Global Crisis Management Series: This post is part 10 in a
series concerning topics further elaborated on in Cleary
Gottlieb's Global Crisis Management Handbook—a desk
reference for spotting issues and avoiding common mistakes when
faced with a crisis. The current version is available
here.
In an increasingly global, regulated, and litigious environment,
companies face unanticipated and potentially destabilizing events
that often play out in the public eye. Frequently, the issues
organizations face during large-scale, often public, crises require
more than exclusively legal skills, but also communications skills.
Below we discuss three key steps in the process for handling the
public relations aspects of any crisis: (1) assembling a
crisis-response team, (2) deciding whether or not to make a public
statement, and (3) crafting the public message.
