A lawyer and a Communications Professional walk Into a bar

I’ve got to admit it, for the first few years of my life as a professional communicator, I didn’t exactly look forward to working with in-house corporate lawyers. As my colleague and communications thought-leader Elizabeth Williams has frequently said, “For most communicators, venturing to the legal department can feel like being hauled off to the corporate woodshed”. After all, in-house lawyers can be notorious for red-lining, dismantling and obscuring communications that, after much painstaking crafting, has buy-in from multiple stakeholders 

As I, ahem, matured, I learned that senior corporate communications leaders around the globe, had unfortunately come to expect that their inter-department relationships are, by default, strained. 

For instance, Employee Communications and Human Resources Employee can find themselves at odds over setting priorities on activities such as how to deal with employee online reviews and how to onboard employees. Employee Communications and Marketing often grapple over internal branding issues. Meanwhile, Employee Communications and Project Management can duke it out over internal processes and escalating concerns to executives. Employee Communications can even find themselves at loggerheads with Customer Support and Sales when it comes to training for new products. 

But, why do these tensions exist? Is Employee Communications an organization’s problem child? And, what’s that got to do with my former reluctance – and, yes, I did say former – to work with in-house legal professionals? 

Well, having led communications programs aimed at helping organizations navigate drastic and rapid change – it is clear that some of the reason for these tensions are indeed structural. In other words, they play out in organizations – of all shapes and sizes – because of how responsibilities are sliced, diced and hardwired into job descriptions, policies, and day-to-day procedures. 

But, while modifying structural issues takes time, patience and senior-level support, there is a faster and considerably simpler method for addressing the tensions employee communications professionals have with in-house legal professionals. And, it’s an approach that has proven to mitigate even the most difficult relationships within an organization. 

Listen to this episode of The Swear Jar Podcast to hear Bridgemarq Real Estate Service’s Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Paul Zappala. Together, with Elizabeth and me, Paul helps pave a path for how these two sets of professionals can come to work together well in what could be the professional communicator’s most unlikely alliance.

Transcript

00:00:00] Andrew Brown: Hi everyone and welcome to The Swear Jar - the official podcast of the Academy of Business Communications, where we tell it like it is about corporate and employee communications and occasionally use colorful language to raise money for worthy causes. My name is Andrew Brown. 

[00:00:17] Elizabeth Williams: And I'm Elizabeth Williams. And, you know, I have always wanted to start a joke with "a lawyer and a communicator walk into a bar", but try as I might, I just can't make that end up in anywhere nice because the truth is that, you know, just about everything that we as communicators do eventually ends up on a lawyer's desk.

[00:00:34] Not always at our behalf. Sometimes we screw things up and a trip to the legal department is like going to the corporate woodshed. So today we are joined by a real life lawyer. Paul Zappala who, like all in house lawyers, is responsible for working with communications professionals to get stuff done.

[00:00:51] Paul is the executive vice president and general counsel at Brookfield RPS real property solutions. And Bridgemarq Real Estate Services here in Toronto. And,  I will ask you to just, introduce a little bit more about yourself, Paul, before we dive in. 

[00:01:08] Paul Zappala: [00:01:08] Sure. Well, Elizabeth and Andrew, thank you for having me join today.

[00:01:13] Um, so I, I do work, in the real estate and financial services industries. I'm actually been, an active practice for just over 15 years. most of that has been in house, and mostly in the B2B type of a scenario but also B2C where we've had some  consumer  exposure as well.

[00:01:34]Andrew Brown: [00:01:34] Well, welcome again to The Swear Har. And I'd love to dive in and  as is our approach, we are quite straight forward. We know that communicators and lawyers have ocassionally challenging relationships. , We,  as communicators, work with lawyers who are very detailed oriented, and sometimes it feels like they're taking on every word and sucking all the energy and life out of something that we've carefully crafted for executives or, or for other employees or team members.

[00:02:07] And it's clear that lawyers have a very different filter they use and a different set of priorities. And that's, that's cool. That's important. But to understand why there is a fractious relationship let's start with understanding something that I think is central to repairing and strengthening that relationship.

