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You don’t need to be Greta Thunberg to realise that law firms failing to do their bit for the planet just isn’t acceptable, let alone good legal PR, anymore. Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher found this out earlier this month after hitting the headlines when eco law students launched a boycott of the firm for “shielding corporate polluters from climate accountability”. The pledge was made by members of Law Students for Climate Responsibility (LSCA), a US-based group that collates a ‘scorecard’ for law firms on how much they contribute to climate change

Black Friday, the US import that sees the retail sector slash prices on one of the biggest shopping days of the year, appears to have been adopted by a number of law firms. Last week’s annual discount day saw Manak Solicitors, based in Dartford, advertising 10% off conveyancing, fixed family work, wills or immigration services for any client who quoted ‘Black Friday 2021’ before 31 January.

In a post-pandemic world in the grips of a climate change crisis, job seekers with the luxury of choosing where they work have decided they want more - and it’s not just about the money. As well as perks like private healthcare and flexible working, a growing number of environmentally conscious candidates are asking firms to prove their eco-credentials as well. If you’re a law firm looking to attract and retain talent, going green might seem like an easy win – but it’s not as straightforward as it sounds.

One way businesses can prove that they are doing the right thing is to get B Corporation certification. This isn’t the second team of the Avengers but a badge for for-profit businesses that meet “the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose”. The B stands for ‘Benefit’. You may be surprised – or not – to hear that just three law firms in the UK currently have B Corp status. Despite many a law firm heralding their pro bono work or their quest for justice, very few have followed up their press releases about putting the world to rights with actually becoming B Corp.

Building an effective LinkedIn profile is vital for anyone working in legal services.  Not only is it an important networking tool, it also gives you an opportunity to showcase your skills and expertise, building your reputation and attracting new clients. Most of us have a decent LinkedIn profile detailing our experience and job roles but how many legal professionals are truly active on the platform? Whether it’s time pressures or not knowing what you should be posting, many are not making best use LinkedIn – if you are not active you won’t appear regularly or highly in searches when users type in the keywords you are targeting or on users’ news feed.

Recent research has revealed just how much the media landscape has changed over the past five years, with brands having to compete harder than ever before for shrinking press opportunities. Research from Brands2Life and Media Measurement found that there were 21% fewer articles published by top UK media compared to five years ago. During the same period brand-led stories fell by 28%, with ‘big issues’ dominating, accounting for 44% of all media coverage. For all brands, from supermarkets to law firms, it means having to fight harder than ever to secure coverage.

When digital communications first sprang on to the scene and email became the de-facto method of business communication over the telephone, you’d often see stories in the media of the outraged employee who sent an email ranting about their boss to the whole company, instead of just a few intended recipients, or ‘private’ emails shared publicly by jilted spouses.

Handling a communications crisis is always something you hope won’t happen, but it can be more valuable in the learnings it brings than any text book. I now specialise in legal and litigation PR, but in a different life I had a very wide-ranging career in PR and corporate communications both in agency and in-house, working in a government department, a charitable foundation and a university. I am not sure whether you could call me unlucky or I’ve just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but I have worked through plenty of crises during my career, ranging from small-scale and local to large and global.

Even by the standards of government press releases, the Ministry of Justice’s (MoJ) recent announcement  of the whiplash reforms going live was a masterclass of misleading propaganda. Of course the MoJ was going to put as positive a spin on the changes as it could and it was depressing to see how media like the Press Association, BBC and Sky News simply regurgitated the press release, with a bit of extra comment from insurers thrown in.