Politics & Society: Should Law Firm Leaders Weigh In?
Gina Rubel: Welcome to episode 160 of On Record PR. Today, we’re going to take a deep dive into strategies and insights that matter most to law firm leaders, as we do every week. I’m Gina Rubel, CEO and General Counsel for Furia Rubel Communications, and I’m joined by my colleague and co-host, Jennifer Simpson Carr. Hi Jen.
Jennifer Simpson Carr: Hi Gina, hi everyone. It’s Monday, January 13. Gina and I were actually supposed to be in Los Angeles for business this week, and so as not to already overburden or add to an overburdened infrastructure, we’ve deferred our trip. Our hearts go out to everyone that’s impacted by the fires. It’s been devastating to watch from afar, and you know, we’re just thinking about everyone who’s impacted.
Gina Rubel: Jen, we have client law firms with partners who lost their homes. So, it’s really a time for us to be helpful and not, as you said, add more burden. So, thank you for going along with me.
Jennifer Simpson Carr: Of course. So, we’re one week away from the United States presidential inauguration, which has been top of mind for many law firm leaders. Last week, the Wall Street Journal actually published an article, “Law Firms Pivot for Trump’s Return.” It’s no secret that the role of law firm leaders has expanded in recent years. It goes beyond what their traditional responsibilities have been in running the firm and nurturing client relationships. Now, leaders are expected to act as public commentators on many global issues, including politics and social injustices. It’s an area where we’ve been guiding clients for many years, but an area that’s exponentially increased since 2020. So today, we’re going to dive into the critical topic of how law firm leaders should respond to the growing expectation to comment publicly on political and social issues. Gina, this is an area you’ve been speaking on extensively for the past several years, most specifically to chiefs and leadership, like managing partners, COOs, CMOs, and, you know, really the decision makers at these firms. What do you find to be the most common reaction?
Gina Rubel: You know, Jennifer?
What’s interesting is, last year I spoke at the Thomson Reuters conference. It was all managing partners, and what I heard over and over and over again is, “I didn’t sign up for this.” So, in other words, I didn’t sign up for a pandemic. I didn’t sign up for, you know, crazy political issues here in the US. I didn’t sign up for riots in my backyard. I didn’t sign up for people to be murdered. And so, these decisions to speak out on things are daunting because they can have a significant impact on the firm, on its reputation, the clients, the lawyers, the professional staff.
I mean, in fact, just this morning, there’s an article in American Lawyer Media on Law.com about whether or not Elon Musk can bring down a firm with one post on his platform X, formerly known as Twitter. And that’s pretty darn scary, you know? I mean, think about that. If he can post one thing, let’s say it’s one of the firms that sued him or represented an adversary, and it could be an AMLaw 10 firm, which is mentioned in the article, and he can try to bring them down just by using a single platform.
The decision to speak up and what should be said needs to be considered in a very thoughtful way. It’s not a scattershot approach. And you know, smaller firms, in particular, are used to just, you know, managing partner makes a decision and goes out. But there’s no framework around it. There’s no way to make that decision. And in bigger firms, they tend to be much more organized and run more like corporations, and they make decisions in a very strategic way. But that, I know we’re going to be talking about, so.
Jennifer Simpson Carr: So listeners might be thinking, “Okay, so? I don’t get calls from the media,” but really, we’re not just speaking about the media. I mean, who are you finding are the stakeholders or the groups of people or individuals that are expecting law firm leaders to speak out on these types of issues?
Gina Rubel: It’s a great question, and interestingly, it could be anybody. So, think about when Hamas invaded Israel, as it started out predominantly being people of Jewish origin or Jewish faith were saying, “We need to speak up on this.” And then it may be somebody who is pro-Palestinian, and then they say, “Well, the firm needs to speak up on this.” Or, when Russia invaded Ukraine, it could be clients saying, “Well, we have business interests in Russia, and we need to keep business interests in Russia.”
You need to speak out on this or affirmative action decisions. It may have been some of the groups that were more protected through affirmative action or the Dobbs decision; it’s going to be women. So, it doesn’t matter who those women are, if they’re clients, or if they’re staff. So, every situation, you know when. And what’s interesting is, and I’ll talk more about this, but even think back to when George Floyd was murdered. A lot of law firms, I recall Honigman being one of them that spoke out. And they spoke out very prolifically, and it made a difference. And, you know, they’re up in Detroit, so they needed to. They’re in an area that’s affected, and so, they had others speak out with them in that market, but it was not something that was done with a scatter shot approach.