[00:02:29] And it's very simple or basic Paul, maybe you can help us understand how in-house lawyers are deemed to be success in their organization. And, in other words, what are those specific performance metrics that in-house lawyers are measured on? 

[00:02:50] Paul Zappala: [00:02:50] That's an easy one:  basically don't get the company into trouble.

[00:02:54]Your question is an interesting one though, because,  it depends on who within the organization is measuring you.  I mean, I know that I measure myself as a professional and you're right. I nitpick every little word and. I don't know, oftentimes my objective is to mitigate risk as best as possible, but that's one of the reasons why I'm a lawyer because that's  where my strengths lie.

[00:03:18]But the reality is, is that I view my measure on who my client is.  and  within an organization, I have multiple clients. It could be a communications professional. It could be a finance group. It could be the president or the CEO, each one of those, those individuals has a different communication style, a different professional objective, a different way of approaching problems and, or looking for solutions.

[00:03:45]The overarching goal is to avoid any scenarios, mitigate risk, as best as you can,  and not create new problems.  I really view the measure of success as whether my client has been  successfully provided with what I'm there to offer,  and they're as much of the organization as I am.

[00:04:06]Andrew Brown: [00:04:06] So if, if I can just probe a little, so it sounds like we all have a number of different,  stakeholders within an organization that we,  have obligations But for a lawyer, maybe you can help us understand some of those stakeholders and what they demand of you.

[00:04:25] Cause I heard, you know, from like the president or CEO, they're going to want you to not get the firm in any lawsuits or minimize that risk. Are there compliance issues, for example? Or again, go by stakeholder and help,  our, Fearless Communicators understand what you consider success. 

[00:04:48] Paul Zappala: [00:04:48] So if I were to go stakeholder by stakeholder, I mean, obviously someone who is in a, a president or a CEO position,  their measure of my success would be my ability to address the individual needs of the individual stakeholders within the corporation.

[00:05:05] From a finance perspective, it could be interpreting,  something related to a corporate or tax stuff. It could be facilitating audits.  From a communication perspective it's being able to deliver on the review and approval of a marketing or promotional communication.  

[00:05:25] Human resources,  is another stakeholder and certainly from that perspective, there's a lot of potential risk as you're dealing with employees, communication to employees -- both in good and bad situations,  and ensuring that all of those cases you're complying with regulatory requirements, different provincial legislation.  There are compliance issues depending on the organization that you're working in.

[00:05:49]Elizabeth Williams: Well that raises some, some interesting points about, about roles and, and priorities and, and, you know, we call that daddy issues. Right? So,  for communicators, our daddy's are employee engagement and  the,  consumption of the stuff we do and changing behaviors and moving projects along. And in HR, of course, it's around managing labor costs as well as engagement and compliance and for, what I'm hearing from, from your point of view, , Paul is,  much more around compliance, keeping the company out of trouble, risk management and all of that.

[00:06:24] And so I think, I wonder if one of the reasons that we sometimes get into trouble working together is because we don't always acknowledge everybodyelse's daddy issues. And we maybe don't give the background informationthatwe might share to make your job a little easier. Is that something that you've seen?

[00:06:45] Paul Zappala: Oh, definitely.  for me, I always ask for a backstor y Regardless of who you approach in an organization, whether it be a lawyer or not there's always a bigger picture to the question that's being asked.

[00:06:55] I don't find that, I always getting the full picture right out of  the gate.  So I will probe, I will make sure that I try to spend the time to understand the issue, , and give as best of an answer as I can.  Even with the big picture you're often asked for the quick answer and I don't always have the answers right out of the gate.  I will sometimes want the time to look at something a little bit more, fulsomely to understand the issue and look at it from different angles before I provide a response. 

[00:07:26] Elizabeth Williams: In my experience, I've, I've been the person standing at the door going, "Do you know the answer now?" "What about now?" You know, because we, , as communicators often work on, on tight deadlines. And I would, I would say too, that one of the mistakes that whenever I've been in trouble with lawyers in large companies, which has been more than once it's usually because I have taken for granted tha , the lawyer or the team I'm dealing with is, is actually plugged into the, the cultural and employee mandates and  other projects.

