Category: Public Relations

Electronically Stored Information, Social Media and the Rules of Professional Conduct: Are you compliant with your duties of competence and diligence?

Recently published in The National Law Review was an article about Compliance and Diligence and Electronic Media by  Charles H. Gardner of  Much Shelist, P.C.:

Electronically Stored Information and its increasingly complex progeny, social media evidence (collectively, “ESI”) are quickly being woven into the fabric of discovery and the practice of law.  As the cases and rules of professional conduct discussed below demonstrate, lawyers who fail to thoughtfully investigate and use social media evidence (both that of their own client and that of the opposing party(ies)) are not engaged in best practices.

The American Bar Association (“ABA”) Model Rule of Professional Conduct 1.1 (Competence) states that “[a] lawyer shall provide competent representation to a client. Competent representation requires the legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness and preparation reasonably necessary for the representation.” (The Model Rules have been adopted in all of the fifty states, except California, and in the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands). Comment 5 to Rule 1.1 provides, in part, that “[c]ompetent handling of a particular matter includes inquiry into and analysis of the factual and legal elements of the problem, and use of methods and procedures meeting the standards of competent practitioners. It also includes adequate preparation (emphasis added).” Further, the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility Formal Opinion No. 98-411(1998) states, “[w]e believe the ethical issues are the same whether [involving] substantial legal or procedural aspects of a client’s matter or [a lawyer’s] ethical duties in furtherance of the client’s matter.”

Much has changed since the ABA adopted the Model Rules of Professional Conduct and its predecessor guidelines. Electronic data and communication and social media communities such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter have become linchpins of society and discourse. As of December 2011, Facebook alone reported that it had 845 million monthly users and more than 483 million average daily users (http://newsroom.fb.com/content/default.aspx?NewsAreaId=22, last visited Feb. 12, 2012).

In the recent case of Griffin v. Maryland, 192 Md. App. 518, 535 (2010), the court opined, “[i]t should now be a matter of professional competence for attorneys to take the time to investigate social networking sites (emphasis added).” In addition, a 2010 study by the American Association of Matrimonial Attorneys found that an overwhelming eighty-one percent of the nation’s top divorce attorneys said that they have seen an increase in the number of cases in which social media evidence plays a role. Sixty-six percent of those attorneys cite Facebook as the primary source of such evidence. Accepting as an imminent practical reality that an attorney has or will soon have an affirmative duty to investigate social media evidence, what might the cost be to the attorney, the client, or both for failing to do so or, worse, failing to preserve such evidence?

Consider hypothetically the evidentiary value of photographs posted on a disability claimant’s social media page showing her rock climbing, for example. One can see just how persuasive ESI can be.  However, ESI can also be a minefield of professional liability. Consider the case of Lester v. Allied Concrete Company, Nos. CL08-150, CL09-223 (Va. Cir. Ct. Oct. 21, 2011) in which a Virginia attorney was found to have instructed his assistant to tell his client to remove a photograph from a social media website. Finding that the lawyer had violated Virginia’s equivalent of Model Rules 3.3 (Candor toward the tribunal), 3.4 (Fairness to opposing parties and counsel), 5.3 (Responsibilities regarding non-lawyer assistants), 8.4 (Misconduct) and rules of court regarding conduct that tends to defeat the administration of justice or to bring the courts or the legal profession into disrepute, the court sanctioned the attorney with a fine of $540,000. In addition, the court fined the client $180,000 for spoliation of evidence. For the twenty-first century practitioner, a well thought-out ESI discovery plan could mean not only the difference between success and failure in the matter at hand, but may also mean the difference between a grateful client and a client that brings a malpractice claim, a disciplinary complaint or both for ineffectiveness in investigation and preparation. However, case investigation and preparation are not the only source of risk for attorneys and judicial officers.

The case of In re: B. Carlton Terry, Jr., No. 08234 (N.C. Judicial Standards Commission, April 1, 2009) demonstrates how critical it is for attorneys to be savvy in social media and ESI discovery in general. In that family law case, the judge, plaintiff’s counsel and defense counsel were discussing Facebook in a meeting in chambers. Plaintiff’s attorney commented that she did not know what Facebook was and did not have time for it. Following the meeting in chambers, Judge Terry and defense counsel became friends on Facebook and discussed the case in some detail. Judge Terry also conducted independent investigation into plaintiff’s social media pages and quoted from them at the hearing. The judge did not inform plaintiff’s counsel of his actions until after he had entered an oral order. Plaintiff’s counsel immediately sought to and did have the judge’s order vacated. Judge Terry voluntarily disqualified himself and the case was remanded for a new hearing, costing the taxpayers a considerable amount. Ultimately Judge Terry was publicly reprimanded by consent in formal proceedings before the Judicial Standards Committee.

