Law And More

Fading Brands: From Davos to Being a Billionaire

The excitement just isn't there. That's what Bloomberg quotes Wendy Craft, chief of staff at Fulcrum Equities, as saying about Davos in summer. (What could be interesting, though, are that shamans are there hawking their services. Yeah, attendees can book a premium tarot reading,)

Actually, Davos Man and Davos Woman haven't been relevant for almost a decade. After all, with the emerging ESG ethos extreme wealth has come under attack. Both individual and institutional. 

Then when the once-iconic journey to the winter Switzerland retreat went remote for two years the Davos Man/Woman brand faded. The new book flaming Davos Everything - "Davos Man" - ranks high on Amazon: #29,413. By journalist Peter S. Goodman, it showcases Davos' sponsor, that is, the World Economic Forum, as a platform for billionaires to present themselves as passionate about creating a good future for the rest of us. You bet, the distance from their perch and where we hang out is made palpable. Incidentally, more authenic at all that and perhaps accomplishing much more could be the Milken Institute Global Conference. This year it took place May 1 through 4.

Along with Davos, what has become a lot less buzzy is the billionaire. That happened quite abruptly, didn't it. There is a shift in the narrative from how these wonderkinds made their billions to how they haven't been too smart about hanging on to those big bucks. Here is it from Bloomberg, May 21, 2022.

"The Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily measure of the wealth of the world’s 500 richest people, has dropped $1.6 trillion since its peak in November. Leading the way are the Americans on the index, who have lost $797 billion since their peak. Perhaps the most humbled by it all is the world’s richest person, Elon Musk. He’s lost $139.1 billion, or 41% of his wealth, since November, when his net worth briefly surpassed $340 billion. Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos, the second-richest person, lost $82.7 billion, or 39% of his peak wealth." 

Maybe The American Wealth Dream is mutating into the ability to create financial comfort in ways that don't have to brand you as anything. You can just make your money and not be forced into any category like "billionaire" or "millionaire." And you don't have to prance around like Bill Gates (who is at Davos summer) pontificating about broad-based topics ranging from pandemics to the world economy. You can just be. 

Reflection: Is could be a professional liability to be at Davos summer. 

Connect with Editor-in-Chief Jane Genova at janegenova374@gmail.com.

Challenging Elon Musk's Supposed Digital Reach, Bot Concern

"More than 23.42% of billionaire Elon Musk's 93 million followers on Twitter are likely fake or spam accounts, according to a joint audit by two research groups [SparkToro and Followerwonk] ..." - Insider, May 18, 2022.

The methodology they used was to follow through on the investigation of 17 warning signals about followers who might not be "legit." That probe was based on an algorithm. If a follower turned up to align with a few of those warning signals the account was classified as "low quality" or even "fake."  That's where we are on that. 

Therefore, we got two questions for Musk:

One, how much is his actual digital reach? Is it an illusion of influence and power?

Two, given this reality of a large number of supposed "fake" followers how authentic is his concern about the operation of bots on Twitter? 

The Musk Brand seems to be crumbling. That includes being perceived as downright reckless by not conducting due diligence the weekend he made the proposal for taking over Twitter.

Connect with Editor-in-Chief Jane Genova at janegenova374@gmail.com.

Elon Musk Is No Hamlet - Trust May Be In Play

In business, trust is almost everything. It, for example, determines brand equity. That's exactly why top public relations firm Edelman measures that entity annually and publishes its Trust Barometer. 

ELON MUSK BRAND

Currently, Elon Musk could be losing lots of those trust points. His brand could be coming undone.

The Wall Street Journal takes on his contention that it's the number of fake accounts issue which had caused him to put the Twitter deal on hold. As the WSJ explains, that's not a new issue. Fake accounts have been embedded in social networks for years. And since those operating them keep improving their methodology they are not likely to go away.

WHAT THE GUY MIGHT BE UP TO

Few others are accepting the reason Musk had provided for backing off, at least temporarily. Instead there are stern questions about what this billionaire might be trying to do.

