Andy’s Answers: Should our legal team review our blog posts?
You don’t need legal review of your blog posts. As more and more traditional businesses start blogging, we’re hearing nervousness from legal departments who want to check over these posts before they go live. And, of course, we’re hearing even more from horrified bloggers who are trying to fend off lawyers who want to review everything. Thousands of major companies are blogging, just fine, with no significant legal problems. If Microsoft can have 4,000 un-lawyered employee blogs, without lawsuit, you can do it.
What To Do: Work out a plan to make both sides comfortable.
- Create safe zones. Bloggers and legal should sit down and decide which topics are always OK to write without legal review, and which ones always need approval (such as safety issues).
- Create a training program. Develop a one-hour program for everyone to take before they start blogging.
- Work it out as you go. Assign representatives of the blog team and legal team to work out gray areas as they come up.
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Tags: andy sernovitz, Andy's Answers, Blogging, legal, Microsoft
Categories: Andy's Answers, Blogging, Word of Mouth
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Posted by Peter Hahn on December 16th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
I like your action plan. We have created blogging guidelines for our employees and legal has shared with us a “words to avoid list,” which is helpful. Thanks for the “safe zones” suggestion, that will be useful.
Posted by Kara Smith on December 16th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Hi Andy –
Your action plan makes complete sense. The blog is a company’s central platform for promotion and communication with social media. So, it’s important that the company’s initiative’s are clear to everyone that will be speaking about it publicly, and that the construct of the blog’s content be clearly defined.
I make reference Chris Brogan’s 10 Best Resource Articles Blogging to law firms, as they’re pertinent to every business
http://karasmamedia.blogspot.com/2008/12/10-best-resource-articles-for-legal.html
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