The entire world is dealing with the coronavirus crisis and by the time this pandemic has passed, we will all be experienced crisis communicators.

But in the meantime, there are best practices that you should implement today because how your law firm responds to this ongoing pandemic will impact its reputation. The following recommendations, provided by John Hellerman during a recent Legal Marketing Association webinar, will give your firm a competitive advantage.

Unlike typical crises, where we (as consultants) help clients through a perceived wrongdoing, Covid-19 has fallen on all of us through no act of our own (accept the one person who ate a raw bat). That said, it’s important to know basic crisis communications principles in case this is your first time navigating one.

The right solution at the wrong time is the wrong solution.

Keep in mind that a story will be told about a business in the midst of a crisis regardless of whether or not that organization responds, so (even in normal times) it’s best to participate and have some influence on how you are perceived.

Once you’ve decided to participate in the crisis conversation, you have to identify a spokesperson (or spokespeople). This is key, as who you pick determines whether your firm maintains or regains credibility. Typically, the person with the highest authority in any given situation is a technical expert. So, in the case of coronavirus, the spokesperson should come from firm leadership and the larger crisis team should include your main department heads – especially your technology folks as employees continue to work remotely.

Though we advise clients to have a team and plan in place before crises hit, not many out there anticipated a global pandemic. At this time (at the very least), you should have internal and external communications strategies, which should include telling employees first about any new developments. After all, the media likes to go to employees for information as reporters prefer the perceptions of frontline workers over ‘biased’ leadership. So, make sure your employees are well-informed and have the appropriate tools (written policies, resources, education, etc.) to communicate.

Throughout this pandemic, you must communicate often and on schedule. You can’t over communicate, but you can communicate the wrong things. You need to be relevant (don’t recreate the wheel) and be as human as possible (with a mindset of flexibility and empathy).

There has been rapid communication in our legal community’s response to the coronavirus. And necessarily so, as this frequent communication will eventually make your voice a trustworthy one. Your audiences will be able to weigh your real-world authority against rumors and unknowns, and help keep clients and employees relatively calm during these unprecedented times.

Such rapid dissemination of content and information requires that the crisis team meet daily and review what works and what doesn’t. Doing things that are just part of a template becomes a time management issue. So, forget about all of those unnecessary tasks for the foreseeable future. 

Yet, there is one task that all firms should be doing. Someone should document what is communicated each day. The Covid-19 crisis is going to last a long time, so it will be crucial to sit down afterwards and debrief with this daily journal in-hand.

Hopefully, the journal will reflect how you communicated and engaged with clients solely about their needs. Forego short-term advantage (pitching for business) for long-term opportunity (helping clients with the issues they are facing today). The right solution at the wrong time is the wrong solution.

In fact, be overly accommodating and innovative so that you ultimately ‘compel’ new business. How can your entire network and resources benefit your clients? Can you expand your stakeholder map?

Outside of communicating with employees and clients, take advantage of social media now more than ever and pitch media (the appropriate channels) when you have a relevant expert with unique knowledge to share. Regarding this last piece, since we are living through uncharted territory where drastic changes and details about the virus are released seemingly minute-by-minute, ensure the partner or thought leader is on board with your media outreach beforehand. You need to be able to fulfill interest, once it’s secured.

With every activity, remind yourself that this is not business as usual. We will all be in crisis mode for so long that it will become our new normal. With that in mind, humor is a tremendous resource in normal circumstances and especially in the most dire of times (with the appropriate tone, of course). 

If you need help fleshing out your firm’s continued response to the coronavirus, contact us.