Jennifer Simpson Carr: So, I’ve heard you mention a number of different stakeholders, potentially clients, employees, staff, professional staff, lawyers. So, there’s a lot of dynamics there, and those views and perspectives may not always be aligned. You mentioned a few, but what are some other examples of political and social issues that law firm leaders need to be thinking about, that all of these different parties may have an expectation that they would be speaking on?
Gina Rubel: You know, anything, if you go back, and I was just thinking, you know, Jen, back when Israel was invaded, I got a call from a reporter from a national legal outlet saying, “Why aren’t law firms speaking out?” My response was, “Because they very likely may have offices and people there who are at risk, and it’s a live hostage situation.” It’s not time for law firms to speak out publicly. It was time for them to be speaking internally. So, to answer your question, it’s any situation. It can be local and regional, or it can be national or global, and it really depends. It’s so important that firms are prepared with some type of strategy, protocol, a way to address what’s happening. Do you remember what I said before the pandemic? Do you remember I said that there’s not a crisis I haven’t dealt with? Yes, right? And then the pandemic hit, right? And I’m like, “Oh, I haven’t dealt with a pandemic.”
But now we have, and we have protocols in place to deal with pandemics. So if the Avian Flu spreads in the United States, we’re well prepared for how we’re going to manage that, but we don’t know what’s coming. We don’t know the next step. I mean, strategically, law firms need to be prepared well in advance to make statements internally and externally, and they don’t always have to be external. They do always have to be internal. And that doesn’t mean that everything that’s internal doesn’t go outside. We know that, but that comes in the form of incident response plans. Most people know them as crisis response, but I like to be careful about the word crisis because not everything is a crisis. Sometimes it’s just an incident. And you know, I’ll actually be speaking on this entire topic at the ABA conference in Phoenix at the end of this month. So it’s January 2025, for those who didn’t hear the beginning, and I’ll be speaking to the National Conference of Bar Presidents on this very topic.
Jennifer Simpson Carr: That’s interesting. It’s not just law firm leaders, it’s really any leadership in the legal or business space. And something you mentioned about internal communications being written in a way that they would be shared externally is something that you and our EVP, Sarah Larson, have really embedded in me, which is that all communications, internal, external, have to be written in a way that potentially will be viewed by somebody externally.
How can law firm leaders prepare for these inevitable situations where they’re asked by any stakeholders, a client, a member of the media, their colleagues, to take a position and speak up on any of these political or social topics?
Gina Rubel: So Jenn, before the break, I mentioned that they need incident response plans. Those plans need to have policies and protocols regarding what they should be speaking up about, why they’re speaking up, who should be speaking up, and how they speak up. And you know, in very recent months, some of the big universities, some of the Ivies, came out and said, “We will only speak up about issues that directly affect education.” It’s because they were starting to get overtaxed by the media and asked to speak up on everything. Those types of policies and protocols are a must before even thinking about speaking publicly, and so many firms don’t have them.
Jennifer Simpson Carr: So, for firms that don’t have a policy or protocol in place, what do you recommend as a first step?
Gina Rubel: The first step is to put a policy in place and what those protocols are. Then the second part, that’s a two-part answer. There’s having a framework with which to work from, which, as you know, we’ve created. That’s what we’re going to talk about for the rest of the podcast. It’s having a framework to decide, “Is this something we should be speaking up about and why?” So, it’s not just the policy of who can speak, when, and how. Who can be a spokesperson? Who can bind the firm or your organization like a bar association? But then, how do we decide what to say? So, there’s a whole structure for that.
Jennifer Simpson Carr: Can you run us through those key considerations are for law firm leaders?
Gina Rubel: Absolutely. So, there’s a 12-step framework that we’ve created at Furia Rubel, and it’s what we use. The first step is to identify, “What’s your goal? What do we want to do?” And so, as a firm, we want to make sure that all of our lawyers know that we still believe in diversity, equity, and inclusion, no matter what ruling just came down from the Supreme Court. And I don’t want to make this a political podcast. It’s just understanding, “What is our goal? Do we want to be seen as an inclusive law firm? Then it’s who is our audience?” and really breaking it down. Who does this matter to? Does it only matter to people internally? Or does this, whatever issue you’re facing, matter to people internally and externally, looking to see if you have any conflicts? Interestingly enough, there’s what we know as true legal, like real conflicts. Conflicts you would find as they relate to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, or your state’s rules of professional contact, or your country’s Rules of Professional Conduct, depending on where you’re listening from.
