On Tuesday 17th June, I was up and out relatively bright and early to make my way over to The Royal College of Physicians for the start of the Law Firm Ambition conference 2025. Competing effectively in the legal sector I was lucky enough to have been invited to speak on a panel all about how law firms can differentiate themselves from the competition and get more work as a result. It won’t surprise you to learn that my advice was all about reputation and specifically, how law firms can utilise PR to monetise it. Panel session insights: Competing with others for new business As part of the panel session, I spoke about two frameworks that we use at LexRex to effectively deploy PR strategies that help law firms to grow. One is the step-by-step framework we use to create effective PR strategies – and you can access that framework by downloading the Law Firm Leader’s Reputation Playbook. It provides deep insights into what makes an effective reputation, along with step-by-step exercises to help law firm leaders audit their reputation and start to utilise it to best effect. I also talked about the PESO framework, which we use to ensure that we consider four key aspects of PR when creating a strategy. They are Paid, Earned, Shared and Owned. Again, the Law Firm Leaders’ Reputation Playbook defines and explains this framework, giving actionable insights and advice on how you can use it to better leverage your reputation. I gave my top tips on how to create effective legal directories submissions (we went from very strategic to very tactical during the panel, I was asked to provide specifically actionable advice, which I think I did!) All of the legal directories advice and insights that I provided can be found in the Legal Directories Resource Hub, which you can access completely free of charge by becoming a member here. My top three takeaways for attendees were: Be strategic Remember that PR is a long game. Share your firm’s strategy with the people creating and delivering your PR strategy. However, the day wasn’t just about my insights. In fact, I played a tiny part in what was a hugely insightful and interesting set of presentations and breakout sessions. Here’s a brief insight into some of the speakers and sessions that took place on the main stage of the conference. Ben Hunt-Davies, Rower, gold-medal-winning Olympian and founder of Will It Make the Boat Go Faster? I’m fairly sure I’ve seen Ben speak in the past; his presentation is entertaining and gives plenty to think about. His hot take is essentially that we shouldn’t do anything in business unless it metaphorically ‘makes the boat go faster’. He talked at length about all the things that the eight-man rowing team did and concentrated on in their campaign to win gold at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 (spoiler – they won). Ben also talked about the difference between results and performance, and he recommended that we always concentrate on performance, because sometimes results can happen despite performance. I think this is a good lesson. Andrew Hedley, Hedley Consulting – The changing competitive landscape Andrew’s talk was all about strategy (a subject very close to my own heart at all times!) He was particularly keen to ask us to consider the fact that we can’t do everything all of the time, and that we need to be careful about how we allocate our scarce resources to achieve a competitive advantage. He also suggested we undertake horizon scanning for challenges, including: The firms we compete with today. New firms entering the market. The fact that clients want better, faster and cheaper (no change there!). The things that are costing us more. The things that will take away the need for us. And consider – how much we are prepared to change? I quite liked his definitions of between tactics = running faster, and strategy = running a different race. Managing Partner Secrets I can understand why this panel returns each year; the speakers were all very open, frank and funny with their insights. The panellists were Chris Allen (Blacks Solicitors), Victoria Davey (Gordons LLP) and Duncan Jackson (Buckles Solicitors LLP). The session was ably hosted by Chair, Alex Holt (Cashroom), with topics ranging from whether you should monitor your competition (Victoria said no, focus on what you are doing, Duncan said no, compete in your own locations and Chris said, yes absolutely, we are OBSESSED with the competition). Other topics included advice on CRM systems, how to get more work from your existing clients, why recruitment is so hard (and how to get better at it), AI, what ‘winning’ looks like, and how to get people back into the office. Being honest, this was probably my favourite session of the day. I really appreciated the time and honesty provided by the panellists. The latter sessions included a talk by Bernard Savage, who talked about how to be unique. His focus was on niches and how important it is not to have too many. He also suggested that firms avoid worrying about the competition. The day closed with a session by Dan Warburton. He suggested that firms need bold leadership for big results. Those in leadership positions need to lead by taking note of and dealing with ineffective behaviours by getting compassionate instead of angry, and finally by collaborating, not manipulating. He finished with the message that “the standard you walk past is the standard you accept.” Sensible advice. In all, the Law Firm Ambition Conference was a really enjoyable event and is one I’d recommend to law firm leaders. This was the fourth iteration, and what I think is particularly effective is that each conference is themed. This should help the organisers to avoid the content becoming stale and will hopefully ensure a rotating roster of new speakers each year. The attendees from law firms were mainly at the senior end (perhaps due to the ticket price, which
