It has been said that publicity, any publicity, is good. However, it seems unlikely that this applies to publicity for lawyers.
Lawyers have long suffered from a negative public image. A Harris Poll conducted in August of 2006 found that only 26% of those surveyed found lawyers “trustworthy.” In two ongoing national surveys I’m conducting (one for lawyers and one for the public) on the factors contributing to this problem, lawyers and the public alike state that lawyers are seen as arrogant, deceptive, deceitful, and lying.
For the American Bar Association Journal to award former-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales the title of “Lawyer of the Year” only further reinforces the negative public perception of lawyers.
While Edward A. Adams, editor and publisher of the magazine, says they gave the award to lawyers who “made the most news,” “who are noteworthy,” most people will likely nod to themselves and mutter, “Yeah, that figures!”
After all, one usually expects that honors like “Lawyer of the Year” would go to those who have demonstrated the highest principles of law or made the greatest contribution to upholding justice. That turns out to be a big chuckle in this case!
One is certainly hard pressed to think of Gonzales in those terms. He resigned amid investigations of his breaking the law and lying to Congress about such things as possible politically-motivated firings of nine U.S. attorneys and illegally tampering with a witness in ongoing Congressional and Justice Department inquiries
Even though publisher Adams says that the persons picked “do not necessarily reflect the official policy of the ABA,” ‑ and some 40,000 lawyers in the U.S., one has to wonder if their awards’ committee’s social awareness and marketing savvy were out-to-lunch when they appeared to positively sanction the tainted Gonzales and his questionable official actions.
I have to ask Adams and his committee: Don't you care about the impression you've created of the ABA and lawyers alike? If I were a lawyer trying to create positive visibility and credibility with my public, I would be more than a little displeased with the Gonzales award: I'd be embarrassed!
FLASH! It now appears that swift and rampant outrage from those most affected by this bad publicity has caused the editor of the ABA Journal to take action. Because of the so-called "confusion" of the original award title, "Lawyer of the Year" is being changed to "Newsmaker of the Year."
That reminds me of what the Pennsylvania Dutch used to say: "Too soon old and too late smart."
Lawyers who’d like to participate in my Factors Contributing to Negative Public Image of Lawyers Survey can do so at: http://www.confidentselfpromotion.com/lawyer-survey.htm
Non-lawyers can participate at: http://www.speakwithoutfearnow.com/public-lawyer-survey.htm
I have a gift for your participation in these short, anonymous surveys.
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7 comments:
I thought only heroes and people who did good deeds received awards. Guess I was wrong. Even though the ABA Journal changed the name of the award after a lot of controversy, I still think it was inappropriate to honor Gonzales with an award for anything.
Has the ABA mag. no sense of what is good for the profession and what perpetuates stereotypes? A good image is hard enough to create without your community's journal putting out counter-productive attention grabbers.
This is a perfect example of why many lawyers have less than effective marketing strategies. I'm not a lawyer but if my profession's magazine did this sort of thing, I'd be really angry.
What an incredibly dumb thing to do! It was bad enough to make the award in the first place but then they made it 10 times worse by telling readers there was confusion and they really meant something else. The image damage had already been done. Hey! You need a PR consultant and soon. Lawyers especially cannot stand many of these image gaffs.
The ABA's choice of Gonzales as the lawyer of the year at first seems incomprehensible. But before leaping to rash conclusions, it behooves us to look a little more deeply.
Consider the ABA's measures for selecting the lawyer of the year as one who has "made the most news" and "one who is noteworthy."
What is the dictionary definition of "noteworthy?" -- worthy of notice or attention; notable; remarkable.
Staying true to our intention to look more deeply . . . let's.
"Worthy" -- of commendable excellence or merit.
According to this measure, Gonzales'excellence must have had to do with the volume of appearances he made in the media -- appearances of some dubious merit, but appearances nonetheless.
"Notable" -- worthy of note or notice. It cannot be denied that Gonzales certainly accrued notice.
Finally, "remarkable" -- notably or conspicuously unusual.
Now the facts become undeniably clear.
"Unusual" -- extraordinary, rare, strange, singular, curious, odd.
It's foregone that he is certainly out of the ordinary; his job performance was truly rare; his testimony before Congress was strange, to say the least, undoubtedly singular in his ability to selectively recall; curious and odd, in all reasonable contexts except for the context of his sychophancy ---
So there you have it. The ABA got it right after all. Gonzales was noteworthy and a newsmaker, and the ABA must be commended for its perspicacity. It saw eye-to-eye with the former AG and, in so doing, raised itself up to LOWER the bar.
While it is all very interesting the group representing lawyers should shoot itself in the foot like this, the real warning is for all business people to be aware that everything they do reflects on them and their business. You always need to look at all the possible interpretations before presenting it to the public. Be smart first so you do not have to waste time spinning PR mistakes later.
At first I didn't see what Alberto Gonzales had to do with confident self-promotion and thought who cares anyway. But coaching diva spelled it out and I got it. Part of feeling confident is looking competent (thanks doc Signe for letting me borrow that) and vice versa. Sometimes I've thought of stuff to do and got all excited about it but didn't do it right away. Later I was really glad I hadn't sent it out because I would have been embarrassed.
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