I’m sure that the people who post lawyer jokes on the Internet would be amused that Google finds 666 thousand results. There are plenty of people who think lawyers are evil, but in the world of corporate communications, lawyers are a fact of life. And you know what? I don’t have a problem with that.*
But apparently a lot of my peers do. I often hear complaints about having to send documents through legal review. They take forever! There are always so many changes! They don’t understand what we’re trying to do!
In my experience, corporate lawyers and communicators have very similar goals. The corporate general counsel wants to protect the company from legal risk and corporate communications wants to protect the company’s reputation. Bottom line, you both want what’s best for the company.
When you put yourself into an adversarial relationship with your legal advisers, you shouldn’t be surprised when they’re… adversarial. And if you find yourself dealing with the same legal issues time after time, take the hint. Talk to your attorneys and get an idea of their concerns.
If you find yourself in petty squabbles over AP stlye, explain your point of view, listen to theirs, and come to a working compromise. Present your case well and there’s a good chance they’ll come around to seeing things your way.
On the other hand, if the issues are more substantive, stop and think about better ways that you can achieve your goals without making the layers uncomfortable. They’re usually uncomfortable for a reason.
Once you understand each other’s point of view, you may actually find that they’re your allies in the board room. With Corporate Communications and the General Counsel working together, who can stop you?
P.S. Shout out to some of the corporate lawyers I’ve enjoyed working with: Alan, John, Liza, Susan, Tanya, Tim. Thank you.
Notes:- * Gasp! [↩]
This post was sitting around in draft form for weeks and I finally decided to publish it rather than hope it will magically turn into something insightful. Once again, the timing is serendipitous.
I just saw that my friend Aaron Templer has posted “New/Social media links for lawyers – NASABA conference”, and wordsmith Nancy Friedman has a guest post, “The Title of Your Story”, on Duets Blog (”Collaborations in creativity and the law”). How did I now know about Duets Blog before now? Thank you.
Good post. Lawyers are bad until you need one. And in the world of corporate communications, they can be your best friend. Would you rather react because something exposed you legally or proactively seek council?
The entire business world involves aligning values. Strategy with finance. Finance with compliance. Corporate culture with HR. Communications with legal. My $.02.
You’re short-changing yourself again, Aaron. That’s worth at least $2.
Sadly, in many companies, departments seem to be in competition rather than in alignment, or worse — working to support conflicting internal political agendas.