OPPOSITES ATTRACT: LAW FIRMS AND PR FIRMS UNCOVER VALUE IN COLLABORATING

A court of law can be much different than the court of public opinion. Executives at all levels of management understand the need to be prepared to do battle in both. And that is where law firms and public relations firms, especially digital marketing firms, can play an essential role in leading executives through challenging legal and public affairs issues.

Court of Law v. Court of Public Opinion

Traditionally, most law firms shied away from using public relations firms on corporate issues mainly because it heightened risks that might damage a legal case. The idea that “silence cannot be quoted” led many attorneys to severely limit any internal and external discussions of an issue. By controlling both the messages and news flow, attorneys attempted to reduce potential damage without exposing vulnerabilities for legal adversaries.

And while the “silence cannot be quoted” strategy is still in use, the ease and speed at which information on an issue can emerge and spread have changed dramatically. Those shifts in communications, primarily digital, are opening more conversations between attorneys and experts in public relations and digital marketing. These conversations lead to partnerships that aim to limit the potential impact of an issue on a company’s bottom line.

A Collaboration of Law and PR

As executives address complex issues, such as employee social activism and “back-to-work” policies, the legal angles also need to be reviewed through the lenses of communications and social media. For example, in a recent poll, 43% of not vaccinated people said they would get vaccinated because their employer required it, an increase of nearly 10% in less than 30 days. The lawyers and HR executives worked through the policy implications of these mandates. And the PR and digital agency experts undoubtedly worked through rolling out these messages to employees and the public – a prime example of productive collaboration. By getting things “right,” the result was a positive, observable change in behavior.

Collaboration between law firms and public relations firms can be impactful at all community levels, especially when media coverage is involved. In the most recent Pew survey on media, overall “trust” in media has dwindled to its lowest point since Pew began measuring trust in media. But a majority of people “trust” their local media more than national media, almost by a 2-to-1 margin. Additionally, the large majority of Republicans do not trust national media, but a majority of Democrats do trust national media. Because of these shifting dynamics, communications executives and attorneys must collaborate to ensure the best messages reach the public and their audiences across all media channels.

Creating Competitive Advantages for Law Firms

Public relations and digital marketing firms can help various law firms with several key elements when building strategies to address key corporate issues:

• Research and Digital Audits – public relations firms constantly conduct primary and secondary research focused on trends, public opinion, brand strength, and media consumption habits. This market research presents a critical way law firms can partner with public relationships firms to understand issue dynamics better and plan for possible scenarios ahead of time. Regarding digital audits, a thorough assessment of a person or group’s digital properties and online reputation is imperative to understand the relationship between search engine results and digital personas. Conducting such an audit allows a firm like Everest Communications to fully understand a digital footprint and strategize how best to move forward for the client’s benefit.
• Competitive Intelligence Gathering – staying abreast of how competitors react as issues emerge is an integral part of crafting legal and public relations strategies. Often, balancing those objectives can help avoid losing market share, customers, sales revenues, and harming vendor relationships. In most cases, issues play out over a longer time frame, allowing competitors and others to adjust their strategies and actions mid-course. Monitoring competitive shifts and gathering intelligence from and on other audiences like investors, Wall Street, Capitol Hill, Governors, Mayors, and local officials are essential to staying informed.

Continued - Go to full article.