Have you heard about the lawsuit actress Lindsay Lohan has filed against E*Trade seeking $100 million in damages?  She claims the talking baby commercial that debuted during the Super Bowl about a “milkaholic” named Lindsay was about her, misappropriating her name, characterization, and personality. 

To prevail in court will require Ms Lohan to prove that she is in the league of single name celebrities such as Oprah, Cher, Prince or Madonna.  (You be the judge on that one.)  It will also require proving a penchant for excessive drinking behavior, the kind associated with the suffix “holic.”   Most folks would prefer to put their youthful indiscretions behind them, not broadcast them or have to offer proof of them in open court in a vain attempt to “win” a suit.  After all, dirty laundry is well . . . dirty laundry.

Some will say that even bad publicity is better than no publicity.  But to them I offer the case of Welch v. Welch.  It’s the case about “Jack.”  Or was he not famous enough to be the one name CEO?  Doesn’t matter, this case wasn’t about fame.  It was about divorce. 

It was the case of former General Electric CEO Jack Welch that played out on the front page of the Wall Street Journal back in 2002 and the lesson is one about the unintended consequences of publicity associated with litigation.

Here’s what happened.  Determined, in his iconic way, from having to pay Jane Welch more than he thought was fair, Jack refused to negotiate a higher settlement.  That’s when the soon to be ex-Mrs. Welch, a former corporate lawyer who gave up her career for marriage, unpacked some dirty laundry in court papers.  She exposed the very generous retirement perks Jack was enjoying complements of GE, including the use of a company owned New York apartment overlooking Central Park, free dry cleaning, flowers, wine, country club memberships, tickets to sporting events, a charge account at a posh restaurant, a cook, limousine service, even vitamins.

Occurring in the aftermath of the Enron, Tyco and WorldCom scandals, the news of Jack’s royal lifestyle, compliments of GE did not sit well with investors.  There was a public backlash.  As a result, two weeks after the perks made headlines Jack elected to give them up.   The same day the Securities and Exchange Commission announced it would launch an informal investigation into Welch’s retirement package.  It was a mess.

Who knows, had the details been kept out of the public spotlight, Mr. Welch might still be enjoying those perks today.  He would have certainly been spared a great deal of unpleasantness.

Disputes are a fact of life, yet sometimes we need the help from a neutral third party to help resolve our differences with others.  One way disputes can be resolved without going to court is through mediation. 

If you or someone you know is interested in a behind the scenes look at how mediation works and how you can use it to get great results, join me when I interview professional mediator David DeLugas on March 16, at 8 pm Eastern (5 pm Pacific).  For more information about this complimentary program click here.

And Lindsay, I hope you’ll join us too.

Confidential business and trade secret information is more than the stuff of corporate espionage.  It is the competitive edge of any  business, regardless of size, and deserves protection.

Set up the proper safeguards to protect you confidential and trade secret information and you’ll be able to pursue your legal remedies the way Home Depot recently did.

When Home Depot’s senior manager in product engineering was caught sharing competitive pricing information with a vendor in hopes of negotiating a favorable employment package, Home Depot took action.  They called in the FBI to investigate and the engineer’s employment prospects significantly dimmed after he was sentenced to 4 months in prison, 4 months of home confinement, 3 years of probation, and a fine of $10,000.

Just because intellectual property like trade secrets are intangibles doesn’t mean they can’t have a real impact on you business.  They’re real. FBI special agent Greg Jones said it best when he said, ” Intellectual property-related cases are serious criminal cases with high dollar stakes.”

Think about that the next time a job candidate offers to bring along a briefcase full of information.  The next time they job hop the data on their flash drive could be yours.

Lawsuits are sometimes viewed as a necessary evil, or a cost of doing business.  But the cost is often steeper than most imagine.  That point was aptly made in a recent article I found about the European Commission’s decision to launch an antitrust investigation against Google.

For starters, the EU probe requires Google to divert time and money toward handling the investigation.  Those costs will necessarily include the preparation of a legal defense.

The fact that the EU is conducting an investigation could turn into a litigation lightning rod – other countries may launch their own antitrust probes and competitors might use the information gathered in these government investigations to launch their own civil actions.

It’s no fun being turned into a litigator’s chew toy.  Costs can start to spiral very quickly, as Toyota has recently discovered.

One way to avoid such distractions is with better risk management techniques.  As I recently discussed, one study shows that companies who prioritize their risk and put resources behind managing the biggest threats experienced 20 higher revenue growth and up to 50 percent higher earnings than their peers.

Now that’s something worth getting distracted about!

This time the New York garment company who had previously engaged in publicity stunts went too far — they broadcast their poor grasp of legal literacy when they used a photo of a sitting president of the United States in a Times Square billboard ad to hawk their men’s outerwear.   

Sure, they contacted the AP photographer who took the photo of President Obama during his visit to the Great Wall of China inBadaling.  But according to the Associated Press, licensing the photo still requires obtaining the necessary clearances – in this case getting a model release from the President.  (To read the NY Times version of the story click here, the Washington Post version includes a picture of the billboard from a different angle.)

Pleading ignorance of the law, the garmet maker president said:

Is it a calculated risk?  Not being an attorney — I’m being, really, a designer, merchandiser guy in the apparel business — I would leave that to attorneys or whatever. 

Hmmm, a calculated risk.  Sure. 

Maybe they should take a hint from  Seinfeld’s George Costanza who discovered the hard way why not knowing right from wrong is more than a calculated risk.   

Ignorance of the law is a losing defense, so is saying the ad was placed in “good faith.”  You’d think that since Women’s Wear Daily, The New York Times, and the New York Post all refused to run a similar ad the company might want to know why.  But apparantly they’d rather beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.

Using someone’s photo in a commerical context implicates their right of publicity.  It requires some kind of basic a model release. 

A little bit of Legal Literacy can go a long way.