[00:07:55] So  I assume they've got the backstory or more backstory maybe then than they do. And I, I got into big trouble. 

[00:08:02] I worked in a big telecom company once, and we had this really fun internal contest. I don't even remember what it was about anymore, but we had,  a sales contest or something, and the legal team got wind of it. We wouldn't normally run  an internal contest past them that they got wind of it and just had a fit because we had this little brand we used and,  we'd been using it for years for sales contest inside the company, but it was apparently very close to,  an external brand used by another company close to our industry.  And they were just having a meltdown because they thought we were, you know, violating intellectual property and copyright left, right and center. And I guess it just, they didn't even know that we'd been using this internally forever. And, we got into a great big to do, as you can imagine. 

[00:08:49] Is it your experience then that, that sometimes marketers and communicators maybe make assumptions about what the legal team knows and doesn't know? 

[00:08:59] Paul Zappala: I think that's a fair statement  I've been in situations where someone's been working on a project for six months and I just heard about it. I think that's just the way that organizations work. Sometimes everybody has a silo and everybody thinks that everyone is. Everyone else in their own silos knows what's going on across the board.

[00:09:16] And they also look at, certain positions within the organizations and the legal council is often one of those where they feel or believe that they at least have their pulse on everything that's happening in all cases.  and that's often not the case. 

[00:09:33]So I think it's important that when anybody is working on a communications or other project knows that at some point, legal will have to get involved to really give. You know, give an opportunity for that individual to have enough advanced notice,  and  be prepared to share as much information as possible so that the person knows that they're comfortable with the advice that they're giving.

[00:09:56]Andrew Brown: I think that,  bringing that information to an in house lawyer, , and bring them as a partner and try and making sure that that's part of what they bring, that's great. But I would also ask Paul,  if you were to sit down with the communications specialist  what would you want  them to understand most about what you have to deal with and what you expect of them?

[00:10:27]Paul Zappala: Don't expect that I'm going to know the answer right away.  when you look at someone who is in house and is dealing with a variety of issues throughout a  corporation,  whether that is a large corporation with a lot of issues or a small one with fewer,  it's very difficult to be an expert in a single area. . That doesn't mean that I don't have the ability to look at some research and identify and develop a course of action or a recommendation, but it doesn't mean that I'll have the information right off the bat.  so the,  ability for the ideas as they're being developed to be shared with,  me as an advisor,  is certainly something that I would ask for from communications experts. 

[00:11:13]Elizabeth Williams:  Why is it just so important for the legal team and the communications team - both internal and external - to, to be aligned and to be talking and to be getting involved in each other's stuff earlier? 

[00:11:26]Paul Zappala:  From an organizational perspective, I think everybody needs to be on the same page -  understanding what a communications professional is looking to achieve is the best way that I'm able to provide advice. 

[00:11:41] I think that sometimes, , different stakeholders feel that the legal department is wordy where you go to get the answer, you know,  or you can't do that.  and that's sometimes. A fair description of how people view certain departments. 

[00:11:56] I  will say," Well, no, you can't do it that way, but let's look at this as an opportunity".  And so, knowing what the objective is, helps me formulate how I'm going to think about the particular question.  And, it also helps to ensure that both, me as a lawyer, and a communications person, as a representative of the voice of the corporation, we align our objectives to what we know the corporation's objective is. And ultimately I think that's the goal for any one of us. 

[00:12:25]Elizabeth Williams: I worked at one place where we referred to the legal team as the dementors.  you know, in Harry Potter where they just suck all the joy out of you.  but I think that in hindsight,  we probably, because we assumed the answer would always be no, or the changes requested would be so substantial as to, as to kind of ruin whatever it was we had in mind. 

[00:12:46] I think we miss some of the opportunities,  to tell the stories that we need to tell,  that supports other corporate principles is I think the legal team spends a lot of time thinking about guiding principles and thinking about values and, things like that.  I think another,  opportunity we have with the legal team, especially now, is helping to find opportunities to,  shine a light on diversity and inclusion  and other important things that the organization needs to be putting out there to its employees and to the world.