Had plaintiff’s counsel conducted a thorough, or even a rudimentary, ESI investigation, the wrongdoing on the part of defense counsel and the bench could have been addressed promptly which would have spared both Plaintiff and the taxpayers significant costs in having to try the same matter twice.

Furthermore, it is worth noting that the rules of professional conduct apply equally to in-house counsel and transactional attorneys as to litigators. In the more casual in-house and transactional business environments, the line between clients and business colleagues can become easily blurred. These attorneys should be especially mindful of their professional responsibilities and the implications that their actions may have on their organization in the event that litigation ensues.

Following are six simple and practical suggested steps towards developing a strong ESI discovery plan and investigation process:

  1. Educate yourself about social media and ESI in general. If you do not know where to look, you could be lost in a search engine “black hole”. Not only can you place yourself ahead of the pack in the legal community, you will also be able to communicate with your children and grandchildren!
  2. Draft a written ESI discovery plan that includes an immediate request for a discovery hold on ESI.  Be systematic and judicious in your requests. And be mindful of Model Rule 1.3 (diligence).
  3. Draft and circulate acknowledgement forms to all personnel in your organization and obtain their signatures.  These documents should educate your personnel about sound social media practices and emphasize ethical concerns as well as the legal liability to the organization, to you and to the employee, who could also face appropriate discipline for violating company policy.  Be mindful of Model Rule 5.3 (responsibilities regarding non-lawyer assistants). And, with respect to employees, be mindful of the limitations imposed by the National Labor Relations Act when drafting your policies and acknowledgement forms.
  4. Instruct your client that ESI is evidence and that the client should not tamper with or destroy such evidence until the case is completely resolved, including during the time allowed for appeals and in appellate proceedings, if any.
  5. Check your client’s social media pages.  Know what you are up against.
  6. Conduct a thorough review of any and all available ESI of the other party.  Be careful to abide by the “no contact” rules.  For example, do not send a surreptitious friend request to gain access to another party’s ESI, but rather, look only at what is publicly available to you and obtain proper warrants for any additional information.  And be prepared to argue to the court why the evidence is relevant and why it should be produced and admitted.

If you are not making diligent and competent use of ESI, you place yourself and your client at a severe disadvantage and you are arguably breaching your ethical obligations. The immediate future is a rare opportunity to be on the cutting edge of developing law.  With a little knowledge and a reasonable amount of follow-through, you can set yourself apart in the new media frontier by making sound use of the bountiful resources that new media technologies have brought to the practice of law.

Charles H. Gardner is Special Counsel to the Intellectual Property & Technology group at Much Shelist, P.C. and head of its social media practice.  Mr. Gardner is a frequent writer and lecturer on the topic of social media and new media technologies. He has been featured in Crain’s Chicago Business and The Chicago Daily Law Bulletin and will be leading a CLE seminar on the “Laws of Social Media” (tailored for house counsel and business executives) on February 21, 2012.* Before joining Much Shelist, Mr. Gardner served as Director of Legal and Business Affairs for Harpo Studios, Inc. Mr. Gardner has a juris doctorate from Loyola Law School, Los Angeles (Entertainment Law Review) and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley.  He is admitted to practice law in California, New York, Illinois, the District of Columbia and before the United States Supreme Court.

*For more information and/or for complimentary registration, please call or e-mail Mr. Rodney Abstone at CLS Executive Search at (312) 251-2564 or email rabstone@clsexecutivesearch.com. 

© 2012 Much Shelist, P.C.

When Is Research Misleading?

Sue Stock Allison, the Managing Director of The Brand Research Company, as Sister Company to Greenfield / Belser Ltd.  was recently the National Law Review’s recent Business of Law Guest Blogger.  Sue shared five key things for Law Firms to keep in mind when performing opinion research.  

Sometimes, when it comes to opinion research, what you see is not necessarily what you get. For instance, focus group moderators can inadvertently (or purposely) create bias among recipients. Or when questioned about buying habits or intentions, people may tell questioners what they want to hear, rather than what they actually feel.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve cautioned against considering all research valuable or even accurate. But there are ways to ensure that your findings are sound when undertaking research among your clients, your organization members or your markets.

