15 research outputs found
Advocacy in the Court of Public Opinion, Installment One: Broadening the Role of Corporate Attorneys
Community Violence and Youth: Affect, Behavior, Substance Use, and Academics
Community violence is recognized as a major public health problem (WHO, World Report on Violence and Health,2002) that Americans increasingly understand has adverse implications beyond inner-cities. However, the majority of research on chronic community violence exposure focuses on ethnic minority, impoverished, and/or crime-ridden communities while treatment and prevention focuses on the perpetrators of the violence, not on the youth who are its direct or indirect victims. School-based treatment and preventive interventions are needed for children at elevated risk for exposure to community violence. In preparation, a longitudinal, community epidemiological study, The Multiple Opportunities to Reach Excellence (MORE) Project, is being fielded to address some of the methodological weaknesses presented in previous studies. This study was designed to better understand the impact of children’s chronic exposure to community violence on their emotional, behavioral, substance use, and academic functioning with an overarching goal to identify malleable risk and protective factors which can be targeted in preventive and intervention programs. This paper describes the MORE Project, its conceptual underpinnings, goals, and methodology, as well as implications for treatment and preventive interventions and future research
Recommended from our members
Advocacy in the Court of Public Opinion Part I: Broadening the Role of Corporate Attorneys
Today legal controversies are tried in the "court" of public opinion as much as in any court of law. Corporate lawyers' traditional tendency, however, has been to attempt to compartmentalize legal activities from public relations activities. Accordingly, they have viewed media considerations as separate from those involved in providing legal advice and corporate counsels' typical media strategy often has consisted of no more than "no comment." Given today's saturated media culture, this is no longer a viable strategy. Indeed, there are indications that some corporate lawyers are adapting to the new media environment and attempting to help their clients manage the public relations impact of legal controversies. To date, however, there has been little systematic evidence gathered on the role corporate lawyers are playing in the court of public opinion for their clients' legal controversies and little sustained examination of the implications of these trends.
The purpose of this project is to analyze: (1) how the court of public opinion affects legal controversies of large publicly traded corporations that have high demand for legal services; (2) how the intersection of public relations and law is managed by general counsels of these corporations, and (3) what ought to be lawyers' ethical obligations, if any, in this extra-judicial court. To investigate these questions, the author sent a questionnaire to all general counsels of the S&P 500 and conducted fifty-seven interviews with general counsels of S&P 500 corporations, law firm partners, and public relations consultants. The preliminary findings from this study will appear in two installments to be published in forthcoming issues of the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics. In the first installment, the author focuses on how the court of public opinion can shape legal controversies and how corporate attorneys actually manage legal PR for their corporate clients. The author argues that the "court" of public opinion is a real part of our justice system and that managing "legal public relations" is a legitimate and fundamental component of corporate legal services. She contends that the role corporate attorneys play in managing legal PR for corporate clients is at odds with the conventional view and that it is time to broaden our view of the corporate attorneys' role in this venue.
In the second installment, the author highlights some examples of wrongdoing by corporate attorneys. She contends that there is little oversight of lawyers' typical management of legal PR "behind the scenes." Because professional guidelines focus on lawyers' extrajudicial statements regarding matters that are adjudicated in a court of law, they put the spotlight in the wrong place and on the wrong subjects and are not relevant to corporate practice as it relates to public relations. Moreover, they risk a race to the bottom - where lawyers' ability to spin is valued over their ability to provide effective legal advice that accounts for PR concerns and the corporation's long term interests. Given that the court of public opinion is an extra-legal decision-maker, an alternate forum for administering justice, the author contends that corporate lawyers should behave socially responsibly when advocating there and promote socially responsible behavior on the part of their corporate clients. Ultimately, the author recommends different education methods and disciplinary rules to raise awareness of the importance of managing legal PR for corporate clients and to provide better guidance to lawyers as to how to advocate ethically within the court of public opinio
Recommended from our members
Advocacy in the Court of Public Opinion, Installment One: Broadening the Role of Corporate Attorneys
Today legal controversies are tried in the "court" of public opinion as much as in any court of law. Corporate lawyers' traditional tendency, however, has been to attempt to compartmentalize legal activities from public relations (PR) activities. To date, however, there has been little systematic evidence gathered on the role corporate lawyers are playing in the court of public opinion for their clients' legal controversies and little sustained examination of the implications of these trends. In the first installment, the author focuses on how the court of public opinion can shape legal controversies and how general counsels actually manage legal PR for their corporate clients. In the second installment, the author highlights some examples of wrongdoing by corporate attorneys. Given that the court of public opinion is an extra-legal decision-maker, an alternate forum for administering justice, the author contends that corporate lawyers should behave socially responsibly when advocating there and promote socially responsible behavior on the part of their corporate clients
Recommended from our members
Advocacy in the court of public opinion, installment two: how far should corporate attorneys go?
Professiona
Recommended from our members
The corporate attorney-client privilege: third-rate doctrine for third-party consultants
ProfessionalAcademi