It is fair
to say that lawyers are often guilty of being reticent over their successes. There
is something uniquely British about professional modesty. We are just doing it
for our clients after all. At one level there is nothing wrong with that. But at
another level we should be prepared to tell the world about a job well done and
a successful result. How else will that world get to know that we are the best
law firm in the world? Sharing our victories should be something that we should
always be willing to do.
I have done
it in this blog on numerous occasions –
There, I just
did it again.
But is
there a difference between celebration of a win and tasteless gloating? The
latter would appear to be the case with tweets from Baker Small, a solicitors’
firm who recently acted for a local authority who successfully fought parents at
a tribunal hearing in relating to special needs provision –
The
comments went beyond a positive report about the case to mocking the losing
families. The tweets included this –
“Some great tweets received today from people who just see a
one-sided argument … just shared them with my cat…” and “Great ABA Trib win
this week … interesting to see how parents continue to persist with it. Funny
thing is parents think they won ;)”
The firm has rightly apologised and withdrawn the comments.
Social media is now playing a massive role in marketing
strategies. And rightly so. My LinkedIn connections apparently give me access
to business contacts that would populate a small country! This means we have to
carefully plan what we say. What message do we wish to convey about our
business? Do we want the world to know that we are good at what we do? Or do we want
the world to think that we are heartless monsters who mock the parents of children
with disabilities? It is remarkable how much damage can be caused by 140 characters.
And how much good can come from a careful and concise statement.
The rule has to be – think first tweet later. Think about who
will read what you write. Think about what it says about who you are as well as
what you have done!
UPDATE
Since I
wrote this post a number of council’s have announced that they are cancelling
or reviewing their contract with the firm in question –
It may well be that they did a good job in the first place. But the
impact of the thoughtless tweets has now massively outweighed any benefits.
Those 140
characters can be a powerful tool. But they can also be like recklessly pulling
the pin from a hand grenade.
Good stuff Steve
ReplyDelete