jats:titleAjats:scbstract</jats:sc> </jats:title>jats:pWe investigate the second law of black hole mechanics in gravitational theories with higher derivative terms in the action. Wall has described a method for defining an entropy that satisfies the second law to linear order in perturbations around a stationary black hole. We show that this can be extended to define an entropy that satisfies the second law to quadratic order in perturbations, provided that one treats the higher derivative terms in the sense of effective field theory. We also address some outstanding issues with Wall’s method, in particular its gauge invariance and its relation to the Iyer-Wald entropy.</jats:p>