[00:13:16]Also I actually wish I, in hindsight had been nicer to the lawyers and spent more time as you say, getting them involved early and, and using them as a sounding board versus walking in with a finished document going,, "Can you just sign off on this by two? " Here's a cookie... Although I did have good luck getting good results with golf balls. I found a box of golf balls from the marketing covered often and got things moving. 

[00:13:40] And then, you know, and I think the other thing that I have always, or that it took me a while, but I, I now come to appreciate , is the amount of research that lawyers do. I, I,  have many times had a much better document handed back to me courtesy of  the legal team. The writing might have been in need of some help, but you know, it was now a much better researched,  much more thorough, much more thoughtful document. And so I think that for communicators who are trying to actually improve the quality of their work, the legal team,  isn't your enemy.

[00:14:13] I would argue that,  that they're our friends and there's a lot of business value, even in just having fresh eyes on a piece of work.  And I think too, as communicators, we need to be a little less resentful about legal, asking us to change things and maybe just feel a little more comfortable that they're probably keeping us out of a certain amount of hot water.

[00:14:36]Andrew Brown: I find that when you have  support from the legal team internally that can actually help break down  barriers because  the legal team often has a certain type of credibility within an organization that, let's say, the internal comms or HR teams may not have. 

[00:14:58]Paul Zappala: In my 15 plus years, I've dealt with a lot of various situations, whether it's communicating internally, externally in a time of crisis, , in marketing or advertising and responding to media.  and so taking that experience and sort of sharing that and working through what inappropriate responses while addressing some of the potential liability or risk concerns, depending on the particular circumstance? I think, yeah, he is one of those golden nuggets where you really add value and you really start to create a synergy between that, those two professionals.  and oftentimes if you're, you're going. in with a preconceived notion of what you're going to get out of that request.  you're sometimes closed off to that. And I think that goes both ways. 

[00:15:44] I would argue that I'm probably not as good a writer.  But, that's not to say that I can't offer a suggestion, right? That I don't feel comfortable offering suggestion about writing or communicating something in a different way, but also ask what exactly are you looking for from me? Because if you're not looking for me to rewrite something, I'm not going to call something out, just because it's the way that I would communicate versus the person that  wrote the material.

[00:16:09] Andrew Brown: I think that's,  there's a great deal of insight there that,  the clarity of  task, or the "ask" that the communicator,  can bring is probably something that you appreciate rather than just having something dropped on your desk.

[00:16:22]Paul Zappala: Oh, absolutely. And I think that goes to say with any professional really. 

[00:16:26] Andrew Brown: Yeah. Okay. Can I go back to that joke we started with, how do we get that lawyer and that communicator to go into that bar together and have a, have a drink?  So  two part questions: 1)  Are there a few structural things that would ensure that lawyers and communications professionals would work better together, reduce confusion, collaborate together?

[00:16:48]So that's the first .  And then, what skills do you think that lawyers need in order to be able to work more productively with communications professionals? 

[00:16:57]Paul Zappala: The first thing that communication professionals and lawyers you should do is actually go to a bar and have a drink.  And the reason why I say that is cause you need to have a relationship with the people that you work with.  one of the best things that I can do is understand how they work, how they think that helps me anticipate how I'm going to work with this person when we have a real life issue.

[00:17:18]The other thing is,  and I certainly found this to be helpful when I joined a new organization is understanding how a department works. I think oftentimes we take for granted that, a department is going to work a certain way. Here are the things that I am going to look at is I'm going to need from you. I'm going to understand, and you're really just setting up a framework for how you're going to engage with each other.  And sometimes that framework is going to go right out the window. But I find that in most scenarios,  people appreciate understanding what it is that you need to do your job.