Marginal gains – the hidden levers of growth This year there’s an absolutely fascinating focus by LexisNexis’ Bellwether Report 2025 on marginal gains within law firms. Or as Olympic gold-medal winning rower Ben Hunt-Davis would ask, ‘does it make the boat go faster?’ In fact, Hunt-Davis recently spoke on this exact topic at this year’s Law Firm Ambition conference in London. Another law firm consultant who knows his stuff, Simon McCrum also references the quote in his latest book, The Perfect Partner. Incidentally I will be reviewing that book soon, and you can read my review of his second book The Perfect Legal Business here. LexisNexis Bellwether Report 2025: A review Focussing upon small tweaks with big impact is an interesting topic, and the Report delivers great insights as ever. Read on for my overview and you can also read the Report here. Also, kudos to LexisNexis for avoiding building a report entirely focussed upon the AI chat that is dominating every single piece of law firm consultancy or advisory content that I see currently. Is AI important and potentially game changing for law firms? Yes. Should it be the sole focus for law firm leaders? Absolutely not. Is it included in the report? Yes, but proportionately. The Bellwether research methodology and participants I always like to start any review with a look into the methodology applied to the research, and I’m always particularly interested to see how many respondents replied, their seniority and the spread of the response between firms of different sizes. I think it’s really important to understand these figures, especially when it can be so easy to take headline percentages at face value. It is particularly important to be diligent where a) response numbers are low and b) where junior lawyers are disproportionately represented. There’s nothing wrong with including responses from those at the start of their career, but it’s true to say that most, if not all, of them will have no real idea of the pressures and challenges faced by those running the firm that employs them. Unfortunately, information about seniority isn’t included in the below, so again remember to take all of the figures with a pinch of salt and do try to apply your own judgement and experience to the findings and supporting comments. Here’s the methodology: “The Bellwether 2025 survey, conducted in April 2025, gathered responses from 308 legal professionals across England and Wales. Firms of all sizes were represented, with 26% from practices with five or fewer fee earners, 23% from firms with six to ten, 29% from those with 11 to 20, and the remaining 22% from firms with over 20 fee earners.” M&A down, organic growth up Six in ten or 48% (148) respondents confirmed that their firm has grown over the past 12 months, an increase from 28% on last year. M&A focus declined from 10% in 2024 to 5% this year, with 72% of respondents aiming for organic growth. There are a couple of different respondent comments on the reasons for this drop which include the cost of M&A (mergers tend to be cash hungry – requiring legal, financial, HR, compliance and reputational advice). Remember also that managing and completing a deal is massively time-consuming, leaving little or no time for those leading to concentrate on anything else. There’s also a comment that organic rather than M&A growth ensures that law firms retain full control of all aspects of the business, along with a suggestion that cultural cohesion may play a part in choosing to grow with what you’ve already got. Spending now, spending later Spending priorities reveal some interesting insights. Hiring has become more of a priority, with 23% having already undertaken this step with 39% planning to in 2025. 17% have already spent on technology investment and 43% intend to this year. 16% of respondents increased spend on marketing, and 33% plan to increase that spend this year. 11% increased spend on business development, with an even bigger planned increase to 36% in 2025. I think this is a slightly slippery set of figures as I’m almost certain that if you asked even two lawyers in the same team to define marketing and business development, they’d both almost certainly come up with different answers. It will be so interesting to see whether these proposed spending increases come to pass as, in my experience, they tend indicate an increase in confidence in the market. When confidence is low, marketing and associated cost tends to be one of the first to be cut. Interestingly, the report authors come to a slightly different conclusion with regards to the above statistics stating that “Some firms have already increased their spend in these areas, but instead of acting in the moment, the majority are planning for the future.” This suggests less confidence than I’m predicting. Clients just want more Unsurprisingly enough, since we see it in every single sector report, pesky clients still want more, for less, as quickly as possible. “80% of respondents saying clients now expect faster communication and quicker answers. While that figure has dipped slightly from 83% in 2024, the message is the same: responsiveness isn’t just appreciated, it’s assumed.” There’s still a real focus upon pricing, with 50% of respondents explaining that clients want clearer, more upfront fee structures, up from 44% last year. This trend reflects broader economic pressures.” I’m not sure I agree with the final sentence, I think it has ever been thus. Interestingly, one respondent, an associate at a small firm said, “Clients always should come first, then cost and outcome second.” There’s a lot to unpick with this comment. Yes – client service should of course be prioritised, but I’m not sure that a) the client would be happy for you to automatically put service before cost (you’d have to ask them obviously) and b) I’m fairly sure that many, if not most, wouldn’t prioritise service above outcome. On a separate note, and again with regards to the
