People are talking. Bloggers, reviewers, customers, regulators, voters, activists... What they say affects virtually every aspect of business and organizational success. Their voices can shut down development projects, scare away investors and donors, and put thriving companies out of business. They can expedite a government approval or clinch its denial. They can give ballot initiatives and political candidates a nice bump at the polls, or wreck their chances altogether. These voices can decimate an established brand overnight, or they can defend it so vigorously that its market share will be bigger after an attack than it was beforehand.
Well-placed words and images can introduce projects and initiatives in a way that defuses potential opposition before it gets started. They can back-down bullies, turn the tables on unfair competitors, put the lie to unfounded attacks on products and personalities, re-direct the fortunes of entire industry sectors, overturn unfair and oppressive laws, and launch social and political movements.
The voices that impact businesses and organizations today find expression in traditional media and on social platforms, in print and in video, in casual conversation and in formal filings. The effective advocate must be prepared to (1) engage the diverse voices that impact a client's cause, and (2) engage them in the various contexts in which they are raised.
FITZPATRICK ADVOCACY
Legal-Social-Business
Who's telling your story?
The Digital Revolution has given advocates new tools and weapons to fight client battles, achieve client objectives, and shape public opinion. In addition to traditional legal tools and weapons like court actions and administrative challenges, we now have social media campaigns, on-line petitions, YouTube videos, digital story-telling, story-mapping, crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, blogs, shares, tweets, posts and more.
Given a choice of going into battle with the traditional weapons, or with those weapons and the new weapons, what would you choose? And it isn't simply a matter of having newer weapons or more weapons. A smart battle plan matches your strengths against an adversary's weaknesses. If one side shows up with a tank brigade, and the other side brings F-15's, somebody's in trouble.
The best approach often involves a mix of legal and social strategies. The key is integration.
NEW TOOLS, NEW WEAPONS
"Social media and modern technology have provided a powerful platform and a set of tools for companies that want to fight back. By leveraging public support, companies can advance their legal and public-relations goals."
- "Using Social Media in Business Disputes," MIT Sloan Management Review (Winter 2016)
EXAMPLES FROM THE FIELD
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Uber is battling state and local lawmakers in courts and administrative proceedings around the globe. The company is integrating these legal actions with social campaigns that tell its story across digital media platforms, leverage its customer base to stir up public support, and call out politicians by name in smart phone apps.
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The transportation industry is filing legal actions against Uber in multiple jurisdictions, even as the industry pursues a social advocacy campaign against the ride-share disruptor via Twitter and Facebook, a Who'sDrivingYou.org blog, and a digital information tracking effort that publicizes criminal reports involving the company's drivers.
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Hellmann's Mayonnaise dropped a false advertising lawsuit against the makers of Just Mayo after the startup launched a digital counter-attack that included campaigns on Facebook and Twitter and a change.org petition that collected over 112,000 signatures.
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An activist group nearly derailed a Midwest pipeline project by combining a legal challenge with a social media campaign that utilized web-based story-mapping graphics and analysis. To defend its project, the pipeline company hired social savvy advocates who countered the opposition's allegations point-by-point, correcting factual misstatements and false legal claims and telling the company's side of the story.
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Airbnb and Tesla Motors are fighting regulatory restrictions and government enforcement actions across America using an aggressive mix of legal strategies and social advocacy initiatives.
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After the Florida Retail Federation, backed by Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors, filed suit to stop small breweries from selling beer in taprooms, the breweries raised money for a litigation war chest through an Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign that raised $10,000 on its first day.
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Spain's networked activist group "15M" used a combination of lawsuits, Twitter campaigns, crowdfunding, public demonstrations and an Occupy movement to demand accountability from Spain's 4th largest bank, triggering multiple lawsuits and a government investigation into the bank's affairs.
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When Chick-fil-A sent a Cease and Desist letter to a Vermont folk-artist who made T-shirts featuring the slogan "Eat More Kale," he fought back with a Facebook campaign, an on-line petition, and a mass email barrage. The fight garnered national attention, fueled t-shirt sales, and drew support from the state's Governor.
Advocacy strategies that utilize social media often produce positive results that extend beyond the borders of the base dispute. In other words, these strategies can do more than help resolve the conflict. Social tools are just that - social. Public. People who are not involved in the conflict see and hear about it. Side benefits can include improved brand recognition, increased sales, new subscribers, positive media attention and heightened investor interest. On the negative side, sometimes one side in a conflict will incorporate social strategies, and the other will not. When that happens, the non-engaged party often experiences unfavorable press coverage, loss of corporate good will, and the frustration of listening to someone else (especially an enemy) tell its story.
VALUE ADDED
LEGAL + SOCIAL FROM THE GET-GO
For many businesses and lawyers, a straight legal approach is automatically the right approach. Social strategies might be brought in later, in rare cases, but only to serve a supportive function. The problem with this approach is that most lawyers don't realize what they're not seeing. Communications professionals are typically invited to participate in only a fraction of the cases where they could contribute real value.