But then, there’s other types of conflicts. I’m not going to name the client, but we have a client in a particular jurisdiction that they have a very big presence in a large city in the United States. And the governor there is, I’m being careful, the governor there is relatively unseemly. However, this client represents a lot of state entities. They have to be very careful on what they speak out about that relates to the governor, because they represent a lot of state entities. So, there would be a perceived conflict, even if they disagree with something like some mandate that the governor is coming down with. They have to be extremely careful because a very large portion of their business is state-related. So that’s a perceived conflict. Where that goes even further, is if you have members in your firm who are leaders in the local bar association, and let’s say the bar association wants to speak out about that. Let’s say that perhaps you have somebody who’s the president of the bar association. If they have a perceived conflict, then perhaps it needs to be the vice president who speaks out.
So, that’s the kind of thing I’ll be talking about at the ABA. But, it relates the same to law firms. You really have to think about what is a real conflict and what is perceived? Does your firm have the authority or credibility, and what does that look like? And I have a list in front of me if you see me looking down, Jenn, because I never remember them off the top of my head.
What are your intentions? Your goal might be very different than your intentions. So a goal is to make sure that perhaps clients are aware that you won’t tolerate a certain type of behavior in the community, but your intention may be to really make sure that you know your internal stakeholders understand what resources are available internally to them. Let’s say, for example, it’s an issue that relates to LGBTQIA+ rights. Make sure that your internal audience knows you have resources available to them if they’re dealing with stress or other behavioral health issues as a result of whatever is happening. Stakeholder considerations and consistency are a big one. So did we speak out on George Floyd but then not on a very similar incident, or did we not speak out about women’s rights? But now we’re going to speak out about men’s rights, or something like that? So, you know, thinking about consistency. For time, people do look at that, especially the media, and then things you said previously can very well become invalidated as performative.
What are risks in speaking up? As I mentioned earlier with Elon Musk, if he tweets about your firm something negative, is there a risk to your firm losing credibility with a lot of its stakeholders? There’s all sorts of risks today that are different than even a year ago, you know? Do you have partnerships and support? When I mentioned Honigman’s firm, they spoke out about George Floyd, they partnered with a lot of other law firms. It was incredible the way they all came up and spoke out together. And just for full transparency, Honigman is not a client. I was really impressed with how they handled that.
What is our communication strategy? Strategy is super important. Are we going to message internally first, then externally? How, when, why? What platforms? How are we and then finally, how are we going to monitor and evaluate, not only the feedback, but evaluate our performance as a firm? So, if we spoke out on X, what does that mean? Why does it matter? And what are we going to continue to do so that it doesn’t become a performative statement? So that’s the 12-step framework in a nutshell. I usually present on this in over an hour in a discussion, Jenn, but that’s the framework for purposes of this podcast.
Jennifer Simpson Carr: That’s incredibly helpful. I know that it’s received a lot of great feedback. What I want to do is encourage our listeners, as a next step after the episode ends, is to download this 12-step framework that Gina’s created. If you don’t have a policy or framework at your firm, it’s a fantastic starting point. It can help you prepare proactively for the chance that you’ll be asked to speak, and then it will help you walk through whether or not to do that. But if you already have a framework internally, you should also consider downloading the framework because you should consider the last time you updated it and maybe compare the questions that Gina has posed against where your firm stands now. I mean, things change so quickly. Now, something that was in place even this time last year may not have all the considerations as fast as technology is moving and the administration in the US is changing.
Gina Rubel: And Jenn, there’s something I really think leaders need to take away from this. A 12-step framework really allows you to sit in an EC meeting and work through the questions strategically together as a team and make decisions strategically together as a team in the best interest of the organization and its stakeholders, and that’s what it’s meant to do. As opposed to having your entire EC going, “Oh, I think we should do this, and here’s why,” and, “I think we should do this, and here’s why,” and they just argue. And, you know, it becomes this full circle thing, as opposed to working through a framework that gets you from point A to point Z. It’s democratic, and I don’t use that word lightly. It’s collaborative. And so, that’s what I like about this framework. It takes the personal emotion and bias out of the decision-making process, and it allows the firm to make a decision, or the leadership of the firm to make a decision in a very strategic, organized way.
We have heard that some of our clients and friends who have used this framework have seen these meetings cut down in time because they use it, they work through it, they make a decision, and they move on. When I think about the number of billable hours in a room, think about that when they’re trying to make a decision, and just the wheels keep spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning. I mean, there’s just, there’s no value in that, right? So, that’s what I love about this framework. It adds to productivity, it adds to transparency. It provides a way for firms to really look at things differently than the old adage, “Well, this is the way we’ve always done it.”
You know, we hear that way too often.
Jennifer Simpson Carr: I want to thank our listeners for tuning in today. Again, we welcome your feedback on this new podcast format. We’d love to hear topics from you that you would like to hear more about. Please email us at podcast@onrecordpr.com. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review on iTunes, and we will see you next week. Bye, everybody.
Watch the Full Episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/FuriaRubel