One line of thought is that he has old-fashioned buyer's remorse. And he is playing cute to exit the agreement on terms favorable to him. There is not a lot of sympathy there. Who hasn't gotten locked in a deal which represented not a smart decision.

Another hunch is that he intends to negotiate a lower sales price. The purchase was supposed to be at 54.20 a share. At the market's closing on Friday Twitter was at 40.72. Could Musk be leveraging his wild behavior to influence the stock price?

NO HAMLET

It's unlikely Musk is doing a Hamlet: Should he or shouldn't he. More likely this is strategic calculation. And its dynamics are reflecting badly on Musk. Maybe on all billionaires. If the business community decides he is trying to game the system - and is a type of bad actor - he could register low on any trust barometer forever. His ability to transact business could be limited. His style of leadership could become positioned and packaged as what not to do.

With this major a possible stunt a comeback could be impossible. After all, Twitter employees are in angst about their employment security. This is at a time when much of tech is laying off or will soon enough. The market for the skills of those at Twitter could be glutted.

NOT UNTHINKABLE

Reflection: Is Musk finished?

Connect with Editor-in-Chief Jane Genova at janegenova374@gmail.com.

Meghan, Harry and Other Depreciated Celebrity Brands

Actress Natalie Wood, went the gossip, suffered so much when she was no longer in demand.

Currently, once iconic litigator David Boies is giving interviews, ranging from Reuters Legal to Substack, perhaps to return his brand to where it had been in 2015. Remember the gush BusinessWeek article about him.

And Bill Gates, following a brand crash after his divorce and allegations about womanizing, is all over the place in the media. Gates is pontificating on everything, be it pandemics or the global economy. Busy guy.

In this kind of struggle, posit some, currently are The Preachers Meghan and Harry. They could be at the end of the line in their ability to monetize their rift with the House of Windsor. Feuds, as William Shakespeare milked in his dramas, make great copy. 

So what could be ahead for Meghan and Harry? The odds are that they will run out of money. With brand depreciation there are fewer or no juicy money-making opportunities. Meanwhile their lifestyle is at a nosebleed level. 

Will the two have to return to the good graces of the royals in England to support themselves and their children? That will be quite the media story if they attempt to worm their way back in.

Connect with Editor-in-Chief Jane Genova at janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

Employed at SCOTUS? - Get a Lawyer

"... for those inside the court, [Kel] McClanahan says there will likely be a more tangible backlash to the leak as a result of the intense scrutiny from the chief justice and political leaders. And the competing theories about the leaker [that it could be a liberal or a conservative] combined with the lack of clues will leave everyone vulnerable to an invasion of privacy and perhaps even legal jeopardy." - Harper Neidig, The Hill, May 7, 2022.

McClanahan is an adjunct law professor at George Washington University and specializes in whistleblower law. He recommends that everyone at the court, whether a whistleblower or not, lawyer up. All at the court will find it difficult to navigate the fallout from the leak without legal guidance. 

A cartoon could capture this situation. It would depict everyone from a clerk to a justice to Chief Justice John Roberts himself being grilled by thuggish looking authority figures under hot lights. 

What actually could play out is the classic phenomenon of a social system requiring a scapegoat. Any employee at the Court or a number of employees could wind up designated as that scapegoat. They could be pulled into a nightmare situation from which there may be no exit. The Court's brand and credibility are so vulnerable. Systems do whatever is necessary to preserve themselves.

Reflection: When I was a 1L at Harvard Law School I had a fantasy of winding up as a justice on SCOTUS. Unlike my classmates I had no desire to join Big Law and make the big bucks. The Court symbolized so much to me. Guess I was lucky that the fantasy didn't become reality. I could be under those hot lights. (Actually I had left law school to return to my career in communications. I had gone to law school in my 40s.)

Connect with Editor-in-Chief Jane Genova at janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

Reputation Restoration - Maybe Bill Gates Is Overdoing It

"Bill Gates says Elon Musk could make Twitter 'worse.'" - Insider, May 4, 2022.

