There was a great panel at the 25th Annual Legal Marketing Association Conference yesterday in Orlando about the power of PR to help facilitate and add value to the law firm-client relationship. Some of the examples shared about horrific legal situations that resulted in bad press, which could have been easily been mitigated by common sense PR counsel, reminded me of this recent post of ours from February.

If you work in corporate America, at one time or another you’ve probably heard someone say “We should run this by legal.” It’s usually a wise move: when you make a tricky business judgment, you want to be sure it’s not going to come back to haunt you.

A PR review, however, would have alerted the company to the huge dangers lying ahead.

Which is why it surprises us that when companies make decisions that warrant a review by lawyers, they don’t also “run this by public relations.” After all, a misjudgment about the PR impact of a business decision can cause even greater fallout than a legal misstep. Take, for instance, the case of Ceridian Cobra Services.

Ceridian recently got a ton of bad press for itself when it denied coverage to a man about to undergo surgery, all over a very small shortfall in his premiums. Did we mention that the man is a military vet, the surgery was a potentially life-saving procedure, and the shortfall in question was two cents?

This is the kind of story that starts local, but quickly goes national.

And this is exactly the kind of bad press that can be avoided by instituting a corporate protocol to conduct a review of the PR impact of difficult business decisions in addition to their legality. Here, Ceridian may very well have made an acceptable decision, legally speaking.  Indeed, we hardly know all the facts of the two-cent case, and there may have been compelling legal reasons to deny coverage. So “legal” may have signed off on the denial with a big thumbs up.

A PR review, however, would have alerted the company to the huge dangers lying ahead. The PR department would have seen, immediately, that any nuanced reasons for denying coverage in this case would get swept aside by the tidal-wave force of an irresistible narrative: Health Insurer Denies Vet Life-Saving Surgery Over Two Cents.

In addition to saving the company a PR nightmare, the PR review could have resulted in this story being turned around 180 degrees into invaluable feel-good press for Ceridian. A smart PR person would have told the claims executive about to issue the denial to instead pay the two-cent shortage out of her own pocket. Voila, Ceridian has a great counter-trend story to shop about a health insurance company caring for its customers. (And the fact that the claims executive would later get a $500 bonus to cover the two cents wouldn’t need to be mentioned.)

Yes, Ceridian would have to provide the coverage-but cost of the surgery could hardly approach the tremendous reputational cost of its denial.

So, for law firms and businesses: consider instituting a protocol that involves PR in your significant business decisions. Doing so can save a lot of headaches and find hidden opportunities for positive PR.