BigLaw

June 5, 2015

The Crisis Show Library on Audio Now Rolling Out

logo-big

 

 

Today we’re proud to begin the rollout of The Crisis Show Library on audio. It will consist of nearly all 100 episodes of The Crisis Show that began production in June 2012 and running through Spring 2015.

We are rolling out 20 of our favorite shows this weekend on a wide variety of topics: natural disasters/emergency management, social media crises, health crises, CEO leadership and workplace violence to name a few.

For the past three years, we’ve put much effort into making the show about crisis management education from many angles. And we’ve attracted some of the best minds in the business around the globe as guests — all who have given much of their time to deliver information viewers/listeners can use immediately. I thank them!

The show has mostly been broadcast live (with some pre-recorded the same day) to deliver up-to-date analysis of high profile crises: Newtown, CT school shooting, Superstorm Sandy, Australia brushfires, a Brazil nightclub tragedy, a horsemeat scandal that swept Europe, virus outbreaks on cruise ships, deadly tornadoes and earthquakes, the Boston Marathon bombing and major transportation disasters around the world.

We’ve covered CEOS, world leaders, college presidents and celebrities involved in recalls, scandals, crimes, natural/manmade disasters and reputation crises.

This Crisis Show was born on Google Hangouts on Air/YouTube and you can still watch the videos there. But having high resolution audio files that can be easily played in your car, tablets/iPads and mobile phones makes it more accessible than ever. (Note: My guitar hero Jimmy Page was NOT available to produce the audios but they still sound pretty darn good:))

Most episodes will cost $2.99 with a few at $3.99 because of their extra time/file size and additional guests. These include our special “Back to School” episodes and some “anniversary” editions that include mini All-Star teams of crisis management packed into extended shows.

If you ultimately purchased the entire library at say $299, that’s still cheaper than what you would pay today for a one or two hour webinar or seminar. So, in my humble opinion, every episode we make available is a fabulous value and costs less than most fancy coffees. Caffeine aside, this information WILL help you sleep at night because you will quickly gain confidence in your ability — and your staff’s ability — to manage a serious crisis that can ruin your organizations reputation.

We’re using a platform called Gumroad and hope you find it easy to use for purchasing and downloading your files from The Crisis Show Library. But if you have any issues with it, just email me: rich@richkleincrisis.com or TheCrisisShow@gmail.com. You can also DM me on Twitter via @RichKleinCrisis and @TheCrisisShow.

Thanks to everyone around the world who has watched and supported the show the past three years.

And thanks in advance to those ready to buy our audio episodes.

You will certainly learn much about what to do and say before, during and after a crisis to protect hard-earned reputation in front of your critical audiences.

PS…We don’t want to break the Internet by rolling out all episodes at once so please be patient as we spread these out over the coming week.

 

January 30, 2014

Introducing The Crisis Management Advisor on Google Helpouts

I’m thrilled to be selected by Google this month as the first Crisis Management advisor on the new platform known as Helpouts. Helpouts allows me to counsel clients around the world with high resolution video that also allows us to share screens and collaborate. It’s been made so easy to make an online appointment and to pay for your time with me, either by the minute or by the session.

I look forward to meeting and advising individuals, companies and organizations facing crisis situations in 2014 and beyond using this great tool.

On the Helpout, I’ll quickly gauge the seriousness of your crisis, make recommendations and then get to work on the process of protecting your reputation.

That can take the form of creating sharp content that influences public opinion, helping to identify the right spokespeople, conducting media training for mock interviews and news conferences, teaching you how to deal with the media and how to use social media at all stages of a crisis (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube and more).

Remember – a few hundred dollars spent on a Helpout could save millions of dollars of lost revenue due to a crisis situation that catches you and your organization off guard and that could destroy goodwill and hard-earned reputation.

December 14, 2012

Law Firm Partners: 10 Actions To Polish Your Reputation in 2013

December is a great time for law firm partners to plan for significantly raising visibility and improving reputation in the new year.

Here’s 10 actions you can start implementing right now so you are positioned for business growth in 2013:

1 – Fix your biography so people can learn quickly what you’ve accomplished for similar clients in recent years. Did you win a high stakes litigation for a Fortune 500 company? Did you handle a mega-merger that was favorable to client? Lead with your best stuff, NOT where you went to law school!

2– Put some meat on your LinkedIn profile. The same revised biographical info on your firm website can go on LinkedIn. Be sure the copy is about how you serve and succeed for clients and not a laundry list of fancy titles and bar memberships.

3 — Learn how to use the Advanced Search capabilities on LinkedIn to create a powerful list of prospects customized by items such as geography, job title, company, etc.

4 — Consider launching a practice-specific blog. And, no, you don’t have to blog every day. You can post as little as once per week or month and the posts can be just a few sentences or a short audio or video.

5 — Create a Twitter account and start Tweeting every few days. An easy way to start is by sharing other people’s news that is related to your practice or linking to your new blog post.

6 —  Record and post to YouTube a 2 to 3 minute video that analyzes a hot legal issue in your practice (s) area. This is one way to establish/expand your thought leadership and will improve your search engine results very quickly.  Here’s one we did for a client earlier this year that received 8,000+ views and another that has surpassed 10,000 views.

7 — Identify and secure speaking engagements where your best prospects gather. Want to be a more powerful presenter? Study Steve Jobs and read The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs. You can also watch a wide variety of great presentations at TED. Here’s one by Seth Godin that is a great example of excellent presentation and inspiring content.

8– Learn how to deal more effectively with the media and consider hiring a professional who can help you with messaging, transitions, body language and answering the toughest questions.  (At LawFirmsPR, we now do this kind of training by Skype, including a video recording and written audit, so you can quickly learn and improve.)

