Law Firms Waking Up to PR Issues Posed by Law Gossip Blogs
Once upon a time, a law firm only had to worry about office gossip circulating among its own troops and their friends in the local legal community. Today, leaked information can potentially reach huge numbers of strangers throughout the world in record time, thanks to electronic communications and legal gossip blogs—yet many law firms aren’t focusing on this risk.
“Whether the topic is layoffs or love affairs, it seems that no subject is too edgy for sites such as Above the Law, Greedy Associates, AutoAdmit and a few others that dig up the legal profession’s dirt,” reports the National Law Journal in an article reprinted in New York Lawyer (reg. req.).
Among the examples cited by the legal publication: firm e-mails sent to associates about bonuses that are likely to be forwarded in short order to law bloggers (some firms are hence providing bonus information in individual sit-down meetings instead) and an internal law firm promotional song commissioned by Nixon Peabody.
After the “Everyone’s a Winner at Nixon Peabody!” song made it onto YouTube, Above the Law further publicized the song, drawing threats of litigation from the firm—and, as a result, even more public attention. (A link to the song is provided by Above the Law.)
With the benefit of hindsight, it’s clear that the firm’s reaction was a “PR gaffe,” Richard Rochford, who chairs Nixon Peabody’s intellectual property practice, tells the NLJ.
Wary of potential Internet public relations issues, some avant-garde law firms are keeping a close eye on legal blogs and developing policies intended to curtail embarrassing information leaks. And more should consider doing so, according to partner Sarah Pierce Wimberly of Ford & Harrison.
A law firm has the power to prohibit its lawyers from providing internal information to the media, and can fire attorneys for violating this rule, whether written or verbal, she points out. Most firms, however, don’t have such a rule, she says, in part because many senior partners apparently are blissfully unaware of the influence of the legal blogging world.
“There’s a generation gap,” she says. “They need to be cognizant.”
Related coverage:
National Law Journal: “Online Pretrial Publicity Draws Fire”