The power of a great PR campaign… And how law firms can use these lessons to achieve growth. Today I’m writing about blood. Don’t worry, you’re not entering a romantasy novel (although all power to you if you enjoy the vampire trope, I am not here to judge lol. Everybody else – as you were). No, this blog is taking a look into some of the more tactical considerations and tools at the PR’s disposal, and today the focus is upon media relations. As ever, my advice is aimed at law firms. If you read the first blog in this series about PR tactics, you already know how important crisis comms are when it comes to reputation management. If not, you can read that post here. I’ll also be writing about other tactics available to PR and marketing specialists over the next few weeks. If you run a law firm and there’s anything you’d like to see discussed – do get in touch and let me know. But back to blood. Unless you live under a stone, you’ll have seen that the NHS is desperately short of blood. In the UK blood is donated by volunteers and is called upon for all manner of medical procedures, in emergencies and, I imagine, to support ongoing treatment for a range of medical conditions. By what do blood shortages, the NHS and law firms have in common, I hear you ask? (it must be my vampire hearing– SORRY not sorry lol). Blood services are managed by an organisation called NHS Blood and Transplant and they have a PR team. It’s clear that at some point recently, blood bank levels were dropping to a lower level than anybody was comfortable with, and the PR team was called in to help. I had initially assumed this was a crisis brief, but having dug deeper, I suspect things have been planned with a slightly longer timescale in mind. Whatever has happened behind closed doors, the planning and delivery of this campaign is a masterclass in effective, strategic and measurable PR. Now, it’s worthwhile noting that I don’t work for this organisation, so I’m having to take a bit of a stab (lol) with regards to their terms of reference and goals etc. However, it is clear that their immediate goal was to increase blood donations and looking at the press coverage – the aim is for 1 million people to donate blood. Incidentally it happens to land around (but definitely not randomly), the 9th – 15th June, which is National Blood Week. I suspect this awareness week was also created by NHS Blood and Transport’s PR team as a great vehicle and news hook for building awareness and engagement over a number of years. Turning to the strategic approach for this particular campaign, we can see that: There was a clear Goal – achieve 1 million donations. Strategy – this was probably something along the lines of ‘utilise an existing awareness event (National Blood Week) and effective media relations in order to reach the goal of 1 million donations / 1 million people donating blood within x period’. Another point to note is the brand that NHS Blood and Transport use for their B2C audiences. You probably haven’t heard of NHS Blood and Transport (me neither), but you definitely know ‘Give Blood’. Clever eh? Tactics NHS Blood and Transport are active on social media – check them out on Instagram: givebloodNHS Media relations – this campaign has achieved wall-to-wall media coverage across broadcast, broadsheet, tabloid and online channels. Content – the Give Blood website contains not only content about the campaign but provides clarity around the particular types of blood sought and gives a live feed of the centres with donation appointments available today. With regards to target audiences my view is that the obvious primary target audience is people in the UK who are eligible to give blood. However, looking again at the outputs, I suspect that the following were also identified as key audiences: People in the UK who are eligible to give blood and are type O negative, B negative and A negative – as these types of blood are currently critically low. The key messages are probably essentially: Make an appointment today to give blood Register today to give blood in the future Measurement should also always be a component of every campaign, and in this case either 1 million people will give blood, or they won’t. Either way, the campaign is measurable. The above is the CIPR-approved strategic approach to effective PR, and you can see how easily this campaign fits the model. At its heart, this is an excellent campaign that ticks all of the boxes for a really effective approach, that delivers against the goals and nails the brief. The good news for law firms, is that strategic PR can be used very effectively to support your firm’s growth strategy. Whilst you’re less likely to achieve the levels of coverage this campaign has generated, it’s perfectly possible to generate opportunities to be seen by your target audiences in your key media. Often, all it takes is a little planning. If you are interested in leveraging your reputation in order to support your law firm’s growth – you should definitely register for our latest guide. The Law Firm Leaders’ Reputation Playbook has been created to give managing partners and owners of law firms a toolkit to start to understand, develop and utilise their reputations in order to achieve growth. Download your copy here. Victoria Moffatt is the founder and managing director of LexRex. A non-practising solicitor she has been supporting law firms with their PR for over a decade. Get in touch with Victoria to discuss your law firm’s PR needs. Connect with Victoria on LinkedIn.