Here are five tips for making sure the research your firm is using is useful:

1. Know your Goals

I know you’re thinking, “Of course, we need goals!” but, alas, research can be initiated for nutty reasons. My personal favorite: “Everyone else is doing it.” That everyone else is doing it may make initiating a new study an excellent recommendation, but you still must match your research goals to your business goals. Do you define success by a measurable return on the research investment, or do you just want to touch your most loyal clients? Are you trying to guide or justify a specific marketing expenditure or, more loosely, gauge awareness in a particular market? Knowing what you want to achieve is crucial to obtaining the data you need. Detailing the specific information you want to know, even using hypothetical statements of finding, can help you to make your objectives clear. In this case, the cart (what you wish to carry away from the research) truly comes before the horse.

2. Fully Define Your Target Audience

Do you put stock in those general market studies that “rank” your business better or worse than others? Syndicated studies are great gossip and provide fodder for your website’s homepage

(“We’re #1 in reputation for excellence for the third straight year!”), but there is limited value in being considered number one for anything if those who provide the ratings do not purchase or even influence the purchase of your services.

When conducting research, or using research conducted by someone else, you need to ensure that respondents include individuals whose opinions you really need to know. Do you want to know what your top 25 clients think, your clients with the highest potential or your clients who seem to be fading away? Are you looking for guidance from prospects for a specific service, in a specific geographic area, or from a certain type of business? If existing research was conducted among exactly the right group of individuals–excellent! If not, you’ll need to conduct your own research to get what matters to you.

3. Select the Best Methodology

As popular as they are, focus groups are one of the most misused research methodologies. They are a qualitative research method, statistically invalid, which necessarily makes them ill-suited for drawing conclusions about habits or actions. Whether you conduct one session with 10 individuals or 10 sessions with a total of 100 individuals, they are never conclusive. Focus groups are, however, an excellent way to come up with ideas about proclivities or intent that can later be tested with quantitative surveys. Focus groups can help you discover undetected problems with an ad campaign, potential challenges of a new service offering, or the usability of a website design. But when you want to understand what is most important among a number of choices, what really drives client loyalty, or how to best position your business in a market—these objectives require a quantitative method that can provide the metrics you need.

4. Ask the Right Questions the Right Way

Another common problem with focus groups and other forms of research is how easily respondents can be led to particular responses, and how hard it is for them to accurately assess and report their own motivations. When you develop your discussion guide, in-depth questionnaire or survey instrument, you need to make sure the questions are not leading, that your respondents are not primed to answer in a particular way. (In fact, when conducting focus groups, I often ask participants to write down their initial impressions before discussion even begins.) For telephone or in-person interviews, make sure your interviewers are skilled in the techniques that will bring even subconscious motivations to the surface.

5. Interpret with Caution

How do you know if your findings are truly reliable? Even if you’ve clearly laid out your goals, comprehensively defined your target, picked the best methodology, designed an effective research instrument, and used excellent interviewers, the results can still be misleading if your interpretation of the findings is flawed. Reliable interpretation begins with proper analysis of the data, which requires understanding how the target population was selected and ensuring that your resultant data includes the information needed to feed your conclusions. Perhaps the most common problems are conducting quantitative analyses with too few responses, or having a response rate that is too low–both of which beg the question: How do the non-respondents differ from those who are included in the research?

So, is research misleading? It certainly can be, but by using these guidelines, you can take the necessary steps to ensure that your research will more accurately provide the information you need.

©2011 Greenfield/Belser Ltd.

 

Law Firms Should Syndicate Social Media for Maximum Results

From the National Law Review’s  Business of Law Featured blogger Margaret Grisdela of Legal Expert Connections  provides some nice specific things to do for attorneys getting started in social media: 

Attorneys who want to make time for social media among the competing demands of court deadlines, client meetings, and practice management can increase their online visibility with a few simple publishing techniques.

This article shows you how to create and implement a social media syndication plan that will increase your law firm’s Internet marketing visibility. Learn how you can develop and leverage your firm’s customized content to populate a broad range of social media outlets.

Common social media applications for lawyers include LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. Broadly speaking, social media refers to any type of Internet and mobile-based tool for online networking, collaboration, and information sharing among web-based communities.

Getting Started With Social Media

Launching a social media campaign is actually quite simple. Signing up for LinkedIn, Twitter, and even a blog can be done in a few minutes. Momentum may quickly wane, however, when a busy attorney faces the on-going challenge of creating fresh content.

Start strategically by creating a 6-12 month editorial calendar. Let’s say you have an intellectual property law firm, encompassing several types of services. Pick one topic for each month.

