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.