From the massive data breaches to the "Operation Varsity Blues" college admissions scandal to the tragic Boeing 737 Max crashes, 2019 was a parade of major public relations crises. 

As the world wades into 2020, which undoubtedly will see another series of big corporate crises, it would be a good time to think about how in-house leaders should prepare for and react to worst-case situations. 

"For counsel, crisis is an opportunity to embrace your brand, affirm your values and, personally, it will affirm your individual relevance and show that, in fact, you should be at the table," said Jay Silver, a partner at Womble Bond Dickinson in Raleigh, North Carolina, who helps businesses navigate potential catastrophes. 

Silver spoke alongside other partners at his firm, several corporate counsel and a public relations guru during a Jan. 15 panel discussion on successful compliance programs and crisis management. Womble sponsored the event for the Research Triangle Area Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel.

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'You Can't Plan for Emotions'

While other speakers stressed the importance of planning for a crisis by, for instance, having a game plan in place before things go wrong, Lenor Marquis Segal, senior counsel of global litigation for ABB Power Grids, noted that "you can't plan for emotions." 

"You can have all your playbooks and checklists, and then you get into the foxhole and you really see some people rise to the occasion and you may see folks that you thought had a lot of leadership and managerial skills and in a crisis they're just not the right person," she said. "They're better to come back to when things calm down."

Kristen Henderson, assistant general counsel and head regulatory counsel for multinational health information technology firm IQVIA Inc., added that it's wise to not only have "key contacts lined up for if and when the crisis hits, but you will also have set out in your playbook what key steps you're going to take—and in what time frame—once that issue hits so you're not behind the ball."   

Tara Cho, a Raleigh-based partner at Womble who specializes in data and privacy security issues, advised companies to have outside counsel or a forensic investigation firm on retainer as part of data breach prep. 

"It can really be helpful to establish privilege at the outset of an incident," she said. "I've oftentimes had to produce a letter or some indication where a client's cyber insurer wants evidence that they have someone on retainer." 

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Tension Between PR and Legal 

Billy Warden, principal of marketing firm GBW Strategies and a former executive producer for E Entertainment Networks, mentioned during the discussion that one of his corporate clients has grown rapidly over the past few years, but he has yet to meet the company's top lawyer. 

"I don't know the lawyer's name. So right now that company's not in a good position to deal with a crisis because the team members aren't familiar with each other. It's something I'm working on," Warden said in a follow-up interview. 

"The lawyers are absolutely essential. Everybody who gets in a crisis room, to me, they're all an unreliable narrator to some degree. All of us as human beings are, to a degree, unreliable narrators," he added. "The lawyer, to me, can be the closest thing to a reliable narrator given the complex elements of a crisis and the possible exposure to legal actions." 

While public relations experts can be helpful during crises, they also can be a source of tension when they're not aligned with the legal department, according to Segal. She said she's had a "mixed bag of experiences" with outside PR agents. In some instances, she believed firms "were charging us for stuff we could have done ourselves." 

"There have been times when I felt like we're rewriting the statement that they come up with anyway or we're doing the same news searches that they are and finding the results faster and we know which ones matter to us more," Segal said. "There may be a natural tension between legal and PR and they're probably necessary in a real crisis. But there are definitely times when I feel that tension."

Warden acknowledged that legal departments can, in certain cases, handle the job of a PR firm. But he said effective PR agents "ask questions or make uncomfortable points that sometimes the internal folks don't want to make.

"Oftentimes these CEOs might grimace at something an employee says," he added. "I have found that it has been useful to have third parties in the room to ask the 'dumb' questions, to make the uncomfortable points, to question 'first takes' and assumptions in the nice way and sort of float trial balloons."

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Build Trust, Take a Breath 

Taking the time to establish strong relationships with in-house colleagues, outside lawyers and experts, whether they be PR agents or cybersecurity specialists, is another essential piece of crisis prep. 

"You don't build trust in a crisis," Segal said. "People have to be coming to you in a crisis not just because of your title but because they've always looked to you for help and advice." 

And, finally, after the prep is done and a crisis hits, remember to take a deep breath and think before reacting. 

"I get those calls: 'We fired the employee who sent the email,'" said Cho, the Womble partner. "Well, now they're not going to be very cooperative with your investigation. Again, don't jump the gun or start deleting things or manipulating anything in your system until you can get the investigation completed." 

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