Topics for three months of a calendar quarter could be: 1) copyright law; 2) patent protection; and 3) trademarks. Next, break each monthly topic down into four weekly supporting articles. For example, copyright law topics could be: a) fair use guidelines; b) protecting a copyright; c) international copyright issues; and d) negotiating licensing agreements.

Now that you have your calendar, you can start to write your articles in advance. Of course, the schedule can be interrupted or supplemented as needed to reflect breaking news.  Each blog post should be at least 250-300 words, including strategic use of keywords to attract visitors through search engine marketing. Writing for the web actually means writing for both Google and your actual site visitors.

Leverage your Social Media News Feed

Select one primary point of publication for your social media news feed. A blog works well for this purpose through the use of the “RSS” feed.  RSS is an acronym for “really simple syndication,” which means that your blog acts as a real-time news feed that can be used to distribute your content to other social media applications. Interested readers can also automatically subscribe to your blog using the RSS feed.

As a starting base, make sure all your social media accounts are properly set up and populated with a description of your law firm.

Plan to publish one main article from your editorial calendar to your blog at least once a week (more is better). It is fairly easy to use free services like HootSuite orNetVibes to then automatically transmit your blog posts to your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts. Alternatively, many social media services make it easy for you to automatically import blog posts by simply specifying the RSS feed within your profile.

You can easily extend your reach to multiple social media outlets without the need for additional time or effort when you leverage your original blog articles using these techniques.

Appoint a Social Media Manager

An essential ingredient in social media success is to put someone in charge of your campaign. Lawyers should be practicing law, so even the best laid plans for an attorney to manage a blog or other Internet marketing campaign will quickly fall to the wayside in the face of court and client demands. Look for a seasoned legal marketer with Internet marketing skills who understands the importance of complying with attorney advertising and other ethical guidelines to help manage your social media campaigns.

Business development through thought leadership marketing is a leading reason many attorneys are attracted to a blog and other social media services. The right legal marketing partner will understand strategic planning issues, the importance of keyword placement in blog posts, and the type of audience you wish to reach. They may even help you draft preliminary blog posts for your editing and publication.

Monitor Social Media Feedback

Social media is interactive, meaning that prospects and followers will comment on your posts and otherwise interact with your material. Prompt responses will make a favorable impression on your audience.  In addition to publishing fresh content regularly, you will want to watch for direct comments, republication (like “retweets”), and independent commentary. 

© Legal Expert Connections, Inc.

About the Author:

Margaret Grisdela is President of Legal Expert Connections, a national legal marketing agency serving law firms and litigation experts in the U.S. and internationally. She is the author of the legal marketing book “Courting Your Clients,” which presents a proprietary methodology for business development. An accompanying guide, the “Courting Your Clients Legal Marketing Playbook,” will be available to clients in November. Ms. Grisdela brings over 30 years of experience in marketing, publishing, and information technology to each engagement. She helps clients launch or expand successful practices in the legal field through integrated marketing programs including article placement, speaking, search engine optimized websites, publicity, and direct mail. A leader in professional organizations, she served as 2008 Co-Chair of the Legal Marketing Association South Florida City Group, and 2005 President of the Florida Direct Marketing Association. She holds a B.A. from Wayne State University and an MBA in Finance from The George Washington University. www.legalexpertconnections.com / 561-266-1030

Is Your Email Service Provider the Best?

This week’s Business of Law Guest Bloggers at the National Law Review are from Duo Consulting.  Sonny Cohen of Duo provides some good specifics on what to look for in an emailing service.

We recently received this question from a law firm marketer. I’ve edited it slightly for brevity and anonymity:

“Our email service is earning a big #fail at this point. We’ve used (Name Brand provider) with great success for small jobs and I’m talking with them about an enterprise solution. Do you have a provider you love (or a crappy one I should be warned away from)? What are the pros and cons of the systems you’ve used?”

The question, submitted to a listserv, engendered responses of affiliation with one ESP or another because they liked them, had no problems, or other good indications of service. But email delivery is more complex than you might first imagine and one size does not fit all. It is not (yet) a commodity. Personal recommendations of quality service or indications of being satisfied are a good start of an evaluation but an insufficient qualifier for engaging an email service provider. Like the acquisition of almost any service (legal or technical) it is important to understand requirements.

This is not intended to be comprehensive but merely to illustrate my point. Get this part and you might get there is more to the story. So let’s take a look at these simple factors:

  • What does your email subscriber base look like? gmail.com? or bigcompanyname.com?
  • How big a mailing would you execute at one time?
  • What is your mailing frequency?

