Schillings-Reputation managers with a reputation problem?

[matgb]

Hmm, this is, I think, rather amusing. Those, um, impartial advisers acting as lawyers for Alisher Usmanov say on their site:

Using the law to protect reputations is our specialism.

Hmm. Well done guys, use the blunt instrument of the law to protect your clients reputation. What about your own reputation? Matt Wardman points out Defamation Lawyers now have a Public Relations Problem. Seriously, type Schillings into Google. Would you hire them?

If you want good online advice about reputation management, you probably want to go to someone who's actually quite good. In fact, you might want to go to one of the best search optimisation practitioners operating in the UK. Good idea when working on that sort of thing for a different client? Don't piss him off, ask Anne Milton...

ETA: liadnan in the comments here makes a very good, and informed point, from the perspective of a practicing barrister:

By and large the lawyer's (or at least the solicitor's -professional obligations are slightly different at the bar-) job is to advise -within the law- on possible courses of action which may achieve the client's wishes, and then, once the client has decided, carry out the chosen course, not to make decisions for their client based on their own political, social, or moral beliefs about what the law should be.

He's right, of course, the law firm itself can't be blamed specifically for acting on behalf of their client, but then, I've always known I'd make a terrible lawyer...

Comments

[eccles.livejournal.com]

Time to call Max Clifford :-)

[liadnan]

Oh for heaven's sake. I quite agree that the English law of libel needs reform (though an awful lot of what is being written about it in the context of this huha is simply wrong) and I quite agree that Usmanov and his ilk should not be able to use libel law to silence legitimate criticism. But I entirely fail to see why lawyers specialising in the law of defamation, an area of law which, whether you like it or not, happens to exist, are being criticised for using the law as it stands to the best advantage of their client.

They're a law firm. It's hardly an enormous shock that the weapon they choose to use in their chosen specialism is, err, The Law.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Whilst lawyers do only do what they are told, I also think that if Schillings wished to, they could talk their clients out of such precipitate behaviour.