It’s tough enough when corporations are in trouble
and their corporate reputations are at stake. There are
shareholders pounding at their doors and consumers who
may no longer buy their products.
But with law firms, a whole different set of crisis
communications problems disturbs the waters. Whatever
the crisis—a defecting practice group, a malpractice
suit, or even a crooked partner—you’ve got dozens, maybe
hundreds of owner-operators, each with their own view of
the situation.
They’re called partners. They may clamor for crisis
management training solutions that are totally
un-workable. Worst of all, they may talk to the press on
their own without a crisis management plan or course or
action, maximizing the danger that diametrically
opposite workshop messages will get sent.
Law firms have other problems. One is client
confidentiality. Often, firms simply cannot provide the
press seminars with exculpatory statements about
themselves, because it may not be in their client’s best
interest to do so.
Another is the complexity of the school crisis
management subject. When the New York-based law firm of
Kaye, Scheler, Fierman, Hays & Hendler was sued by the
government in the early 1990s for its representation of
S&L kingpin Charles Keating, a credible point was made
to the effect that the firm’s workshops were ell within
the boundaries of zealous advocacy in a regulatory
context, but that it would have exhausted the crisis
communications training courses the firm to prove it in
court. Try putting that course of action into a sound
byte for a newspaper!
The partnership agreement itself should contain a crisis
media training class or seminar hat that assigns
exclusive corporate crisis management authority to a
single person, usually the managing partner, to speak
for the firm.
Yet a fourth problem firms face is the explosive effect
of economic disclosure. You’ll recall that American
Lawyer publishes firms’ per partner profits every year.
Mismanage how you handle even somewhat negative numbers
when talking to the legal press, and you may encourage
defections from your firm or cause a palace revolt in
your crisis training classes.
Source: Richard S. Levick link
Related: Crisis Training