The [Divorce] Court of Public Opinion

Tricia Walsh-Smith, an angry New Yorker engaged in a bitter divorce with her husband, a wealthy Broadway executive, is continuing to air her grievances on YouTube in the second of two videos about her impending divorce. The original video — which was downloaded more than 2.5 million times and was picked up by 383 mainstream media outlets in the first week — can be seen here.

Whether Walsh-Smith has helped or hurt her cause is immaterial … although I would imagine her shenanigans are unlikely to impress the judge who hears her divorce case. As MSNBC’s senior legal analyst Susan Filan said, “In the end, a divorce, as upsetting and emotional as it is, is just a financial transaction.”

As a PR practitioner in New York, who has worked for law firms and handled crisis management assignments, what concerns me is the increased potential for sudden, swift blogstorms — like this one — when parties to a lawsuit or crisis decide to take the communications into their own hands. My concern is intensified when the ultimate decision is the responsibility of lay people (members of a community or jury), who may be swayed by what they see and hear on the internet.

An Unintended Side Effect of the Subprime Fiasco

Since our public relations firm is based in New York — a world center for banking and financial services — we’re following the ins and outs of the subprime mortgage crisis with more than average interest interest. In fact, our president, Ken Makovsky, has written about it on his My Three Cents blog.

One of the more interesting side effects of the scandal was reported by Bloomberg News: “Judges in at least five states have stopped foreclosure proceedings because the banks that pool mortgages into securities and the companies that collect monthly payments haven't been able to prove they own the mortgages.”

The article goes on to report that a man named Joe Lents in Boca Raton, FL, hasn’t made a single payment on his $1.5 million mortgage since 2002, when his mortgage bank, Washington Mutual, first tried to foreclose on his home. The efforts ceased when WaMu couldn’t find the paperwork!

“If you're going to take my house away from me, you better own the note,” said Lents.

He’s one of the lucky ones. Millions of other subprime homeowners are on the verge of bankruptcy and foreclosure. If the banking industry doesn’t address its own shortcomings, it better be ready for the inevitability of regulatory intervention if we want to protect consumers and the U.S. economy.