[00:17:54]Elizabeth Williams:  I worked with one legal team and they had an intake form. So, if you needed something from the legal team, you filled in this little Excel sheet and it drove the Communications and Marketing team nuts because it had been written for, a contract question.  So people, obviously the whole business had to submit any contracts. They were signing with clients or suppliers. And so, this intake form was written in the scenario of a contract. And so, we could never fill in the fields properly. And we ended up going, literally spending more time shooting this intake form back and forth  then we did reviewing the work. And so, one of the things that we did was we finally sat down with, with the legal team and said, "You're driving us crazy, here". And they said, "Well, you're driving us crazy cause you're not giving us the right information". And so we actually took an hour and fixed up the form so that it was a little friendlier to marketing communications, people 

[00:18:47]Another thing that I found that worked really well with this legal team was we would actually share, we had  an editorial calendar each month. So, we had certain publications that had to happen every single month. And so, once we shared that with them, they could more accurately allocate the teams so they knew that at the end of the quarter, we had to do a quarterly statement from the CEO. -- and the numbers came in very late and we had about 48 hours to turn this sucker around and get it, translate it and get it out the door. And once they understood that, they could actually set aside one of the lawyers on this particular day to be ready just to focus on that. And that just removed and not only made us get our stuff at the door, but it removes so much friction and so much anxiety and so much dread - on everybody's side.

[00:19:32]And then to your point, we, we did invite that legal team into one of our annual planning sessions so they had a bit of context and, and throughout, they were able to just sort of put their hand up and go, "You know, what? Talk to us when you're getting there, because we can help you get that done".

[00:19:46] And it was  a really healthy working relationship between the two departments. And,  it was rooted in a respect for process. And I do agree with you on building each other into the process. 

[00:19:58] and, you know, if you've got a. Something that's happening regularly on a quarterly basis, you know, so that it is going to happen. And, you know, you're going to be reaching out to the legal professional. And so giving that legal professional, an agenda items so that they can plan around it is going to just be a win, win, or a successful scenario.

[00:20:19] Then, and it's certainly one of the things I learned too, that I hadn't known is there's certain times of year that the legal department is really slammed when, you know, end of year all the contracts are coming up. And then,  and end-of-year often,  regulations, public regulations and employer regulations change.

[00:20:34] And so I learned don't go near them in December, unless you're showing up with some cookies.  so it meant that we did our December stuff a little earlier, or we pushed it out into January because they were very grumpy and not helpful. 

[00:20:45]Andrew Brown: One of the things that I take away from this is that,  and this is something a Elizabeth and I discuss with clients frequently is that you as a communicator, you can't just, let that kind of relationship with lawyers to just,  go into  a corner and and die a lonely death. It has to be nurtured. You ave to maintain a rapport. You have to manage expectations. You have to have that clear understanding of one another. And the lawyers, I think, and the communicators actually share something that's very important to them that it's a, a real,  desire to, communicate clearly and succinctly and in a way that moves the organization forward.

[00:21:33] So I think that there is a fair amount of common ground. It just takes a little effort to get there. And thanks Paul today. I think we have a clearer sense of how we can go about doing that.

[00:21:49] Elizabeth Williams: Just thinking about the last six months of, you know, COVID weirdness, have you noticed any, any shifts in the way you're working with internal stakeholders now that you can't see them? And, now that we have communication is so important because we've got remote workforces. 

[00:22:08] Paul Zappala: I actually think that I see my coworkers more now than I did before.  I have not had a phone call recently that wasn't a video call.  so where I might previously have been on a different floor as somebody else I'm talking through my phone, I'm now speaking to them face-to-face through my computer. It certainly has changed the dynamic in that way. It's different than what I would have expected. The one thing that I do find is that we've lost the opportunity for that impromptu, "Hey, I have a quick question for you". It's more, it become more formal because you have to schedule a time to see somebody.

[00:22:43] And I think there's something lost in that  going and grabbing a coffee and,  making the rounds and saying hello to somebody and using that as an opportunity to quickly discuss something or give you a heads- up that something's going to happen. It's been replaced with a calendar invite and a more formal exchange. 

[00:23:01]Elizabeth Williams: I think you actually just helped us figure out what our next podcast is about as the new formality in the, in the remote world. So,  just before we move along and talk about what we're reading and watching,  I took away 10 things from this.

[00:23:13] So first is to remember that lawyers have multiple clients and may not exactly, you know, what communicators are up to,   that we need to make sure that our friends in legal understand the bigger picture of what we're trying to do. Communicators need to not assume that lawyers actually know what's going on in there little corner of the organization.

