David Meerman Scott wrote an interesting piece called “When lawyers get in the way of PR”
In one organization I know very well, the legal beagles review every customer facing document. Not just press releases, but new product announcements, product literature, advertisements – everything… it is for our own protection. Don’t want to get into legal action, do you?
What if we marketing/management types just agreed to tone down the hype a bit? Would it prevent the legal beagles from knocking the teeth (and benefits statements) out of every attempt at customer facing communication? Could we restrain ourselves from making outrageous claims given a bit of training? Did you get coaching prior to your first on-the-record media interview?
Let’s take this to the next step – looking from the outside in… What if the Marketing team had to review every legal document (contracts, proposals, license agreements, etc) to remove all the unintelligible gobbledygook that some call legalese? Would straight talk, benefits-oriented legal documents be more clearly written? Better understood? Less likely to disagree? Lower chance of lawsuits? Would the teeth be pulled from that partnership agreement?
I’d love to hear from lawyer types what they think about this and also from the Marketing folks.
Filed under: Business Culture, Management, Marketing
