richard Lazarus argues in a study.

This "increasing domination is evidenced by the rising percentage of oral advocates appearing more than once within a single term, a feat most typically accomplished only by attorneys within the Solicitor General's Office," Lazarus said. The study will be published soon in the Georgetown University Law Journal.

A case in point is Carter Phillips, managing partner of the Sidley Austin firm's Washington office. Phillips has argued 54 cases at the court in his career, more than all but three lawyers who continue to practice. Next month he will argue two cases in one week.

With his 24th oral argument approaching, Days seems to be the only active black lawyer with a high number of cases before the Supreme Court, Lazarus said.

The rise of an elite corps of Supreme Court lawyers rankles others in the profession who say the court regulars solicit their clients once the justices decide to hear a case.

"It perpetuates a little club and denies a lot of lawyers the opportunity to present their case, and it is their case, to the highest court in the land," said Gary LaFayette, a black lawyer from San Francisco who won his only argument in 2002 on behalf of the Oakland Housing Authority.

Harris, who recently retired as a PG&E vice president, said his moment of glory at the court was "highly unusual and not likely to be repeated." He won the case in which the utility argued that it should not be forced to allow consumer groups to put messages in monthly billing envelopes.

Even more than 20 years ago, he said, "You can imagine that it was not a foregone conclusion that I, a young African-American lawyer, would argue the case."