The Swear Jar Podcast: A lawyer and a Communications Professional walk into a bar…

First, a confession

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 .

The problem child?

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?

Just listen in to The Swear Jar Podcast episode, “A lawyer and a Communications Professional walk into a bar…” for our conversation with 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.