Is Your Lawyer or Law Firm Bragging That They Have You or Your Company As a Client – Loose Lips
Social networks can be dangerous if you are someone who owns a small business. It’s far too easy to give important information away, details about your company that your competition can use against you. I am always amazed at how many small business owners list their clients, and have their customers come and post information about themselves on their profile page. As soon as they do that, they just alerted the competition that they are a buyer of those types of goods or services, therefore the competition might try to “friend them” and steal them away.
Of course, this is not the only thing that business owners and entrepreneurs do that can hurt them in the competitive world of business. Often business owners talk too much about their future plans, and what they are doing to their vendors, customers, employees, government inspectors that come in, and even their law firm. Oh, now I have your attention. You probably thought that lawyers have a strict code due to the “client privilege rules” well, I would suggest to you that you shouldn’t kid yourself.
Lawyers and law firms often brag about their client lists and even if your lawyer personally never mentions that you are a client, someone else at the law firm might mention it. They know things about your business that you don’t want your competition to know, and they are liable to spill the beans in casual conversation at the bar, the local watering hole that is, if not the actual bar. And they do it all the time. In fact, I noted that one of the law firms I used when I was in business, often bragged about its client in its brochures, even listed a few on the website.
They were actually using the brand names of larger corporations which they represent as proof that their law firm was worthy of taking on new clients. Perhaps even worthy of charging you increased legal fees for services. This can be a real problem in a competitive world, and I would submit to you that loose lips sink ships, and it is often people you don’t suspect that are giving away your company’s most important information and intellectual property.
A lawyer at the law firm you use could discuss a negotiation with a new vendor, and upcoming merger, or any of a number of things that can hurt you competitively in the marketplace. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.