Attorney Reputation Management
Have you ever done anything you wish you could take back? I have several things that haunt me on a regular basis. One decision, though, seems to have haunted me far more than any other. It was a situation where I tried to help out a friend, and that is what makes it the worst. In the end I had to hurt him by letting him go from my business. I never wanted to do that. I’ve even had to hire a firm that monitors my business’s presence on the Internet. One bad decision cost me a relationship and nearly my livelihood. I was lucky to find OvernightReputation.com to help me begin the process of setting it right.
It started with a junior partner in my law firm. We were a small firm. There were two senior partners, one junior partner and two associates. We employed one legal secretary each and a receptionist for a total of eleven employees. While I realize there are smaller companies out there, we prided ourselves on being a small closely knit family.
My junior partner came to me one day to ask about hiring his wife to do the books. She had a small CPA firm before they had children, and she had been in retirement for a number of years. She was just looking for something part-time to do now that their youngest child was ready to start school. I looked over the books, and as my receptionist was doing a lot of the billing and accounts, I decided it was a good idea for our firm to step forward and have an actual accountant. Part-time didn’t sound bad either.
His wife came on board. She seemed to be doing a great job, and in the beginning I barely noticed things seemed to be getting tight financially. We were producing at a very high rate. As things got tighter, I asked her more. She told me the books had been very behind when she picked them up. She was trying to get us caught up on outstanding accounts. The next time I questioned her, collections were down. She always had good documentation to show me. My receptionist hadn’t been an accountant, so I trusted her.
When my junior partner pulled in to work one Monday with a nicer car than mine though, I started to be a little suspicious. I requested copies of all the financial records from his wife, but they weren’t in the office. She had been working on them at home she said. The excuses continued for several days before she produced what seemed like a very limited amount of paperwork.
A review of the paperwork even to an accounting novice like me showed major gaps. I suspended both of them from the office, and hired an independent firm to come in and review my books. It was no surprise that we were missing over $50,000 in just a year.
Of course I had to fire them both. Because he was a junior partner it was published in the news as a business split. I would have never thought so many people would care about such trivial business. What was worse, somehow it was getting made out as the firm’s oversight. Headlines like “Bankruptcy firm can’t balance their own books”, ran rampant on the Internet and in newspapers for weeks.
When news is on the internet, it doesn’t go away when people throw out their papers. That is how I got involved with OvernightReputation.com. I have little doubt that my business wouldn’t have survived a scandal like this without reputation management.
If you’re having the same problems that I had, make it a point to get in touch with OvernightReputation.com. The owner will speak with you directly. No recording or outsourced customer service. His number is 559-871-1613.
Overnight Reputation was founded with one goal in mind: helping businesses and individuals clean up and maintain a positive online reputation.
For more information about Overnight Reputation or how the company can help you with a reputation problem contact Brandon by phone at 559-871-1613, email support@overnightreputation.com, or through the contact form.