Reputation Risk - Why Public Relations Is Growing Field, Where Unemployed Lawyers Can Find Work

" ... boards and C-Suites are very concerned about reputation risk, not just management." - Samuel Rubenfeld in interview with Andrea Bonime-Blanc in "Key Takeaways of Corporate Reputation Risk of 2014," The Wall Street Journal, December 31, 2014. Here is the article.

Reputation risk is what preoccupies the money people. It is consuming a lot of Uber's resources. And despite the company's $41 billion valuation, the matter of its reputation could eventually kill off investor interest. Its competition in the ride-sharing space could come to dominate that category.

With great timing, Bonime-Blanc published her book "The Reputation Risk Handbook." She is chief executive and founder of GEC Risk Advisory. As the subtitle of the book notes, organizations and people live "in the age of hyper-transparency."

Nor surprise, the field of public relations, which focuses on reputation management and restoration, is growing. Meanwhile parts of the legal sector, including litigation practices, are downsizing. Unemployed and underemployed lawyers would be wise to take an inventory of their skills and experience and pitch what's marketable to public relations agencies. To do that they will have to shift their professional persona from lawyerly to accessible. 

Lawyers can get a feel for what public relations firms do by going to the websites listed in the free directory published by J.R. O'Dwyer. Here it is.  Listings are divided into special area of expertise such as technology or healthcare and location. O'Dwyer also publishes a daily newsletter which contains news and articles about public relations matters. Here you can check it out. 

Pick up the language of the field. Then configure a resume to align with that. Leverage that language in an "informational interview." As "What Color Is Your Parachute?" explains, the information interview provides both insight into that job and contacts. You ask for 15 minutes time to find out more about the discipline. No, you don't ask for a job. By doing that, I made the leap from non-profit to profit at the end of the 1970s.