[00:23:34] And I guess the fourth thing is not to expect that the legal team will necessarily have the answer right away. I  took away some advice on,  make sure we get the legal team involved as early as possible, clearly communicate what it is that we want to accomplish with this , recognize that getting the legal team involved is not about making things worse, but it's about finding opportunities to actually make communications, better and, and to add value to it.

[00:24:00]We should just bring more  together, apart, whatever.  I think an important one that I, I think I probably never did particularly well is understanding how each other's departments work. So it's incumbent on both the legal team and the communications team to.

[00:24:13] I have a little bit of insight into the dynamics within those departments so that we can work better. And then the final thing I took away is to make sure as projects move along, that the communications team stays in touch with the legal team, because things will change. And that could change how the legal team supports.

[00:24:31]Andrew Brown: It's that time of the episode where we shamelessly shill something.

[00:24:37] Uh, for the Academy of Business Communications, Elizabeth, what would you like to promote? Is it a new course, perhaps? 

[00:24:44] Elizabeth Williams:  I think it is. And it's one that in fact, that, that I know that you're working hard on, which is a 90 minute, one, what we call Communications-to-Go workshop about how to measure what we do.  And, I'm very excited because I really think that that is one of the things that communicators are terrified of, do a crappy job of. And, and that's largely because they don't really know where to start. Super excited to bring that one out in the next few weeks. And, we'll be putting information on our website about it.

[00:25:13]Andrew Brown: Excellent. I'm looking forward to that as well. And Elizabeth, if I'm not mistaken,  there is another workshop.  It's called "Worst Company Ever". That's part of the title folks, "How to deal with online reviews". And Elizabeth, can you take a moment and just describe that workshop?

[00:25:31]Elizabeth Williams:  It's how to deal with those soul-crushing,  reviews that employees, ex-employees and candidates leave on platforms like Glassdoor and Indeed, or Google, or even sometimes just on their private Reddit blogs. And, uh, when those come in, they can be really quite disturbing. And if you don't know what you're doing,  you can actually make it worse either by responding badly or not responding.

[00:25:54] So we have a, process and a playbook that we want to walk people through. And so in 90 minutes you can be,  less afraid of those reviews and view them as the great gift that they are, even though it doesn't actually feel like it when they're yelling at you. 

[00:26:07] Great. Okay. Let's talk about what we're reading or what we're viewing or what we're listening to all this, there, anything that's caught your eye recently.

[00:26:18] Paul Zappala: I'm all about distracting myself from the current world that we're in. I think we've all fallen victim to the binge session. Uh, I try not to do so much of that, but I'm particularly enjoying Little Fires Everywhere right now, which I'm both reading and viewing. 

[00:26:37] Elizabeth Williams: We recently did a podcast about bullshit and it reminded me that I had a book called Business Bullshit by Andre Spicer. And it's, it's a scholarly look, basically at bullshit --  actually a field guide to corporate bullshit.  What are you? 

[00:26:53] Andrew Brown: You know, I'm reading some stuff all around change. I think it's hard baked into what we do as communicators. And it's certainly what we deal with our clients.

[00:27:02] And so I'm finding myself reading about change at different levels of an organization. So Beyond the Quick Fix. By Ralph Kilmann, which is an old Josie Bass title. And I always love the structure in that because it recognizes the desire for organizations to really adopt processes quickly. And yet it acknowledges,  if you want to change, you can't just have that, but it belts into it in a very structured and systematic way.

[00:27:33]Elizabeth Williams: We will put of course links to all of these things in our show notes,  And that is it for us. 

[00:27:38] Thank you, Paul so much for sharing  expertise about how a lawyer and a communicator could walk into a bar and possibly not come out anytime soon. 

[00:27:46] If you liked this podcast, please do us a favor and leave a rating or better still subscribe on the platform of your choice. 

[00:27:53] Andrew Brown: And of course, check out the show notes and resources at AcademyofBusinessCommunications.com. Until next time, bye for now. 

[00:28:03] Elizabeth Williams: Bye. Bye.