I recently posted a poll on LinkedIn to ask lawyers and law firm owners if they had ever had to deal with the reputational fallout from a crisis. At the time of writing, the results indicated that fewer than a third of respondents have had to deal with this particularly thorny problem. I do wonder, though, if some of my lurkers and indeed more active connections are worried about responding to the poll on the basis that they don’t want to be associated with the fallout of a crisis leading to reputational challenges. Either way, a crisis communications skillset is one of the most important tools available to a PR, particularly in the heavily regulated and often politicised field of legal practice. I have written previously about best practice in managing a PR crisis, and you can read about that topic here. On a related note, unless you live in a cave, you will have seen that UK retail stalwart M&S has been having a bit of a tricky time recently as a result of a cyber incident. This has seen hackers steal personal data, forcing the retailer to suspend online shopping for almost a month at the time of writing, resulting in lost sales of £43m weekly. I am an occasional M&S customer, usually for school uniform (they do a smashing 20% off deal in early summer), and as an account holder, I recently received an email from their operations director, Jayne Wall. Jayne didn’t email me personally, but the mailer – which I presume was sent to all online customers – is an absolute masterclass in engaging with your customers during a crisis. I felt so compelled to write about the strength of the email that I’ve written a blog about it for the Chartered Institute of PR magazine, Influence. You can read that here. Alternatively, and if you prefer a TLDR version, you can read the LinkedIn post that inspired the blog here. Why should law firms care about crisis comms and reputation? But how are a beleaguered retailer and law firms related, I hear you ask? There are numerous reasons that lawyers should be concerned about crisis comms, and more particularly protecting, developing and leveraging their reputation. The reason that M&S did so well with their customer service email is that they clearly put a lot of time and effort into getting it right and ensuring that it resonated well with their customers. I’m sure that they have deep enough pockets to ensure that they always have a detailed crisis communications plan ready to go, but their PR team also very clearly understands the importance of protecting, or where necessary, repairing M&S’ reputation. They also have a deep understanding of their customer, along with their customers’ expectations as to how M&S does things. Because of all of this, the letter felt natural, felt right, and felt very ‘M&S’ in its delivery. Do read the blog it’s insightful and republishes the letter in its entirety. From a reputational perspective, there are two questions that I think law firm leaders need to ask themselves: The strategic one: what do we need to do to maximise our reputation, and The tactical one: how do we prepare for a crisis? As a rule, I always start with strategy. When you know what you are trying to achieve and you understand what success looks like, everything else should relatively easily fall into place. Add into the mix an understanding of your target audiences, formulate some key messages, draft a top-level strategy and a plan for tactics, and you’re pretty much good to go. It’s worth noting that this approach doesn’t only apply to your reputation, it’s a pretty decent plan for any PR and marketing project. Every law firm has a reputation, and what you do with that reputation is up to you. If you do nothing, that’s absolutely fine. But it’s also a wasted opportunity to fail to shape and hone something that can make you more money. I talk a lot about law firm reputation and how and why law firm leaders need to consider how their PR and marketing activities, culture, staff behaviours, delivery of legal services and risk appetite and management all feed into reputation. Why is this stuff important? It’s important because reputation is the difference between good things said about your firm and your staff behind your backs (by the people that matter) and bad things said about your firm and your staff behind your backs (by the people that matter). When you decide to proactively take steps to manage your reputation, you proactively take steps to move the dial on the way your firm is perceived (by the people that matter).* *When I talk about the people that matter, I mean the people that matter – they may be clients, probably are staff, are likely to be referrers or other key contacts, and may be potential future or former staff. They might not be the competitors around the corner – although again they may be, particularly if you’re on the acquisition trail or seeking a merger or you need to bring in a new team with expertise you currently lack. Because I think that reputation is poorly understood and reputational management even more poorly executed in law firms, I’ve written something called The Law Firm Leaders’ Reputational Playbook. This guide is undergoing its final iteration at the moment, and I’m planning to launch it in time for my speaking opportunity at this year’s Law Firm Ambition conference, the theme for which is Competing Effectively in the Legal Sector. You can get tickets to that event here. It promises to be an insightful, interesting day, with plenty of experts sharing their knowledge. The Playbook provides insights and information about the strategic elements of law firm reputation management and provides practical guidance on how you can leverage the strength of your reputation, to grow your law firm and make more money. If you like the
