What Lawyers Can Learn About Crisis Communications & Risk

Mitigating risks in a crisis can sometimes involve lawsuits. In fact, I would say that the most dangerous crises involve the law. Therefore, lawyers need to about mitigating risks from a crisis communications perspective. Public relations professionals are often skilled in solving and mitigating risks and information learned from experiences can actually help lawyers. That is the reason I have put together this post together.

You have to tell it early

Currently, I’m reading a few books about crisis communications written about lawyers. One thing I found that I agree with is to tell the truth early. In a crisis, I think many lawyers go in “no comment” mode, but this is actually detrimental. Of course, no one wants their words to hurt the client, but in the court of public opinion, a statement is necessary. The court of public opinion has become strong in recent years do to social media. After all, I think most people wouldn’t have their pasts used against them if it was 1999 as opposed to 2019. So, lawyers really need to keep this point in mind when they find themselves dealing with crisis management.

You have to be an ally

Even in a lawsuit, if someone’s reputation is at risk, a public relations professional will most likely be involved. However, attorney’s have more access to the client and information because of attorney-client privilege. Since this is the case, a lawyer should act as an ally with the public relations professionals on the case. In fact, the public relations professionals should be an integral part of mitigating the risks as they can lend their expertise in the court of public opinion. Lawyers need them because ultimately what the public thinks could be a point of making or breaking the case.

Understand Headlines

Many internet users don’t read articles and for those people, reading the headlines is enough. This can go really well or really bad for public relations professionals. I think for lawyers, the first priority is winning the case, but a nasty headline can still tear a client to shreds. For example, a headline that reads, “Beef jerky manufacturer issues recall due to unidentified substances found in products”. For many consumers, this is a scary headline. Perhaps the lawyer thought “unidentified substances” was a better phrase, but if that substance was just flour, a better headline would have been, “Beef Jerky recalled due to flour in products”. Headlines matter and lawyers should really consider this point when working with public relations professionals.

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Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash