As Alleged Associate Affair Goes Viral, What Should a BigLaw Firm Say?
When an associate in the Miami office of White & Case allegedly began an affair with a married woman, he presumably did not expect angry e-mails from her husband attaching her purported text messages with multiple men to be widely circulated via the Internet.
But that’s what happened, as e-mails sent by her husband to the law firm were apparently forwarded throughout the South Florida business community and republished by Above the Law and even mainstream publications, according to the Daily Business Review.
In response, the firm and the unidentified associate have declined to discuss the situation.
Is this the best way to handle an embarrassing law firm situation that goes viral? Expert opinions vary, the article reports, with some agreeing that it might be best to make little or no response and others arguing that the law firm should try to get in front of the story and take control of how the situation is portrayed.
While such gossip obviously doesn’t enhance the firm’s reputation, neither does it cause much harm, according to Chris Marlin of Miami office of the Sitrick & Co. public relations firm. A former in-house lawyer, Marlin says he himself wouldn’t have paid any heed to it when deciding whether to retain a law firm to do work for his company.
“This sort of gossip has much more resonance in legal circles than it does in client circles,” he says.
