Mark Weaver is a crisis communications expert with three decades of experience advising clients in more than 30 states. | Communications Counsel, Inc.
Mark Weaver is a crisis communications expert with three decades of experience advising clients in more than 30 states. | Communications Counsel, Inc.
When attorneys try their hand at public relations, they aren't always as successful as they would be in the courtroom, according to Mark Weaver, a consultant with Communications Counsel, Inc.
"Most lawyers write in a style that’s more suitable for court documents and less effective for the public at large," Weaver told Fayetteville Today. "Law school typically changes the way someone thinks and writes, and that usually means lawyers speak and write in ways that are less understood by the masses."
Weaver himself is both a lawyer and public relations professional, but his advice is for everyone, he says.
"I tell my clients that I’m bilingual; I speak English and lawyer," he said. "Because I was a communications professional before I went to law school, I’ve been able to mentally switch gears between what’s appropriate to say in an appellate argument versus what should be said in a newspaper op-ed."
When lawyers insist on writing public relations materials, they often are hurting their own cases, according to Weaver.
"In most crises where my team and I provide communications counsel, there’s at least one lawyer who attempts to muddy the waters with legal jargon, unnecessary nuance or overly defensive points," he said. "When I was a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice, I learned how to convince really smart lawyers to stay focused on the court of law while the communications professionals concentrate on the court of public opinion."
Likewise, public relations professionals should stick to what they're best at.
"Some public relations pros are familiar enough with the law in a given area to explain it to reporters, but all the non-lawyers should leave legal advice to those of us who went to law school and passed the bar," Weaver said.
Lawyers often use a highly academic language, which some refer to as "legalese," according to Criminal Law Consulting. This language includes legal terms that non-lawyers may not understand. However, when they try to break out of this language while writing PR materials, it is difficult for them to completely abandon the jargon. That is a key component of why lawyers should not act as PR consultants.
Some examples of legal jargon mean something completely different to the average person, Business Insider reported. For example, when the average person hears the term "recess," they think of the half-hour of outside time that elementary school kids enjoy in the middle of the day. For lawyers, this term refers to the break during a trial or court proceeding.
As much as professionals think using big words makes them sound "smart," all professions could learn from using plain language, according to the Nielsen Norman Group. If your goal is for people to read and understand your work, you must make it more readable and accessible to your audience, which are often people outside your specific profession.
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