9– Increase your likability and trust. I highly recommend reading The Likability Factor, Trust Agents and Book Yourself Solid.

10– Learn more about crisis/litigation communications for your firm and your clients. A good place to start is The Crisis Show,  a weekly Internet broadcast I started in June 2012 with case studies on a wide variety of crises that touch the legal world —  and with nearly 20 hours of free content so far.

March 30, 2012

Legal Marketing and Lawyer Videos: A Case Study

For more than a decade I’ve enjoyed shooting and editing high definition videos in my personal life. So, in late 2010, I decided to add the service to my LawFirmsPR and Rich Social Media businesses. My most recent projects for a New York criminal defense attorney, though, have received thousands of views in March 2012 alone…9,000 views to be more precise as we write this.

Here’s one that was posted on March 3, 2012 that, as of today,has 5,180 views and 176 “Likes” on YouTube. It also is #3 on YouTube for the search “juvenile crimes.”

And here’s the second one, posted March 13, 2012,  tied to breaking news. It has 4,000 hits and 114 “Likes” on YouTube and is on the 1st page of Google Videos and YouTube for a wide variety of popular searches related to this story.

If your law firm is NOT yet using video to deliver valuable information to prospective clients, then you are missing out on an opportunity to let people get to know you when you can’t meet with them in person. What’s more, the Google/YouTube analytics offered us great marketing insights into how people first found the videos, whether it was YouTube, Twitter, Google+ or Facebook. So unlike some other forms of PR/marketing communication, the data here is measurable. And most lawyers would be surprised to learn which social media site our client received the most hits from.

You don’t need to create a “viral” video to succeed. These two videos not only raised our client’s visibility online but we used one in a media pitch that resulted in a reporter from the Associated Press quickly requesting an interview with our client…and yes he got quoted in the article that was picked up by thousands of media outlets around the world.

To learn more about creating videos for your law firm, please send an email to rich@LawFirmsPR.com or call 646-789-5459.

June 15, 2011

Lawyer Moshe Gerstein Indicted; Gibson Dunn Misses Opportunity To Speak Out

News late today that a 35-year-old associate at Gibson Dunn has been indicted on two counts of promoting a sexual performance by a child and five counts of possessing a sexual performance of a child brings us back to the issue of how big law firms manage crisis situations.

“These images are not pornography…these are babies, these are toddlers and children being brutally raped, sexually assaulted and exploited by adults on camera,” said Manhattan D.A. Cyrus R. Vance Jr.

So far, the firm has removed Moshe Gerstein’s biography from the firm’s website, which was a good start. But the firm and managing partner Kenneth M. Doran missed a golden opportunity to say SOMETHING about how horrible it is to find out one of your attorneys was allegedly involved in one of the most despicable crimes imaginable.

This wasn’t about an adult shooting photos of himself in a gym and then sharing a provocative photo with young women on Twitter.  It was a grown man allegedly in possession of some 5,000 images of very young children on three home computers and an external hard drive, some reportedly who were victims of violent sexual assaults.

The Gibson Dunn spokesperson was quoted as saying that “we don’t comment on personal matters.” I would advise the firm differently. The firm could have issued a measured statement and said it was cooperating fully with prosecutors in their investigation to make sure none of the firm’s computers contained any materials that Gerstein is alleged to have acquired.

Why would the firm say that? Well, if someone has 5,000 images of child porn on three home computers, wouldn’t lawyers at least consider the possibility that one of those photos ended up on his Gibson Dunn computers?

Saying “no comment” or declining comment because of “personal” or “personnel” matters only harms a law firm’s reputation further because it lets the media and others control the crisis story.

In this case, it’s even worse because Gibson Dunn heavily promotes its pro bono work for an organization called the Alliance for Children’s Rights, an organization that provides free legal services and advocacy to protect the rights of impoverished and abused children and youth so that they have safe, stable homes, health care and the education they need to thrive.

The firm’s management is proud of this pro bono work –as it should be — but that also means it’s educated about abused children. That’s all the more reason that the firm should have issued a statement today.

October 4, 2010

Statement by Orrick/Akin Gump About Ending Merger Talks Comes Up Short

Someone inside BigLaw will talk eventually to the media (or an influential legal blog) about why these merger talks did not continue. So, I’m surprised that Orrick and Akin Gump didn’t go a bit further with their joint statement released today:

“Orrick and Akin Gump have mutually agreed to conclude preliminary discussions regarding the possibility of a merger. The firms appreciated the opportunity to have the discussions, which confirmed their mutual respect for one another. However, the firms have determined not to proceed.”

This statement begs the question: “Why didn’t you proceed? ”

Whenever merger talks end, usually it’s because of either economics, serious client conflicts, firm culture or all of the above. The two firms could have gone slightly further in their statement by saying there was a “difference of opinion” regarding one of these issues.

In 2007, when Orrick and Dewey (then Dewey Ballantine) ended their merger discussions, the two firms issued this statement:

“Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP and Dewey Ballantine LLP have jointly decided to end merger discussions. Both firms are successful, global firms that saw great potential in a combination. However, a combination of this size and scope posed significant challenges. While both firms tried their best to work through these challenges, we were unable to bring the merger to completion. No one issue led us to this point, and each firm leaves this process with great respect for the leaders and partners of the other.”

OK..the 2007 statement at least says that it was not “one issue.”

What’s also interesting is that Orrick and Dewey issued a lengthy joint news release when they started discussions in October 2006.

I welcome other thoughts on these joint statements, particularly from those in law firm management as well as from my law firm PR/marketing colleagues.