If you send a lot of email frequently to corporate email addresses, the email reputation is critical to getting into the inbox of your subscriber. The better email service providers (ESPs) do 2 things. First, they manage the reputation of the email addresses from which they send the email (their IP addresses). The best ESPs offer you the opportunity to set up your own email address on their system. This will look something like email.lawfirm.com and email will come from something like sonny@email.lawfirm.com So while it still looks like your business, it is isolated from your domain (lawfirm.com) and from the email sending behavior or misbehavior of other clients of this ESP. Are you with me?

What happens if you send an email to a lot of people at the same domain such asxxxx@client.com where xxxx is lots of different people? When all these emails show up @client.com at one time, they look like spam. It may even look like an attack on the email server. The corporate email server receives these emails so you probably see these emails as being delivered. But they never make it into the inbox of the individual email recipients.

The better ESPs offer the capability to throttle the sending of emails so that they don’t look like a spam attack on an email server. It more closely resembles natural email commerce. Good commercial ESPs can afford to throttle the send of their emails. Spammers cannot because they’ve got way too much email to send. Are we getting esoteric yet?

ESPs are commercial companies and not a part of any website development company’s core competency. We have our favorites but we are not linked at the hip. Email services built into CRM systems such as Interaction, Salesforce, etc. are bulk mailers and do not have these deliverability features and a deliverability desk (personnel) focused on managing IP reputation. This doesn’t make them bad by any stretch. But it does affect deliverability performance.

Finally, the best ESPs are becoming messaging companies capable of delivering text messages and voice messages. If your communication strategy is to be first to market with targeted information, you may find that a text message alert system is a client service you haven’t yet considered. It is unlikely that your “economy” bulk email guy who is “friendly to deal with”  offers these extended and diversified contact capabilities. And maybe you don’t need it and never will.

Being able to track email performance is a common feature but it is not the test of a quality system. And these tools may not even provide accurate or complete information regarding the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns. Even the best (i.e. more costly) ESPs come only close to precise. Third party firms like Return Path and Pivotal Veracity might provide this higher level of email evaluation and deliverability improvement.

Price is not always a guarantee that you will get better delivery services like what I’ve identified above. But a low price pretty much guarantees that you will not. For my part, I think reaching targeted contacts for a few pennies is a pretty good deal. If you are driven to cut that penny in half, you should at least know what you are getting and what you aren’t.

Whew! Hope this is helpful. Oh yeah, who do we use? ExactTarget. But remember. One size does not fit all. Think about your requirements.

Email open rate is only one indicator of email success

© 1999-2010 Duo Consulting

About the Author:

Sonny works closely with Duo’s clients to develop their online business and marketing strategy. His tactical responsiblities include: Implementing and managing paid search engine campaigns;  Consulting on and implementing permission-based email; Providing strategic online marketing consultation to law firms and others using web analytics to help drive website and business performance and Conceputalizing and implementing social media marketing.

312-529-3003 / www.duoconsulting.com

Meeting Your Match – Law Firm Publicists as Matchmakers between Law Firms and Media

National Law Review Business of Law contributor Tom Ciesielka of TC Public Relations highlights a legal publicists role in law firm relations with the media.

Everybody hit your buzzers it's the Match Game - (Marcia Wallace with the correct answer)

I sometimes like to promote myself as an expert matchmaker. You want a date with the media? You got it. You want to get to know a certain reporter better? No problem. But PR matchmaking isn’t about dates and getting-to-know-yous, it’s about interviews and background meetings and making valuable connections with key reporters that care about your firm’s story. Consider the following tips to foster strong relationships and woo the media.

Pitch the Right Story to the Right Person at the Right Time

Would you show up to a date late, and then call your date the wrong name? Of course not, so don’t call a morning radio host who talks politics and ask about real estate law. Understand that there are many different titles in the media – reporter, producer, managing editor, columnist, executive producer, staff writer — so going straight to the host or editor in chief may not give you the best response. If you’re contacting a reporter, look for the specific beats and topic specialties to help you connect with someone who is already interested in your industry. Find the right time to contact a media outlet by first understanding its deadlines, and also by looking at editorial calendars and reading its most recent articles or program recaps to see what subjects have been recently covered. Every date is different, and likewise, pitching the media isn’t a one-size-fits-all game.

Don’t Exaggerate the Truth

Don’t tell your date you found the cure to cancer when you really just donate money to the American Cancer Society. Similarly, don’t claim to be an expert on lowering litigation costs if you charge $1,000 an hour. Talking about how wonderful your firm is gets you nowhere fast in the business world, and also can give you and your firm a bad reputation. Instead of using an exaggerated story to puff up your story, use tidbits from the real story in a captivating way. Deliver your message clearly, focusing on the parts your audience cares most about, without going overboard.  Also remember, reporters do their research, so you want to make sure you have all your facts straight.

