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The 'Four Voices' Lawyers Can Use When Speaking to Reporters

One of the reasons lawyers blog is to "get their name out there" as experts in their areas of expertise. With a little luck and persistence, this can lead to calls from reporters asking for a lawyer's take on a particular issue that the reporter is writing about. As lawyers who are newly-involved with reporters quickly learn, however, there are established procedures and ground rules in interviews that are important but not widely understood.

Writing on McDermott Will & Emery's Legal Crisis Strategies blog, Lanny Davis and Eileen O'Connor -- who know a thing or two about media strategies -- offer their thoughts on the "four voices" that can be chosen for an interview, and which of them must be agreed to ahead of time by the reporter:

1. “On the record:” speaking with attribution, a name and identification as the lawyer in the case.

2. “On background:” This commonly used term means different things to different people, unfortunately, so it should be defined in advance. LCS writes that the best definition of this is "you can use my quotation, but identify me only as a 'spokesperson' or 'lawyer for' and don’t mention my name.”

3. “Deep background:” Often confused with number 2 above, so it should also be defined in advance. LCS says "deep background" means that facts the lawyer provides can be used as long as they are not attributed to the lawyer. To the extent there is any attribution, it should be anonymous, such as a "knowledgeable source" or "source familiar with the situation."

4. “Off the record:” Should mean just what it says according to LCS. To emphasize this, lawyers speaking off the record may also want to confirm with the reporter that they cannot use what the lawyer says at all unless the lawyer later changes the ground rules. The information, therefore, is being shared only for the reporter's own understanding and for no other purpose.

So don't get burned. Learn these "four voices" and make sure you are sharing with the press only what you intend to share.

Posted by Bruce Carton on March 10, 2010 at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)