Did you know…? When you work with LexRex, you can do so on a project as opposed to a retained basis. We work with many of our clients on a project-to-project basis. Our support ranges from the relatively simple: Legal directories announcements and supporting social media graphics. Press releases including new appointments, partner appointments, promotions and financial results. Copywriting and content creation – technical, brand-led and marketing focussed. To the incredibly complex and confidential: Sensitive internal and external communications to support operational and strategic projects. Crisis communications reactive PR covering both internal and external communications, strategy creation and longer-term planning and brand / reputational repair and enhancement work. Positioning and promotional strategy and delivery for firms undertaking structural, long-term changes in direction or repositioning in the market. And not forgetting the necessary and strategic: Brand mapping and strategy creation. End-to-end event management and supporting communications and follow-up. Legal directories consultancy and drafting. Awards consultancy and drafting. In terms of how we work, the more complex and specialist projects tend to be undertaken by our MD and founder, former solicitor, Victoria Moffatt, with support from the broader specialist LexRex team. This work tends to come directly from law firm owners, MD’s, MP’s and CEOs. Other projects are overseen by Victoria and allocated to the expert with the most appropriate experience and skillset to deliver. We are a small team, and we are all fully briefed and up to date on each others’ workload at any point. There are no silos at LexRex. We are also often instructed by marketing directors and managers who recognise the value that our specialist PR expertise can bring, complementing their own skills to get projects over the line. If you have any interesting projects that would benefit from our expertise, do drop me a line and let’s have a chat. We’d be delighted to help. “I instructed Victoria at LexRex to support a confidential, sensitive project which required strategic assistance in respect of both internal and external communications. “Because she is both a non-practising solicitor and a PR, Victoria immediately got to grips with the key issues. She developed a strategic framework to support the delivery of the PR aspects of the project, whilst identifying the leadership, employment law and administrative aspects which she also incorporated effectively. “An unexpected challenge part-way through significantly accelerated the delivery timeframes, but Victoria was able to meet the shorter deadlines and project manage the working group effectively in order to ensure that everything crossed the line on time. “I would have no hesitation in recommending Victoria for her strategic PR expertise within the legal sector and her understanding of the particular nuances that arise when managing projects within law firms.” James Geary, Managing Partner, EMW Law
How to win a law firm award? LexRex MD and founder Victoria Moffatt’s top tips for winning legal awards Awards season is very much upon us and if you have ‘win an award’ on your to do list, but you’re not quite sure what to do next, read on for our top tips for bagging a gong. Only enter ethical and fairly-judged awards This is a bit of a crusade for me – I actively dislike awards that are either pay-to-play or that boil down to popularity contests. They give properly judged and considered awards a bad name and are, quite simply, a bad idea. If you genuinely think your work is good enough to be celebrated, do it the courtesy of entering it into a proper set of awards. Don’t fall in with a bad awards crowd – in my opinion, if you enter this type of award, you undermine the quality of what you do and put your reputation at risk. People are not daft and they can work out that this type of award is poor quality at best and a scam at worst. Research the categories and check out the previous winners. This is an obvious step but one that is often over-looked. It’s likely that you will be eligible for several different categories – firm-wide (Firm of the Year), team or specialism (Employment Team of the Year) or on a personal basis (Partner of the Year). But which are you most likely to be shortlisted for or win? The best way to try and gauge this is by looking at two things initially; the criteria for each submission and the previous winners. If the categories have previously been won by firms, teams or individuals that have some similarities with your practice, team or you individually (in terms of experience, profile and achievements – for example), then you may stand a good chance. However, if they are nothing like you and their achievements are greater than yours, perhaps consider a different category. Consider your achievements against those of other potential entrants. This is a bit tricky, but if you know that your competitors always submit AND they have had a particularly strong year – for example, high profile litigation, merger, very