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Many clients come to Schillings because they face false allegations which are threatening to have an immediate adverse impact on their public profile, something that is intrinsic to their reputation and livelihoods. In other words, they face being cancelled. These are high stakes scenarios for high profile people which are likely to go viral on social media and in the mainstream press, with devastating effects.
The Schillings playbook on cancel culture is designed to be ready to deal with these issues effectively. We have built on 40 years of experience and an acute awareness of how current day cancel crises play out to create that playbook and use it to guide a client out of trouble. The playbook makes us fast, integrated and comprehensive.
The objectives are broadly to: (a) understand and investigate the allegations and the evidence quickly, yet forensically; (b) push back on false allegations using legal and communications tools, while pro-actively taking control of the narrative; (c) prioritise putting our client back in control and looking after their wellbeing; (d) reassuring our client’s stakeholders before they are forced to abandon ship; and (e) use sophisticated digital tools to re-build profiles in the most effective way.
To achieve all of these concurrently, Schillings stands up a specialist team of investigators, lawyers, strategists and crisis communications experts. Armed with fine-grain situational awareness, we ‘read the situation’ and assess the best way to face the threat. We conduct sophisticated scenario planning with our client and their advisors to identify the best course to navigate. Then we execute that course, with confidence, nuance and courage, and with the aim of ensuring that the attempt at career-ending cancellation fails.
