Page 29 - 2019 - Leaders in Legal Business (q)
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jurisdictions, regulations restricting the ability of law firms to advertise and market their services
have steadily been lifted. The emergence of the internet in the early 2000s provided an additional
impetus to the legal press as it significantly reduced the barriers to entry for legal news providers,
given the possibility of accessing readers without the need to print and distribute a magazine. The
U.K. site RollOnFriday, which was set up in 2000, and the U.S.’s Above the Law, which was in
launched in 2006, are two prominent examples of online-only news sites.
What do these media outlets cover? The same principal outlined by Brill when he struck
upon the idea of founding a magazine covering legal business applies today as it did then. While
all the world’s legal business magazines and websites have their areas of specialty, the common
denominator between them is that they provide news, commentary, and analysis about the business
of the law. Typically, there is a focus on the activities of law firms — information about the work
that they are undertaking, the strategies they are pursuing, and their financial performance. There
is also coverage about the markets in which law firms operate that seeks to identify trends,
opportunities, and threats. While recent years have witnessed an explosion in the number of legal
blogs that provide commentary about the legal market from all sorts of angles, there remains a
need for a body of trained, professional journalists whose job it is to seek out the information about
law firms and their markets that bloggers use as material for their blogs and tweets.
Given the plethora of legal business magazines and websites plying their trade, and the
even larger number of bloggers writing about the market, large commercial law firms employ
public relations teams to manage their relationships with the media, thereby maximizing the
benefits of positive news about and minimizing the impact of bad news. While smaller firms,
which lack the resources to run their own media departments, may live in fear of a negative story
making the headlines, arguably it is the lack of positive coverage about the good work they do that
has the biggest impact on them. There are, however, plenty of examples of smaller firms that have
successfully raised their profile by generating positive publicity in the legal and national press.
Such success is invariably hard earned, reflecting a conscious decision to regard media relations
as a central part of a firm’s strategy. Firms that are serious about gaining positive media coverage
need to do their homework. They need to research the legal business media in their jurisdictions,
decide which outlets they want to target, and then get to know how they operate, a process that
should include, if possible, meeting reporters and editors, and seeking to gain an understanding of
the kind of news in which they are interested. Pitching an inappropriate piece of news to a
magazine is not just a waste of time, but can also be counterproductive.
Ultimately, though, it is difficult to see how firms can thrive in the field of media relations
without the help of regular professional advice and training harnessed to a genuine desire from key
partners to engage with the media. The good news for those firms that do succeed in getting it right
is that most firms — certainly in jurisdictions with which I am familiar — do it badly. This means
that law firms that strike on the correct formula can gain a significant advantage. And while the
legal business media market continues to evolve, there seems little doubt that it will also continue
to thrive.
14
have steadily been lifted. The emergence of the internet in the early 2000s provided an additional
impetus to the legal press as it significantly reduced the barriers to entry for legal news providers,
given the possibility of accessing readers without the need to print and distribute a magazine. The
U.K. site RollOnFriday, which was set up in 2000, and the U.S.’s Above the Law, which was in
launched in 2006, are two prominent examples of online-only news sites.
What do these media outlets cover? The same principal outlined by Brill when he struck
upon the idea of founding a magazine covering legal business applies today as it did then. While
all the world’s legal business magazines and websites have their areas of specialty, the common
denominator between them is that they provide news, commentary, and analysis about the business
of the law. Typically, there is a focus on the activities of law firms — information about the work
that they are undertaking, the strategies they are pursuing, and their financial performance. There
is also coverage about the markets in which law firms operate that seeks to identify trends,
opportunities, and threats. While recent years have witnessed an explosion in the number of legal
blogs that provide commentary about the legal market from all sorts of angles, there remains a
need for a body of trained, professional journalists whose job it is to seek out the information about
law firms and their markets that bloggers use as material for their blogs and tweets.
Given the plethora of legal business magazines and websites plying their trade, and the
even larger number of bloggers writing about the market, large commercial law firms employ
public relations teams to manage their relationships with the media, thereby maximizing the
benefits of positive news about and minimizing the impact of bad news. While smaller firms,
which lack the resources to run their own media departments, may live in fear of a negative story
making the headlines, arguably it is the lack of positive coverage about the good work they do that
has the biggest impact on them. There are, however, plenty of examples of smaller firms that have
successfully raised their profile by generating positive publicity in the legal and national press.
Such success is invariably hard earned, reflecting a conscious decision to regard media relations
as a central part of a firm’s strategy. Firms that are serious about gaining positive media coverage
need to do their homework. They need to research the legal business media in their jurisdictions,
decide which outlets they want to target, and then get to know how they operate, a process that
should include, if possible, meeting reporters and editors, and seeking to gain an understanding of
the kind of news in which they are interested. Pitching an inappropriate piece of news to a
magazine is not just a waste of time, but can also be counterproductive.
Ultimately, though, it is difficult to see how firms can thrive in the field of media relations
without the help of regular professional advice and training harnessed to a genuine desire from key
partners to engage with the media. The good news for those firms that do succeed in getting it right
is that most firms — certainly in jurisdictions with which I am familiar — do it badly. This means
that law firms that strike on the correct formula can gain a significant advantage. And while the
legal business media market continues to evolve, there seems little doubt that it will also continue
to thrive.
14
