Steps to battling negative blogs.

• Author: Klein, Rich

More than ever, law firms today need to pay close attention to their online reputations. That's because of the speed with which information moves across message boards, social networking sites and blogs. Ten years ago, a law firm could take more time responding to an attack on its reputation or some other crisis situation. Twenty years ago, a firm could take its sweet time responding. But the Internet, and more particularly Web 2.0, has caught many firms off guard because they are operating under old ideas about how fast information moves and how fast reputations are made and destroyed.

For example, an influential blog that criticizes the way a firm handles a layoff announcement can result in 50-100 "comments" that might also criticize the firm's management. It's the gang mentality at work. We see this on the Wall Street Journal's Law Blog as well as the Law.com blogs regularly.

It's very difficult for a firm to fight back against such a media onslaught, which is why law firms should change the way they think about a crisis situation. Too many firms don't begin to think about crisis communications until the crisis is in play. But if a firm performs due diligence in the B.S.H. (Before Stuff Happens) phase, it can successfully defend, or at least minimize damage to, its reputation when a crisis appears.

The first key to protecting a law firm's reputation--online and off--is to integrate crisis communications planning in your business development planning. And that means law firm leaders must constantly take the temperature of the firm to identify brewing crisis situations: the abusive partner, the employee who sends racist or sexist emails ... and more. Once these situations are identified, some kind of action must be taken, whether it's giving someone a warning, apologizing to those persons offended or outright termination.

The longer that a firm allows bad, unethical or illegal behavior to continue, the better the chance that the news will reach the traditional media, a blog, a message board or social networking sites such as Facebook. So the first management step is to make the problem go away. That way, the headline might read "ABC Law Firm Quickly Terminates Racist Employee" versus "Associates at ABC Firm in Uproar Over Continuing Employment of Racist Staffer." Of course, there may be no headline or story at all, which is always the best outcome.

Here are some steps law firm marketers can take to defend their firm's online reputation:

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