Milberg Weiss needs a blog now!
This week a federal grand jury indicted Milberg Weiss, a top class-action law firm for allegedly participating in a scheme that paid out more than $11 million in illegal kickbacks to plaintiffs. That’s old news. We’re now beginning to see an onslaught of blog posts about the indictment from lawyers, journalists and the like.
Just look at the increase in blog posts about Milberg Weis being tracked by Technorati this last week.
Peter Lattman, the Wall Street Journal’s legal blogger, has been all over this story the last few days. Peter’s latest post is about one of the rippling effects of the indictment being Milberg Weiss being fired by clients, including the Ohio Attorney General. Thousands of blog posts like this are going to lead to numerous newspaper and television reports.
Milberg Weiss may go the way of Arthur Anderson, the subject of criminal indictments a few years ago. But if the firm wants a fighting chance to survive or to control the spin about a possible dissolution, they sure as heck should get in front on the PR spin. There is no way they can keep up with the onslaught of press demands one by one. And if they don’t, they’ll be killed.
Blogs are perfect for ‘one to many’ damage control. Just read some of the stories on corporate blogs told by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel in their book, Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers. Their Naked Conversations blog is full of many more. Why do you think Steve Rubel was recruited by Edelman, the only independent global PR firm? Steve knows how blogs effect PR and how they are used for damage control.
If Milberg Weiss thinks they can control the PR spin with traditional press releases and responses to media inquiries, they’re nuts. They need a blog to clearly communicate their position on various matters and allegations as well as to respond to reports by bloggers and journalists. A Milberg Weiss blog would become a resource for bloggers and journalists. It’s content would even pick up allies who would then blog and/or report in a favorable light to Milberg Weiss.
The blog needs to be straight talk, not your typical PR spin. Having the PR people publish the content would only lead to further PR problems. Journalists and bloggers can smell PR spin from a hundred miles away. Could the content be difficult to manage regarding liability and admissions that could be used against Milberg Weiss later? Sure. But if Milberg Weiss does not take control of PR right now, they are going down.
Will Milberg Weiss launch a blog? Probably not. They’ll have expensive PR people working on things who do not have a clue about using blogs for damage control. They’ll have traditional lawyers who will be scared to death of innovative communication tools like blogs.
Heck, you go to the front page of the Milberg Weiss website or the Millberg Weiss News and Events section of the firm’s website and there’s no mention of the indictments. And this is the single biggest thing that’s ever happened to the firm. And you know the traffic to Millberg Weiss’ site is going through the roof. Journalists and bloggers visiting the site can only draw the conclusion these guys are burying their hands in the sand, don’t care, or don’t have a clue how to respond. Just the spin Milberg Weiss is looking for.
If Milberg Weiss wants a fighting chance to survive, they better learn about blogs and start one yesterday.
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