strong financials; then again just stop to consider how your own achievements measure up. Read and understand the requirements for each submission. This is an obvious one and it always feels a bit like I’m advising students to read the exam question. However, experience has taught me that it’s sensible to have this conversation early in the process. Ensure that you meet the requirements for the submission you are considering preparing, and that you can meet the deadline. Check in advance the format required for the submission – is it a written submission, do you need to complete an online form, is there a registration process and / or is there a cost for which you will need prior sign-off? Also consider additional steps you may need to take – does the submission requires onerous supporting information, a video or client testimonials? And are these things that you can easily supply, and if so, will they be of a good enough quality? “If you genuinely think your work is good enough to be celebrated, do it the courtesy of entering it into a proper set of awards. Don’t fall in with a bad awards crowd.” Mark up the criteria and ensure you meet 80% of them. Another simple piece of advice and again one that feels a little bit like exam advice. In addition to checking that the entrant meets most of the criteria, I go a step further and print them, then handwrite in bullets the key supporting information I want to include for each criterion heading. Doing this helps to focus the mind on the previous year’s successes, but also helps to ensure that judges can literally tick the answers off against their criteria list. Stick to the word count. Again, this sounds likely noddy advice, but experience shows that it’s still good advice. Word counts are typically limited to 750 – 1000 per submission, so don’t waste your words. Ensure that anything you mention is relevant to the criteria and nothing else. A strong submission is a clear and focussed one. Provide what you’re asked to provide. Submission calls for testimonials? Include them. A video? Record one. ‘Up to 3 pages of supporting evidence’, for example, can be more tricky – but again refer back to the individual criteria and ask yourself what evidence you can provide to meet these whilst also tying in with what you’ve written. Treat a shortlisting like a win. Being shortlisted is a huge achievement, and we always advise clients to celebrate as though they have won. This goes for any PR activity as well – don’t waste the opportunity to shout about being shortlisted, because if you don’t win – that chance can never be recouped. Further, a shortlisting is a win, and by that point, you’ve done absolutely everything you can. So you may as well bask in the glory. And if you do win, shout even more loudly! What do we mean by ‘shouting loudly’? Get your socials in order – great imagery, quotes from judges if any are available, video content. These are just a few examples of content you could create. You can also tag your fellow shortlisted firms / teams / individuals / the organisers in order to start to generate likes, comments and shares. Blog and newsletter content – share the good news internally and externally. Email signatures – use the official logos (review the usage policy first to see what you’re permitted to do) Consider whether you can use the result in signage – perhaps as decals in a prominent window or door. Celebrate internally – print and display posters or create something a bit daft in celebration, or even something as simple as celebratory cakes. Whatever
Courtesy of Barclays, on Thursday 19th January in Manchester and Wednesday 22nd February in Liverpool, I’ll be speaking to lawyers about why I think strong and effective PR can support the HR function in its role, specifically when it comes to recruitment and retention. These events run monthly, each time with a different specialist in the legal sector. They are great – so drop me a line if you’d like to know more. Having been an employment lawyer in a previous life, I’m comfortable in my knowledge of the needs, requirements, likes and dislikes of a typical HR manager. LexisNexis’ 2022 Bellwether Report found that the top challenge for small law firms last year was attracting and retaining good lawyers. With the rise of the consultancy model and freelance lawyers, there is a definite challenge for law firms who want to attract and retain talent at the career point between associate and partner. For individuals who can drive their own business, there’s a clear opportunity to make more money and avoid having to invest in a model with potentially limited opportunities, the requirement to share profits with poorly performing partners and the potential to end up in business with people you dislike. But for now – back to PR. I know when I looked for lawyer jobs (a long time ago admittedly), one of the first things I’d do if I spotted a role I thought I might apply for was Google the firm and see what came up. This search would sometimes point me to a website, but just as often to press coverage – typically ‘good news’ announcements about new starters, new offices and CSR initiatives. I would sometimes see lawyers speaking in the press or on the news about their areas of expertise. At that time lawyers didn’t really use LinkedIn, so I definitely didn’t tend to go there. Twitter existed but again there weren’t that many lawyers on there (and I knew them all