Navigating the Intersection of Legal Affairs & Communications ...

By Meghan Gross, Senior VP, Schwartz MSL, MSLGROUP North America

All communicators eventually face the challenge of dealing with legal issues, made increasingly complex by our 24/7 conversation involving multiple stakeholder groups. Fuelled by conventional wisdom and pop culture, many hold the opinion that lawyers are in an enterprise to manage risk down to zero, and communicators are there to promote the enterprise?s mission and vision to the exclusion of all else. That preconceived notion can result in an underlying tension between the two functions in good times, but when layered into a crisis situation, it can impede an organization?s response and derail its progress in returning to business as usual.

However, the two functions have a lot more in common than it may seem. Both are wholly focused on protecting the organization?s reputation: they just approach it from a different vantage point. While lawyers may cringe at their counterpart?s unrelenting use of adjectives, descriptors and praise for the organization, communicators become equally frustrated at the legal team?s use of redlining, striking what they perceive to be the best brand attributes out of the press release, web copy and social media posts.

Under the best of circumstances, this tension exists and can be the reason for the delay of marketing and communications output. Under the worst of circumstances ? for example, executive wrongdoing, product recalls, and labor strikes ? this tension can result in an impasse, with stakeholders eagerly waiting for the organization?s next message as social media posts pile up, camera crews stalk the doorway and the C-suite grows increasingly anxious.

To avert this danger and bridge this gap, the two organizations should begin by developing a thorough understanding of the other?s challenges and opportunities, work styles and overall mandate. Like any form of negotiation, the best way to reach the middle ground and forge an acceptable solution is to view the situation from the other party?s vantage point and to develop workable scenarios to be deployed in the event of a crisis.

Courtroom | Courtesy: Erin Nealey on Flickr

Ultimately, a productive working relationship between a communications and a legal team is one long negotiation. Before you begin, lay the groundwork for a successful one.

First: Understand Where the Bias Comes From

Lawyers are not just being difficult. There is a reason why many lawyers are risk averse: they are trained to think that way, and paid to protect an organization whether in negotiating a contract, closing a deal, developing a litigation strategy or writing a settlement. It is an essential part of their training as law students and as young associates, and it is put to good practice as they develop their careers. This mindset saves companies a lot of money, time and potential exposure. In fact, the protection lawyers put in place for the enterprise can often be what save an organization from damage to its reputation.

In the throes of a crisis it can be maddening to see the messaging so carefully crafted be poked and prodded, examined from every angle and at times, diluted. However, it is a necessary activity. Consider the legal review an important checkpoint in a message development process that can often be infused with emotion and stress levels.

Not surprisingly, there is a reason we as communicators push the envelope: we know what does and does not make news. Reporters hang up on us. We see social media efforts fall flat because they don?t resonate with stakeholders and sound too ?corporate?. We often experience the legal protection as curtailing a healthy corporate dialogue.

However, this is all healthy tension. The best way to use it to your advantage is to acknowledge it exists, enjoy that it protects you and your organization from exposure, and build in a little extra review time if you think it may delay the crisis response.

Next: Know Your Organization and Share Your Mission

Know your organization?s business, and not just from the marketing and communications standpoint. Provide your team of communicators with greater visibility into legal and compliance issues that ultimately act on, influence, and shape your communications strategy. It can be tempting in proactive news cycles and feel-good marketing campaigns to ignore the legal and compliance issues that lurk beneath the surface. However, keeping someone on the communications team informed and engaged with that business function will pay dividends later. Whether you designate one person to be the point person for the legal department or every communicator folds this into his or her role, being aware of what could impact your communications strategy will allow your team to calibrate issues, responses, proactive campaigns accordingly throughout the year.

Similarly, educate your legal team by sharing your communications team?s goals. Demonstrate the value of positive, brand-building efforts over the year and how that supports sales, increases revenue and overall affects the organization?s productivity. Share your general programming for the year, be as specific as possible when launch dates will occur and why. This will ensure that the legal team can prepare for them, create workarounds, or share concerns if any.

