Veterans of corporate litigation say that PR pros must maintain
a dialog with the press during lawsuits. But how do you manage that
when the judge has issued a gag order, you're dealing with
aggressive "no comment" attorney attitudes, or you are otherwise
restricted in your communications? You do it by maintaining
positive messaging about the company, talking around and beyond the
lawsuit, and ensuring that the brand never appears to be under
siege.
Accentuate the Positives
There is always the danger that the media will infer a systemic
company problem from an isolated lawsuit. If you legitimately can,
it is important to highlight a previously clean record. "The
implication is that there may be nothing to this because it hasn't
happened before," says independent consultant Mary Estes.
Declining to comment on a specific legal case should only be a
bridge to providing positive information about the brand and the
company, so arm everyone with company factoids. "Come back to what
you do that's best," says Christopher Corcoran, VP, Sterling
Communications. Several years ago, during his tenure at
Fleishman-Hillard, Corcoran was part of the strategic counsel for
Bridgestone/ Firestone during the Ford Explorer tire blow-out
incidents.
The team responded to the congressional and legal assaults by
reminding the media of the big picture - 80 million vehicles
driving safely on their tires; the century-old relationship with
Ford; company employees and executives who entrusted their own
families to these tires every day. Use consumer survey results,
customer satisfaction ratings, anything that helps your customer
base maintain faith in the brand they already bought into. The key
was sticking with core brand values.
Also recognize that liability suits often involve multiple parts
of a company (production, sales, etc.), and the press will probe
many departments for weak links and explosive quotes. Provide
department heads with relevant, informational responses to media
queries so that they too can reiterate things like how many
products the company makes without complaint or how many orders
they process without problems.
Be the Coordinator
Ken Ferber, staff VP, corporate communications for Wellpoint,
says that a PR pro's strongest position within the corporation
during litigation may be as the go-between, the coordinator of
messages among the various departments involved. In representing
his insurance company during a Supreme Court case, he discovered,
"It's not just the lawyers and the PR department. It's the
government relations people and business units with different
messages," and in some cases the home office and local offices with
various perspectives.
Although Ferber feels strongly that PR pros must "say and
believe" that the lawyers really run the show in these cases, he
also offered his team as a "value-added service to the legal team,"
a coordinator and polisher of messages among the various business
and legal units. "This may have been the single most effective
thing we did," he says. "If you can come in and serve as a conduit,
that inherently gives you some say in what goes on."
Accusers usually have a natural advantage in vying for public
opinion because their story is simpler and more personal than that
of the company they sue. This makes it all the more important for
companies to avoid blaming the accuser or trying to argue
legalities in the press. "The way to deal with the case is not to
deal with the case but to talk around it," says John Hellerman,
president, Hellerman Communications. He worked with one community
hospital that was fighting a complicated anti-trust suit filed by
local doctors. But it was too difficult to argue how the hospital's
policies were designed to bring new specialists to the area so that
it wouldn't have to reroute local cases to other hospitals for
better treatment. "What we did in the press was give examples of
medical cases that had to be flown to other hospitals because it
couldn't handle those cases," says Hellerman. "You have to find a
way to tell the story in the simplest way possible, and sometimes
that is symbolic."
And keep it personal, says Corcoran, because corporate entities
are easier to mistrust than people. In product liability cases, for
instance, get testimonials from satisfied customers to vouch for
the product or brand. Customers relate to trusted brands on a
personal level, so use other people's continued satisfaction with
the brand to reiterate that faith. "People who have brand equity,
they want to believe they made the right choice, and this is your
opportunity to reinforce that at every level," says Corcoran.
Press the Press
Rather than simply using a gag order or other legal constraints
as excuses not to comment, PR pros can educate the press about the
legal issues behind their necessary silence. For instance, Mary
Estes worked for a decade within hospitals and utilities where
Florida law prohibited her from discussing a patient or personal
account even if an individual sued the institution. When the press
clamored for information about a celebrity purported to be in her
hospital, Estes redirected the media to background information
about the legal constraints she worked under. "The strategy worked
well," says Estes, "because the subsequent stories focused on the
law and its history and the protection of individual rights. The
hospital's role was downplayed."
You can also press your media contacts to tell both sides of the
story fairly. Estes says that while she was not able to discuss the
individuals who were suing her institutions, she did feel it was
fair to challenge some of the journalists on the story to dig
deeper into the accuracy of the accuser's tale. "Put the onus on
the press to get the full story," she says.
The most important PR task during litigation is to maintain
business as usual without ignoring the gravity of the court case
itself, says Corcoran. "Isolate the legal issue from the corporate
brand if you can so that you can maintain the brand while allowing
the legal issue to take its course, because we all support our
system of jurisprudence," he advises.
Of course, the best PR defense during litigation is not to be
defensive at all. In Wellpoint's Supreme Court case, which involved
conflicting court opinions on the Patient's Bill of Rights, Ferber
was able to separate the case from the company altogether,
declaring successfully with the press that Wellpoint, too, was
looking forward to obeying any final court decision so that it
could achieve clarity and set future policy for the company.
Wellpoint actually lost the case in court, but Ferber believes he
won the PR suit hands down. "From a corporate point of view, we
were creating a different set of principles."
No Comment Comments
How do you obey the PR mantra -- "Never say 'No Comment'" -- and
at the same time keep yourself out of hot water with the courts or
your own legal department? Try some of these boilerplates.
- To communicate that the company acknowledges the gravity of the
case and the underlying issue involved, John Hellerman of Hellerman
Consultants recommends: "We're taking this case very seriously.
We're investigating the matter, and given that it is under
litigation that's all we're comfortable saying." - If you want the press itself to dig a bit deeper into the
validity of the accusation rather than target the accuser,
independent consultant Mary Estes suggests: "There is more to this
situation than you may know, but we are not at liberty to discuss a
person's personal business." - PR's job is to communicate, not offer excuses for not
communicating, so Christopher Corcoran, Sterling Communications,
suggests that you acknowledge the litigation if only as a bridge to
what you can talk about: "The courts limit our ability to comment,
however we can say that XYZ company remains committed to..."
Contacts: Christopher Corcoran, 707/745-2585; Mary Estes,
813/839-3324; John Hellerman, 202/966-5253; Ferber, [email protected]