Keep the Relationship Strong

When a date goes well, what do you do? Call and ask for another. If a story about you or your firm goes well, thank the reporter, and keep him or her on your “Hot Contacts” list. When you have additional information that would interest the same reporter, don’t just sit on it, hoping that the reporter calls you and asks what’s new. Think of it this way: every relationship needs cultivating. Cultivate your status as a credible source by sending reporters information or ideas to help with their stories, or see what they are working on and if you can help. Once you’ve established that relationship, you need to keep it going and keep it strong.

This posting is republished with permission from the Chicago Lawyer Magazine Blog “Around the Watercooler” located at:  http://h20cooler.wordpress.com/2010/

Copyright © 2010 TC Public Relations

About the Author:

Tom Ciesielka, President of TC Public Relations, has worked in public relations, marketing and business development for more than 25 years and has enjoyed working with clients ranging from law firms to distinguished authors to national and local companies. He feels privileged to have established trusting working relationships with these clients and values every opportunity he gets to help businesses grow.  He is also a former board member of the Legal Marketing Association in Chicago and has spoken at Chicago Bar Associations CLE programs.

312-422-1333 / www.tcpr.net

Not All Press is Good Press: Managing a Crisis

A friendly reminder from the National Law Review’s Business of Law Section  —Not All Press is Good Press: Managing a Crisis from Gina F. Rubel of Furia Rubel Communications, Inc. 

New York Times reporter, Peter S. Goodman, hit the nail on the head in his article, In Case of Emergency: What Not to Do. Goodman shares with us the realities of bad crisis management which equals bad press. The examples he sites are Toyota, BP (who even my 10-year-old daughter sees as an environmental villain), Goldman Sachs, and others. He also sites “image implosion” examples of LeBron James and Mel Gibson, although he skipped over Michael Vick. 

Goodman shares great points and the entire article is worth a solid read (or two). However, there are some important points all which are dependent upon the situation you are dealing with. 1) Heed established protocol: When the story is bad, disclose it immediately; however 2) there are times when silence is better. Tiger Woods can tell you why. And 3) don’t say “anything” if there’s a chance it will lead to hypocrisy and ridicule and especially if the media can tear you apart word for word. 

Goodman also reminds us that lawyers and P.R. practitioners often find themselves in a battle when it comes to handling crisis communications. This is something I know all too well – as a lawyer and publicist who handles litigation publicity. I have found my Id and Ego in battle over the best way to handle a situation many times.  (Don’t ask me if the lawyer in me is the Id or the Ego – the public relations practitioner seems to win out in me every time.) 

Goodman says, “In times of crisis, communications professionals and lawyers often pursue conflicting agendas. Communications strategists are inclined to mollify public anger with expressions of concern, while lawyers warn that contrition can be construed as admissions of guilt in potentially expensive lawsuits.” Both are correct and there can be a happy medium when they play nicely in the sandbox. 

At one point in the article, Goodman quotes Eric Dezenhall, a communications strategist in Washington, D.C., who worked in the White House for President Ronald Reagan. He says that a corporation in crisis is “absolute chaos” and that the lawyers and P.R. consultants “despise each other.” Although this isn’t far from the truth during a crisis, it makes a great case for advance crisis communications planning – a practice where most corporations (and lawyers) miss the mark. 

A crisis communications plan anticipates issues before they arise. It deals in scenarios and responses. It’s the “if this then that” game and it works. This process also works for lawyers dealing with high-stakes issues for their companies and clients. For example, when a law firm is going to file a complaint on behalf of a client, and the complaint deals with well-known entities, it behooves the law firm to understand who might see that “once-filed public” document and what questions could be asked. In many courthouses, journalists are assigned to review the public filings for the day to uncover stories. Just because a firm or client doesn’t request media attention doesn’t mean they are not going to get it. 

So what is a law firm to do? Employ media strategy. Ask: “If a member of the media calls about this complaint, what are we going to say? What if they reach out to our adversary first? Should we disclose the filing or is it better to take a wait-and-see approach with a lawyer-approved statement in place? Who will serve as the spokesperson? Who are the affected audiences? Do they need to know about the lawsuit in advance of filing? How does this affect the company’s bottom line and what are we going to do about it?” These are just a few of the questions that need to be asked. 

