Law firm cultures vary from instance to instance. Their institutional proclivities, in terms of corporate crisis management, are not defined by practice area or size. One defense practice will not, and often cannot, handle the media in the same crisis PR way that another such practice can.

Law firm media has less to do with the kind of legal work the firm does, and more to do with the personalities who manage the firm and the attitudes of those who don’t. (See Kimberley Heart’s sidebar comments, page 51, apropos of adopting crisis management to distinct institutional cultures.)

That said, there are widely applicable best practices that law firms should adopt in their media relations. Such crisis communications techniques are crafted with a flat organizational environment in mind, as well as sensitive, non-negotiable client concerns and challenging marketplace variables. Here are some guidelines for providing crisis media training workshops and seminars to handle the media and preserve corporate reputation.

Designate a single spokesperson
Law firms have a particularly acute need to designate crisis communications training course spokespersons. To the greatest extent possible, everyone else should be prohibited from talking to the press during a crisis.

Lawyers can, and should, talk to the press about legal and business trends affecting their practice. But mandate and enforce strict centralization on matters like the firm’s economic performance, partnership disputes, or, really, anything t hat affects the institution qua institution.

Leslie Corwin, a partner at New York’s Greenberg Training who often represents parties to partnership disputes, offers advice that is directly responsive to the entropy that can destroy a law firm during crisis media training. “The partnership agreement itself should contain a crisis management plan clause that assigns exclusive authority to a crisis PR single person, usually the managing partner, to speak for the firm,” he says.

Have a Crisis Management Plan and Define the Crisis
The partnership agreement should also define a crisis workshop. For example, it can specify that any lawsuit filed by or against the firm itself constitutes a crisis management plan and triggers the single-spokesperson rule. Any partner defection can be stipulated as doing the same.

Remember, lawyers revere the written word. If it’s in black and white, it’s a contractual obligation. As such, a well-wrought clause on crisis training courses can decisively change the firm’s culture, from one where partners talk too much, to one where they don’t.

Train the spokesperson
The managing partner, who is usually the spokesperson, should be trained in crisis PR seminars or classes to deal with the press. (Formal media public relations crisis media training is available from outside sources.) Interview skills are not natural. They are developed in a seminar—and they should be as basic a part of the managing partner’s job description as the ability to read a financial statement.

Contact key audiences
At the same time as you, the managing partner, effectively debar your partners from speaking to the media class during crises, you must respect them with constant updates on press inquiries and potential PR liabilities.

Don’t let them read it first in the newspapers! After all, their reputations are at issue, not just the institution’s. If they feel blindsided, the negative effects on the firm will probably be worse than the crisis itself.

Source: Richard S. Levick  link

Related: Crisis Training