Tips and Tactics for Better Working Relations Between Communications and Legal

If the two preceding activities have been in place for several months, when faced with a crisis your organization?s lawyers and communicators should be shoulder-to-shoulder at the table, designing workable solutions to the situation at hand. This foundation is essential for ensuring smooth functioning when the external environment becomes heated.

In addition to the relationship building efforts between the two departments, there are also tips and tactics that may help the process:

Develop a stakeholder map before a crisis hits. Always maintain a holistic view of the organization. It is not just about legal, and not just about the communications: when faced with a crisis it is about the entire reputation of the company and this includes many different and sometimes competing stakeholder groups. Consider developing a stakeholder map for your senior leaders in the organization, and show the impact certain communications have on different groups. This will allow your legal and compliance teams to see the big picture and develop collaborative solutions with you.

Identify ? hot-button? issues beforehand and share with any content creators. As you develop crisis communication plans, identify hot-button words, phrases, and messages. What words and issues are true deal breakers? What words and issues might have negative impact on certain stakeholder groups but not on others? Do some scenario-planning together and try to deal thorny and complex issues, such as multi-stakeholder communications, in less intense settings. Put the results in a cheat sheet, and circulate to both the Legal and Communications teams and any content creators. This will serve as an editing roadmap for the crisis and its immediate aftermath and reduce the back-and-forth editing of routine documents. Save the heavy editing session for the documents that matter the most.

Bring the legal team into your preparedness calls. Ideally, there is an early warning before a crisis hits. Allow a representative from the legal team to join your marketing and communications planning calls or meetings. This will allow Legal to identify red flags, allow Communications to ask questions and obtain guidance in real time, and streamline the materials development process.

Make it a real relationship ? not a series of time-consuming requests. The legal team is just as busy as you are. If it is a big enough crisis, they are also reviewing their own reports to legislators, regulators, and other entities. Establish a relationship with the department beforehand so if a crisis hits, they understand what you may be requesting. Offer to do a ?Communications 101? for the team and dissect a communications campaign from start to finish, showing where the legal and compliance insertion points are. Share your strategic communications calendar, and pinpoint where announcements are likely to fall during the year. Explain why the news release and social media response needs to be in tandem. Allow them to be a part of your process.

Build connections during down time. While it is in short supply in most organizations, take the quiet times as an opportunity to build the connections between your departments. Make it more personal than transactional. Have coffee and discuss what is happening in the organization. Share your views on how you each contribute to the business strategy. Discuss trends in your respective industries. It is a lot harder to lock horns with someone you know as a person.

Take time to learn their industry. Most communications people hunger for increased credibility and a seat at the table in an organization. The best way to do that is to become knowledgeable about the business and not just about what you do in it. Take time to learn about what the legal team actually does for the company. Knowing what a term sheet is can boost your credibility with transactional lawyers and just might make that next acquisition announcement flow more smoothly. Understanding a bit about the litigation process might give you more wiggle room with a litigation communications strategy. Realize that it isn?t always about the copy approval.

Comply with the legal team?s requests too. Is your company going through an audit? Is there a request for documents in litigation discovery? Remember, sometimes legal issues take priority in an organization. Be as prompt with your responses as you would want in return.

Realize you both are here to protect and enhance reputation? just from a different approach. And always, let cool heads prevail.

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Meghan Gross is the Senior Vice President and Managing Director at Schwartz MSL in Boston. She has handled an array of issues management and crisis communications scenarios, including executive transitions, personnel misconduct, workforce reductions, litigation, financial scrutiny and acquisitions. This post appears in PR News? Crisis Management Guidebook, Vol. 6, which may be purchased here.

Also watch a video interview of Meghan on social media trends and PR with PRWeek.

Source: http://blog.mslgroup.com/navigating-the-intersection-of-legal-affairs-communications/

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