On the other hand, companies susceptible to lawsuits should also play the “if this then that” game. Rather than be on the defense, employ proper planning before a crisis hits. Defense firms and P.R. firms alike can provide added value to clients by being proactive – thus putting the clients on the offense whenever possible. 

At the end of the day, it is important that attorneys and public relations practitioners work together with the same agenda. Determine what needs to be accomplished and the best road to get there – even before beginning the journey.

© 2010 Furia Rubel Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author:

Gina F. Rubel Gina Rubel is the president and CEO of Furia Rubel Communications (www.furiarubel.com). A public relations expert, attorney, and author, Gina teaches professional service firms nationwide how to use integrated communications to gain credibility, to get recognized and to build and retain business. She has been named one of Pennsylvania’s Best 50 Women in Business and a Philadelphia Business Journal Woman of Distinction.  215-340-0480 www.furiarubel.com

 

Easy Tweeting – A Few Suggested Applications to Simplify Twitter

From the Business of Law Section of the National Law Review -by  Tom Ciesielka of TC Public Relations   suggests some applications that help streamline Twitter use for busy attorneys – read on:

For all those lawyers out there on Twitter, I’d like to suggest a few programs to simplify your Twitterverse.

TweetBeep

This web-based application enables users to set up a search for any keyword or phrase on Twitter, and receive hourly updates via email when any tweets include that keyword, phrase or hashtag. TweetBeep is an easy tool for tracking talk on Twitter about your firm, website, events or services. By monitoring the conversation about your firm, you can make sure you are managing your reputation and engaging with people who are interested in you – people who can become potential clients. You can also use TweetBeep as an application to measure the impact and engagement level of various cases, or track the reactions to your firm’s announcements or legal victories. It can also be a valuable tool for industry research if you monitor industry-specific terms (such as “intellectual property”) or even a competitor’s name. 

Tweet All About It

Sometimes it takes too much time to think about what to tweet (and we all know time is money). Tweet All About It makes it easy as “highlight” and “right click.” This downloadable program allows you tweet pieces of text from websites viewed on Firefox or Internet Explorer by highlighting the text, right clicking and selecting “Tweet All About It.” The text will automatically be tweeted from your Twitter username, and you will have saved time, energy & potentially, money.

Monitter

Anyone, even those without Twitter accounts, can go on the Monitter website and search and track keywords being using on Twitter (somewhat similar to TweetBeep). Users enter words into the search box and instantly see relevant tweets streaming in real-time. They can also send tweets or retweet to their accounts directly from the Monitter interface. You can download the widget for your website to keep track of what people are saying on Twitter about you or your firm.  It also can help you identify social media influencers for a certain legal topic or in a specific conversation and it allows you to quickly respond to or join those conversations.

This posting is republished with permission from the Chicago Lawyer Magazine Blog “Around the Watercooler” located at:  http://h20cooler.wordpress.com/2010/

Copyright © 2010 TC Public Relations 

Practice Descriptions and SEO: Distinguish Your Firm from the Competition

Originally posted on the National Law Review and in the LMA Virginia newsletter and contributed by Lauren Hum of Hunton & Williams LLP – some quick tips for SEOing practice descriptions on law firm’s websites: 

Differentiating your firm’s legal services from those of another firm is one of the basic tenants of legal marketing. Many firms offer the same general legal practices that directly compete with other firms for the top spots in legal rankings and search engine results. Fortunately, search engines are predictable creatures that use objective measurements to determine in what order websites are ranked. Below are a few suggestions on how to craft the most effective practice description in order to maximize search engine visibility.

Long-tail Keywords. Each practice has key phrases, usually names of specific laws or regulations, that are unique to that particular practice. It is important to identify these industry-specific keywords and include them in an appropriate place within the practice description. Using long-tailed keywords, such as “EU data protection directive,” will have the added benefit of generating traffic from visitors who have in-depth knowledge about the specific industry as opposed to more generic keywords, such as “climate change,” that will cast a wide and rather ambiguous net.

Keyword Variation. Some practices, like international arbitration, have standardized names that are used universally by almost all firms who offer that practice area. Other practices have different names that describe the same general practice area. For example, a practice may be called “Business Restructuring & Reorganization” at one firm and “Bankruptcy, Restructuring & Creditors’ Rights” at another. Even if there might be slight distinctions in their niche expertise, they are generally targeting the same sector of the legal community. Although the name of the practice should remain consistent throughout the description, not including other commonly searched alternative forms of the practice within the text will limit your reach.

Inbound Links. One of most powerful ways to raise a practice area’s search engine rank is to increase the number of inbound links to the practice description. The more links that lead to your content, the more weight search engines will give to the ranking, and the more traffic will be directed to your practice area description. There are many opportunities to place a link to a practice description on your current material, including blogs, client alerts, and other related practices.

