In highly-publicized cases, what happens in the court of public opinion can often be just as important as what takes place in the courtroom. Prospective jurors, judges, government regulators, attorneys general, business analysts and consumers can all be influenced by incomplete, inaccurate or biased reporting, often to the client’s detriment. In such cases, a robust litigation communications strategy can help educate reporters, journalists, bloggers and other members of the media on the significance of courtroom events and strategies and lead to a more favorable public positioning of the client and the fairness of its legal and factual arguments.
I have helped devise and implement litigation communication strategies in a variety of high-profile mass tort and product liability cases. In that role, I have helped develop specific media themes and messages for targeted audiences, prepared press releases, given background and on-the-record media briefings, and worked with in-house and external public relations specialists. I have also served as a media spokesperson in some of those matters, having gone through specific media training for that purpose, and am comfortable interacting with and being interviewed by print, broadcast and social media.
I have written and spoken on the topic of litigation communications on behalf of the American Bar Association, the Defense Research Institute, and other organizations. For more, see this article that I co-authored on the topic, “Incorporating Litigation Communications Expertise Into the Trial Team."