Reputation Management
Social media combined with 24/7 news reporting means that an organisation’s reputation can be irrevocably damaged if immediate and effective steps are not taken to control an untrue, misinformed or defamatory story.
Damage is usually not limited to an organisation’s reputation and extends to lost revenue and destruction of shareholder value. Advance planning is central to minimising the damage associated with adverse media intrusion.
Our Knowledge & Expertise
We provide pre-emptive and strategic advice to ensure your organisation has considered its reputational risks and created an effective action plan. Threats to an organisation’s reputation include product recalls, complex litigation/arbitration proceedings, regulatory investigations, bad leavers, data thefts and adverse media intrusion. Our action plans ensure that your organisation can regain control of its reputation during a crisis.
Our lawyers have market leading experience dealing with newspapers, television broadcasters and social media organisations. We provide immediate and commercially pragmatic legal advice on how best to manage your organisation’s reputation. We have a successful track record managing our clients’ reputations through times of crisis by implementing effective legal and tactical steps. These range from issuing court injunctions preventing public disclosure to engaging with the publishers to ensure that the true position is represented in subsequent media coverage.
We also understand that organisations are contacted for immediate public comment at short notice. These initial interactions have a significant impact on how or whether a story is published, and it is critical that organisations consider their options and obtain legal advice before engaging with the media. Engaging with us at an early stage enables organisations to claim legal privilege over correspondence created during this period, thus ensuring that commercially sensitive information does not have to be handed over to a competitor or regulator at a later stage.
Our team also includes health and social care specialists with the expertise and know-how to advise on the management of adverse incidents and adverse publicity arising in the healthcare sector. Such situations require careful handling to protect both employee and the healthcare provider’s reputation. Given our extensive experience, we can assess the risks rapidly and work with you to develop a strategy to manage the situation effectively, devising an appropriate action plan to safeguard your organisation’s reputation whilst doing everything possible to protect you, support your staff and retain the confidence of service users and the wider public. We can also advise on the key steps to be taken in the event of an adverse incident, for example clinical occurrence/catastrophic injury, and assist responding to patient complaints and the application of the open disclosure policy in relation to clinical errors. Our team can also advise on clinical and corporate governance and risk management protocols which comply with the national standards issued by HIQA.
Our Services
- Pre-emptive advices on reputational risks and preparation of action plans
- Market leading experience in managing the crucial initial 48-hour period including the preparation of crisis response plans addressing strategic and tactical risks
- Significant experience in issuing online takedown notices, identifying anonymous posters of damaging content and securing High Court injunctions
- Adopting a multi-disciplinary approach combining legal expertise with support from external PR, cyber and accounting experts