There he is again. Out there commenting on topical events. Yesterday it was abortion rights. And the pandemic is a daily platform for predicting the future.

In addition, very recently Gates has been a busy bee doing mea culpas about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and, of course, his failed marriage to Melinda.

Since this techie/global do-gooder is back from the bad branding following his divorce and allegations about womanizing it's puzzling why he is forever jaw-jawing about something, anything. Is he getting bad public relations advice? Or perhaps he is ignoring it. 

Of course, this excessive exposure can generate a return to branding hell. The beef would be: This guy sucks up all the oxygen. 

Connect with Editor-in-Chief Jane Genova at janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

Hinckley Allen Partner Bruce Singal Allegedly Went Rogue

"Bruce Singal, currently a partner at Hinckley Allen who also lists an adjunct position at Boston College on his resume [and a former Assistant US Attorney], allegedly picked up a woman from a less than reputable area of town and was confronted by police while being… um… you know, by the woman. According to the report the woman received $40 for the transaction." - Abovethelaw, May 2, 2022.

This looks bad. But it could be worse. The Incident Report, provided by ATL, lists the alleged crime as human trafficking. But that was later downgraded to misdemeanor solicitation. 

The bad is still bad in terms of this lawyer's brand and his future career. It can also throw shade on his law firm. The court of public opinion creates the rules of the optics game. The legalities more and more often play second fiddle. Meanwhile law is a slow-moving process. Media outlets operate 24/7.

So here we have yet another successful lawyer who allegedly didn't walk the line. It remains a puzzle why too many lawyers, who have had to jump through so many hoops to get where they are, allegedly risk tearing it all down.

Connect with Editor-in-Chief Jane Genova at janegenova374@gmail.com

 

Corporate Fear of Becoming the "Next Disney" - Beyond the Scary Talk

Most Chief Executive Officers recognize that they may be one high-profile social or political issue away from being the “Next Disney.” The angst is palpable. So is the confusion.

NO GOING HOME AGAIN TO MILTON FRIEDMAN

Yet, as The Wall Street Journal reports, they also recognize that in these volatile ESG times there is no circling back to Milton Friedman’s “shareholder theory.” That Friedman concept defined the CEO job as primarily returning value to the shareholders. The social responsibility of the corporation was to increase profits.

NO CONSENSUS

The exploding number of comments to that WSJ article underscores the wide range of points of view about everything from what is the function of the corporation to what should be taught in grade school. Among both the Republicans and the Democrats there is no longer an “official party line.” Both, which used to respect the role of business in society, have become unpredictable in their policy decisions about commerce. In Florida, the Republican Governor Ron DeSantis turned on the business of Disney.

IN-HOUSE LEGAL AS MULTI-DIMENSIONAL POWER CENTER

Meanwhile, no surprise, research by the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford found that those same corporations’ in-house legal departments have major concerns about the CEOs’ public stances on non-business matters. In addition, they are equally concerned about employee activists. Here is my analysis of those findings which O’Dwyer Public Relations published. Of course, as happened at Disney, the two – CEO official social/political positions and those of workers – can clash. With disastrous outcomes.

Obviously, in-house legal’s concerns are in the right place. They are, as Wall Street would put it, on the money. And the corporation can put its money, metaphorically speaking, on that internal power center.

In-house legal departments can transform the internal fear and chaos into a challenge with possible and doable solutions.

Last January in in Corporate Counsel, Wall Street law firm Paul Weiss outlined how that could be done.

Essentially the takeaway is: In-house legal can create the new mindsets and tools for identifying and implementing what corporate leadership needs to navigate the ESG ongoing upheaval. 

APPROACHING AND DOING LAW VERY DIFFERENTLY

Paul Weiss Chairperson Brad Karp and the law firm's Chief Sustainability-ESG Officer David Curran provided a 4-point guide for much of that. The 4 are:

Reinvent Playbooks. The conventional ways are no longer adequate. That is primarily because ESG issues spill over to multiple corporate departments and lines of business. 

