Page 55 - MASTER COPY LEADERS BOOK 9editedJKK (24)_Neat
P. 55
Leaders in Legal Business
Public Relations and Crisis Management Richard Levick1
LEVICK
CEO
Sparky Just Caught The Train: Litigation Communications in the Digital Age
Ask lawyers and law firms: Why, often at odds with your own instincts, do you hire marketers and PR
firms? Why, often at some imperilment to yourselves, do you seek to comment on legal or business trends in
major media venues? Why, often with no chance of success whatsoever, do you hope The New York Times or
the Wall Street Journal will actually want to run an article on your latest lateral acquisition?
Their responses may be couched in the latest jargon about brand-building, but the more candid lawyers
will say they simply want to land lucrative work by getting on the radar screen of service buyers who read their
names in the newspaper. For litigators, it’s all about getting a big case by knowledgeably commenting on some
other big case.
These strategies are not quixotic. In tandem with a host of other marketing activities, including daily Web
strategies, such public exposure does indeed play an important role in supporting a well-earned reputation and
helping able litigators land the big fish. But then what?
Sooner or later, these litigators may be at the helm in what is quickly evolving as an extremely high-
profile matter in which the client’s reputation, market share, or personal liberty is in jeopardy. The problem is
that the issues affecting corporate brand, stock price, reputation, jury pool perceptions, and community relations
are going to be adjudicated in the Court of Public Opinion, not courts of law. Lead counsel become the de facto
defenders of the client brand. Much more than in the past, defense litigators in the digital age cannot simply
sequester themselves, blithely assuming that, while they manage the
legal case, others will manage what they might now be condescendingly
referring to as “the PR.”
The best litigators did not live in that sort of fool’s paradise
before the digital age — and they certainly cannot hope to safely function
in such a silo post-Internet, when jury pools are massaged and even the
perceptions of judges can be affected by a single keystroke in the
blogosphere.
Remember Sparky, the little terrier who ran after the diesel
engine and finally caught it in his paws? Sparky’s near relative is the litigator who expends all of his
communications skills on getting hired to handle a case, but then has no idea as to the kind of communications
that will be needed to truly win it.
It is not a strategy to aver, “We won’t try this case in the media or on the Web.” Plaintiffs, NGOs, AGs,
and regulators are already planning to do so and have likely started (as they do in so many cases, involving
everything from peanuts to oil spills). The only question for the defense is whether to seek to influence the
conversation (or, just as likely, have third parties influence the debate) — and, if so, how. There’s a price in doing
nothing and thus guaranteeing a vacuum that the adversaries will happily fill. The client may be willing to pay
that price, but that decision should never be reached without prior economic and risk management analysis of the
potential or likely consequences.
1 Richard Levick, Esq. is Chairman & CEO of LEVICK, which provides strategic communications counsel on the highest-profile public affairs and business
matters globally — from the Wall Street crisis and the Gulf oil spill to Guantanamo Bay and the Catholic Church.
Mr. Levick was honored four times on the prestigious list of “The 100 Most Influential People in the Boardroom” and has been named to multiple
professional Halls of Fame for lifetime achievement.
He is the co-author of four books, including “The Communicators: Leadership in the Age of Crisis,” and is a regular commentator on television and in
print.
48
Public Relations and Crisis Management Richard Levick1
LEVICK
CEO
Sparky Just Caught The Train: Litigation Communications in the Digital Age
Ask lawyers and law firms: Why, often at odds with your own instincts, do you hire marketers and PR
firms? Why, often at some imperilment to yourselves, do you seek to comment on legal or business trends in
major media venues? Why, often with no chance of success whatsoever, do you hope The New York Times or
the Wall Street Journal will actually want to run an article on your latest lateral acquisition?
Their responses may be couched in the latest jargon about brand-building, but the more candid lawyers
will say they simply want to land lucrative work by getting on the radar screen of service buyers who read their
names in the newspaper. For litigators, it’s all about getting a big case by knowledgeably commenting on some
other big case.
These strategies are not quixotic. In tandem with a host of other marketing activities, including daily Web
strategies, such public exposure does indeed play an important role in supporting a well-earned reputation and
helping able litigators land the big fish. But then what?
Sooner or later, these litigators may be at the helm in what is quickly evolving as an extremely high-
profile matter in which the client’s reputation, market share, or personal liberty is in jeopardy. The problem is
that the issues affecting corporate brand, stock price, reputation, jury pool perceptions, and community relations
are going to be adjudicated in the Court of Public Opinion, not courts of law. Lead counsel become the de facto
defenders of the client brand. Much more than in the past, defense litigators in the digital age cannot simply
sequester themselves, blithely assuming that, while they manage the
legal case, others will manage what they might now be condescendingly
referring to as “the PR.”
The best litigators did not live in that sort of fool’s paradise
before the digital age — and they certainly cannot hope to safely function
in such a silo post-Internet, when jury pools are massaged and even the
perceptions of judges can be affected by a single keystroke in the
blogosphere.
Remember Sparky, the little terrier who ran after the diesel
engine and finally caught it in his paws? Sparky’s near relative is the litigator who expends all of his
communications skills on getting hired to handle a case, but then has no idea as to the kind of communications
that will be needed to truly win it.
It is not a strategy to aver, “We won’t try this case in the media or on the Web.” Plaintiffs, NGOs, AGs,
and regulators are already planning to do so and have likely started (as they do in so many cases, involving
everything from peanuts to oil spills). The only question for the defense is whether to seek to influence the
conversation (or, just as likely, have third parties influence the debate) — and, if so, how. There’s a price in doing
nothing and thus guaranteeing a vacuum that the adversaries will happily fill. The client may be willing to pay
that price, but that decision should never be reached without prior economic and risk management analysis of the
potential or likely consequences.
1 Richard Levick, Esq. is Chairman & CEO of LEVICK, which provides strategic communications counsel on the highest-profile public affairs and business
matters globally — from the Wall Street crisis and the Gulf oil spill to Guantanamo Bay and the Catholic Church.
Mr. Levick was honored four times on the prestigious list of “The 100 Most Influential People in the Boardroom” and has been named to multiple
professional Halls of Fame for lifetime achievement.
He is the co-author of four books, including “The Communicators: Leadership in the Age of Crisis,” and is a regular commentator on television and in
print.
48