Intelligent Design. Search engines use header, sub header, bullet, and boldface tags to determine the content of a webpage. Using these elements to structure practice area descriptions will not only make your content more comprehensible to search engines, but also present your information more effectively to website visitors.

Consider the Medium. Practice descriptions used for the website should not be the same length as practice descriptions used in proposals and other print materials. By using a practice area description that spans several pages, you are inadvertently sabotaging its chances of appearing in search results. Search engines use complex algorithms that calculate the frequency of keywords divided by the overall length of the content and thus long practice descriptions will dilute the keywords you use to categorize your law practice.

While incorporating any one of these elements into your practice’s website description will be beneficial, it is critical to keep in mind that effective SEO is dependent upon multiple components that work in unison to produce the desired effect. Furthermore, many of these recommendations can be extrapolated to attorney biographies, as they are another opportunity to distinguish your firm from the competition.

DISCLAIMER. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Hunton & Williams LLP.

Originally published in the Summer 2010 issue of LMA Practice Marketing Newsletter Copyright 2010 Legal Marketing Association –The Virginias Chapter.

Authored By Lauren Hum:

Lauren Hum is a Marketing Technology Specialist at Hunton & Williams LLP and lives in Richmond, Virginia. Ms. Hum is a Communications & Technology committee member for the Legal Marketing Association’s Virginia Chapter and a board member for the William & Mary Richmond Alumni Chapter.

BP Mismanages a Coffee Spill and the Best of @BPGlobalPR

Not surprisingly, the whole world pretty much hates BP now. And more and more people are lashing out against the oil conglomerate with attacks. Some are vicious advocacy campaigns that include pocket-hurting measures like boycotts. Others are vicious satirical jabs at a company whose reputation is being destroyed, piece by piece, day by day.

Here is the funniest attack I’ve seen. From the Upright Citizens Brigade, it’s a spoof of how BP would try to handle a boardroom coffee spill. (There is one instance of NSFW language at the end.)

Good stuff.

And coming in at a close second is the fake BP public relations Twitter feed. If you’re not familiar, many companies use the social media site Twitter to inform the public of their latest news and offerings. And someone has created a satirical @BPGlobalPR account that sends out frequent humorous updates laced with acerbic cynicism for how BP is handling this mess. Often accompanied by the sarcastic “#bpcares” disclaimer, the account advocates charity causes such as offering ”free bpcares” t-shirts that you can purchase for $25. (You can read more about @BPGlobalPR here and here.)

Here are the cleverest updates from the account so far:

SPOILER ALERT: The leak stops eventually, everyone forgets about it and we all buy another vacation home. #cantwait

Found driftwood that looks like Jesus crying oil. Not sure what it means but we’re charging 20 bucks to see it. #bpcares

If we’re being accused of being criminals, we want to be tried by a jury of our peers — wealthy execs who don’t give a damn. #fairisfair

I’ve gotta say, at night the gulf really doesn’t look that bad. #bpcares

OMG This isss ridciulsus. playing a drinking gamee where we drink a shot everytme we seeee an oily birdddd!!! LOL! so wasted!!11 #pbcares

What a gorgeous day! The ocean is filled with the most beautiful rainbows! #yourewelcome #bpcares

They want to fine us $4,300 for every barrel of oil spilled? Umm, we’re not spilling barrels, the oil is going directly into the gulf. DUH

A bird just stole my sandwich! You deserve everything you get, nature!!! #bpcares

If Top Kill doesn’t work, we’re just gonna toss a giant “Get Well Soon” card into the gulf and hope for the best. #bpcares

Just wrapped up a meeting with the EPA. Terry kept farting out loud at all the right moments. Not sure how he does it, but it’s SO FUNNY!

Funny, no one has thanked us for seasons 3-15 of Treme yet. #bpcares

The good news: Mermaids are real. The bad news: They are now extinct. #bpcares

Catastrophe is a strong word, let’s all agree to call it a whoopsie daisy.

Beverly Hillbillies marathon on TBS – now THESE guys knew what to do with an oil leak!

Not only are we dropping a top hat on the oil spill, we’re going to throw in a cane and monocle as well. Keeping it classy.

Authored by: Jared Wade

The above article is reprinted from the Risk Management Monitor – the official blog of Risk Management magazine.

Reprinted with permission from the Risk Management Monitor. Copyright 2010 Risk and Insurance Management Society, Inc. All rights reserved.