They recommend:

"Legal teams must be involved with HR, investor relations, finance, and business units to encounter ESG issues. Lawyers are in an ideal position to coordinate disparate parts of an organization and fill important gaps."

Make Sure Department Members Understand the Unique Aspects of ESG. Because there are so many gray areas in ESG, traditional methods of conducting legal business have become anachronistic. Those old approaches, of course, are: researching precedent and applying law. What is needed is the ability to have an interdisciplinary mindset and experience leveraging that. Among other competences in-house lawyers need, hammer Karp and Curran are to:

" ... make sure public disclosures align with ESG goals, structure board committees to oversee ESG risks and opportunities, and develop systems for monitoring and measuring ESG progress."

Validate ESG Data. So much depends on that, ranging from conformance to ESG metrics to the criteria required for Sustainable Investments. The growth of that investment niche depends on how that data is configured.

 Karp and Curran posit: "Lawyers can pressure test their data using many of the same models and compliance frameworks developed to ensure that companies are in compliance with anti-corruption laws."

Be Aware of ESG Risks in Mergers and Acquisitions and IPOs. Much of ESG is still new to lawyers. Therefore, it is all too easy for them to "not look" where the risks can be to corporations in this new era of ESG values. They could miss what might not have been a red flag in pre-ESG times. Essentially, so much has changed. 

They warn:

"All it takes is one weak link in a supply-chain agreement or a board member's past bad behavior - to break the chain and put the company's reputation at risk."

SHIFTING THE NARRATIVE OUT OF SCARY

Usually business blames the media such as the WSJ for hyping a situation. However, when it comes to the impact of ESG issues on business, there isn’t much hyperbole. Not much is unthinkable.

However, the conversation can be reframed from crisis talk. Few institutions in America have the resources of a corporation. Among them is the in-house legal department. That power came through in the decisions at Coca-Cola and Starbucks to change the leadership of their legal departments. For those corporations that seemed to signal a fresh start.

Over the years Jane Genova has covered major corporations. Now and then she does freelance communications assignments for Paul Weiss and a number of other law firms, both defense and plaintiff.

Canceling Social Networks - Not an Option for Most Professionals

Nice article today in The Wall Street Journal on folks who have deleted their Twitter, Facebook, and Instragram accounts. The short version: Aside from missing the Like/Comment high, there was little else to miss. Or, so had been their take.

Interestingly, though, only one had leveraged social networks for a business purpose. And that related to a relatively small business. 

That's the story - buried between the lines. Folks doing the canceling weren't dependent on social networks for making a living. Most of us professionals do not have the option of deleting our social network accounts.

The social network - whatever it is - is an obvious new-business-development tool.

Clients expect to see us there. In a sense, the number of followers, likes, comments, and shares help shape our branding in the clients' eyes.

Often the client-vendor  relationship involves posting client whatevers on our own social network sites. Just scroll through LinkedIn Updates. Over and over again professional services firms discuss myriad aspects of their clients' businesses. 

Also, I vividly recall that in Campaign 2016, on Facebook employees of the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce had totally cute photos of their children singaling support for Hillary Clinton. That was for me the Ah-Ha Moment. I got it that I too should be leveraging my social for advancing my professional interests.

Currently the best ROI in the time and thought spent on social by professionals comes from LinkedIn. However, the tone and the content have shifted from professionalism to the look, sound, and feel of a human being having authentic conversations with other human beings. In essence, LinkedIn has evolved into a personal network for professionals. 

Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter has sucked out all the oxygen from attention to other forms of digital communication. That means that currently there is not a lot of jaw-jawing about the ROI from blogging. That medium of blogging demands more thought and effort than does participating on social networks. 

However, as I tell my clients, the blog is sort of a swiss knife. It can be used for so many marketing and even sales purposes. Those range from branding to lobbying. The potential outcomes are enhanced almost exponentialy when the posts are repurposed on social networks. 

Connect with the Editor-in-Chief at janegenova374@gmail.com.