BulletProofBlog the blog on crisis communications

In this regular feature, Bulletproof interviews top plaintiffs’ attorneys for their perspective on the crises likely to affect businesses in the near future. Today we talk to Corrie Yackulic, a top Seattle-based practitioner who just left the firm where she practiced for twenty years to open The Corrie Yackulic Law Firm, PLLC. It’s a propitious moment to discuss current and upcoming issues that are likely to drive her new venture.

As a lawyer practicing in multiple areas, how are you deciding what direction to move in now that you’ve started your own firm?

Corrie Yackulic: My practice is driven by the referral and co-counsel relationships I have around the country, and that’s going to be especially true now that I’m on my own. I currently have strong collaborations with lawyers in California and Florida on automotive cases; in Texas on pharmaceutical cases; and here in Seattle on various personal injury matters.

One current case on which I am associated with a colleague in Maine is against Advanced Bionics Corporation and involves a child harmed by defective cochlear implants. It’s particularly significant that Advanced Bionics is now negotiating with us after the CEO was personally fined $75,000 for his role in this matter. As a bargaining tool for plaintiffs, such fines may become more important in the coming years, for at least two reasons.

First, committed agency regulators are permanent fixtures. Think it through: Bush appointees have no particular passion for or commitment to government as a change agent. Quite the contrary, they oppose that power viscerally and ideologically. Their agency jobs are often stepping stones to law or private enterprise. On the other hand, Democrats in the regulatory agencies who believe in the agencies’ core missions of protecting public health and safety and the environment will continue to seek maximum public sector impact on the industries they regulate, no matter who is President.

An agency like the FDA will never have the resources to provide sufficient oversight of pre-launch products. As a result, substantial fines on individuals for post-marketing failures may be seen as an effective tool to deter unsafe product design and manufacture. Businesses should take no comfort in seeing an agency overwhelmed or enfeebled. To the contrary, the more limited the agency resources, the more regulators may look to fines assessed on individuals within the companies as a means of trying to correct irresponsible corporate conduct.

How would you assess the effectiveness of the litigation communications strategies adopted by the pharmaceutical industry?

Corrie Yackulic: I think some major pharmaceuticals run risk by being overly aggressive. I’m thinking in particular of how they’ve gone about defending SSRI cases, an area in which I’m involved. They ridicule data that does not support their products and attack the mental fitness of plaintiffs who’ve used these drugs. It’s an awful Catch-22: ‘Anyone who uses my product is too psychologically unbalanced to question its risks.’

Such show-your-claws litigation can vitiate their brands entirely, adding to perceptions that these companies are public enemies. Moreover, their failure to disclose all relevant research undermines their most important message that people have the right to choose and must bear the responsibility for their choices. .There can be no informed choice without full risk disclosure.

As part of a business strategy for your new firm, how important is the Internet?

Corrie Yackulic: Well, it is less important than what the vendors, who are constantly trying to sell me optimization and other digital strategies, seem to think.

Aggressive online marketing can get you vast numbers of calls from potential new clients but you then spend most of your time rejecting the lion’s share because they do not have viable claims. Who wants to practice law like that?

Some plaintiffs firms dedicate paralegals or junior lawyers to that unpleasant task. But the plaintiffs’ bar is dominated by smaller firms like my own that build their practices the old-fashioned way, one referral at a time.

Larry Smith is Senior Vice President of Levick Strategic Communications, the nation’s top crisis communications firm, and a contributing author to Bulletproof Blog.

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Editors Note: An earlier version of this interview contained a misstatement. The FDA did not fine the CEO of Advanced Bionics $1 million, but only $75,000.