Working with a network of PR and communications professionals, Fitzpatrick Advocacy is equipped to assess incoming matters from both a legal and a social perspective from the get-go. In some cases, the ultimate strategy will be primarily legal, in others primarily social, and in still others, there will be a balance of the two. In some disputes, social strategies may replace traditional lawsuits outright - at least from the attacker's side.
"One-time plaintiffs now publicize harms and pursue remedies without ever appearing before a judge or jury. ... Not only do social media strategies allow citizens to avoid the costs and delays that generally accompany litigation, they also appear to be getting the attention of major corporate defendants in a way that isolated private suits rarely are able to do."
- "Social Media Campaigns as an Emerging Alternative to Litigation," Rutgers Computer and Technology Law Journal (2012).
Even though an attack might use strictly social tools, the defense to that attack can -- and in many cases, should -- employ legal strategies and counter-measures.
SERVICES OFFERED
Our Advocacy & Strategic Communications practice offers the following services. We are set up to work closely with a network of communications, media and PR professionals, beginning where appropriate with a client's in-house team.
Services Offered to Businesses and Organizations:
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Represent clients in matters that involve a mix of legal and social issues.
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Create integrated Legal-Social Action Plans for client problems, disputes, projects, and campaigns.
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Help corporations manage costs, accelerate resolution timetables, defend corporate brands, and achieve corporate objectives by establishing multi-disciplinary advocacy teams.
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Advise clients in connection with crisis preparation, response and management.
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Counsel clients on how to use story, images and video to persuade in ways that facts and argument can't.
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Build coalitions around regulatory, political, charitable, industrial and social issues. Enter into strategic alliances to advance a common cause allows clients to share responsibility, spread costs, and interface with media, markets and regulators as a unified block.
Call Fitzpatrick Advocacy whenever you need an advocate - to convince, to warn, to explain, to appeal, to destroy, to settle or to fight.
Service Offered to Law Firms:
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Assess specific cases for suitability for a multidisciplinary approach.
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Train attorneys to identify cases that can benefit from a multidisciplinary approach.
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Partner with law firms to augment their legal-social capability (with Fitzpatrick serving as lead, co-counsel, advisor, or behind-the-scenes resource).
According to AOL Founder Steve Case, change driven by the digital revolution "is not just a thing corporations must defend against; the best leadership teams will recognize it as something we can take advantage of." Case warns that established businesses that don't keep pace may fail, "because they underestimate the speed at which the future is approaching."
The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur's Vision of the Future (2016).
Services Offered to PR and Communications Firms:
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Partner with PR/ communications firms as the legal-half of a social-legal advocacy team, collaborating on pitches, business development, and performance of client work.
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Help communications firms move beyond "support" roles in legal disputes to secure their rightful seat at the strategy table.
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Assessing the suitability of a Midwest environmental contamination /community impact case for integrated legal+social action that would include an administrative challenge, crowdsourcing to cover fees and costs, an on-line petition, story-mapping, and a social media campaign.
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Mr. Fitzpatrick pursued a guerilla-advocacy strategy to win political asylum for the son of the former Secretary of State of an African nation, saving him from beheading at the hands of the infamous Butcher of Monrovia. Fitzpatrick won at trial (in America), even though the ruling junta in Africa had locked down the nation's newspapers and TV stations, bolted the courthouse doors, and shut off access to all traditional sources of evidence.
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Mr. Fitzpatrick represented the developers of a 500-acre, $500 million shoreline project against a consortium of opposition groups. He collaborated with outside and in-house PR and media professionals and worked with supportive faith, neighborhood and business groups as he successfully championed the project before federal, state and local government agencies.
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Fitzpatrick has advised clients regarding: (a) natural and human-made crises; (b) toxic releases; (c) crisis response protocols; (d) notification and reporting of breaches and violations; and (e) coordination with communications professionals and government officials. Throughout his career, he has kept focus on the need for clients to tell their story and not leave the telling to the media, opposition or politicians.
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A graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, Fitzpatrick has over twenty-five years experience working as an advocate on behalf of multinational corporations, nonprofits, individuals, and children at risk in matters involving the US Department of Justice, US Department of the Interior, the Securities & Exchange Commission, Nat’l Park Service, Army Corps of Engineers, state and federal trial and appellate courts, floodplain commissions, planning and zoning boards, and federal, provincial, state and local agencies in Europe, Mexico, Asia and throughout the United States. He is a trained screenwriter and took First Prize in a writing competition sponsored by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.
EXPERIENCE
The Digital Revolution has not only changed the weapons and tools we use to solve problems: the problems themselves have changed. In an age of global connectivity, conflicts, projects and plans are increasingly intertwined with social factors. Matters that ten years ago might have been resolved by relatively straightforward legal remedies now carry a public dimension that triggers investor concern, customer defections, reviewer disapproval, regulatory enforcement and activist opposition. New problems call for new solutions. Fitzpatrick Advocacy offers clients new choices, more options, and integrated solutions that match the problems they face in a wired world.