anyway). Facebook was a definite ‘no-no’. Times have changed. What hasn’t though is candidates continuing to use Search to carry out desk research on firms. In addition to Google, they look at the firm’s social media channels and those of their potential colleagues and managers. They almost certainly also check out places like Roll on Friday and GlassDoor to see what current and former employees have to say and whether there have been any cringeworthy stories (we’ve all seen them). A more detailed search might take them into Chambers and Partners and Legal 500 territory, along with other kitemarks such as the Investor in People scheme and The Times Best Law Firms. As a more junior lawyer I was drawn to the individuals and firms that had the media coverage, the kitemarks and other indicators of quality and success. My feeling was that I wanted to be in a firm that was proud of its achievements and which employed real experts who were trusted – by the media and recognised as industry experts. Already you can see how having a good profile in the media, in legal directories and online could help your firm to attract new talent. If nothing else consider this – if a potential employee can’t find you online or isn’t impressed by what they see, what does this mean for potential clients doing the same research? Be truthful and mislead at your peril Before I continue, I need to include a disclaimer here: your PR and culture must be aligned and you must tell the truth. Repeat: your PR activity and culture must be aligned and you must tell the truth. Why? If you decide to start pushing out positive news stories that don’t align with either the client experience or the experience of your team, or yet worse you don’t tell the truth; you will create problems for now and the longer term. Why? To be successful, PR activity has to both reflect the truth and be truthful. What I mean by this is that it must both reflect reality, i.e. the situation on the ground and it must go no further than the truth. The above might sound strange coming from a ‘spin doctor’ (please don’t ever call me a spin doctor, it’s almost as bad as ‘PR girl’) but in actual fact, there’s a lot of common sense to be applied when it comes to good PR practice. It can be easy to think that PR is all about fluff and inflating the truth or spinning yarns but actually it’s not. Ethical PR and the type of work that we do (I’m chartered by the CIPR) is, yes, about influencing and encouraging people to, for example, join your firm or instruct you, but it can and should only emphasise or reflect the truth. If it lies or seeks to distort or inflate, then you start to stray into unethical practice. Everybody should avoid unethical practice, and law firms must be particularly careful to deal properly, fairly, ethically and truthfully in the messaging it uses to promote itself. In essence then, PR must reflect reality. If it doesn’t, and people find out that the truth is something else entirely, you do two things. The first is that you make the person who believed your spin feel stupid. Nobody ever likes or wants to feel stupid, it is a truly horrible feeling. Accordingly, whoever has discovered your cover up will hate you for creating these feelings for them and will almost certainly go out of their way to tell everybody how terrible you are. Imagine this person is an employee, or worse a former employee, and you can imagine the damage being done to your firm’s brand. Secondly you lose trust. Trust is so important for all businesses, but particularly law firms – you are trusted by people to handle divorce and other relationship challenges, you administer estates and draft wills. You manage redundances for people who own businesses, and settlement agreements for those being relieved
My legal PR business LexRex Communications is ten. Which feels crazy, because surely it’s only five minutes since I flounced (ok not really) out of my final law firm fee earning role and straight into the pub which I’m fairly sure kickstarted, or perhaps simply marked the start of quite a significant quarter-life crisis. How was LexRex created? So what happened then? Well, I knew that fee earning in a law firm was no longer for me. After quite a few years of betablockers to try to calm my pretty-extreme-with-hindsight, work-related anxiety and literal sleepless nights before any type of court hearing, I had finally realised that whilst I loved the law and its application a) I worried too much about losing / letting down my clients to be a good litigator and b) non-contentious stuff was so boring to me that I’d rather sit in the post room with the juniors than do it. #Awkward. Anyway, I remembered that a couple of my (admittedly privately educated, which I am certainly not) roommates from university had talked about ‘going into PR’. And I (quite naively) thought, yeah ok – that always did sound like it would be fun. And that was it. I ‘went into PR’. I did a six-month work experience stint (for free lol and I was probably the world’s oldest work experience girl) at a Manchester agency that had a top 100 law firm on its books, moved to an account manager role there for a little while, then got a second actual paid job in PR at arguably the North’s leading PR agency. But reader, alas – agency life wasn’t for me. Too many, err, let’s say ‘personalities’. It was a bit of a doomed project; I now see with hindsight. At the same time that I was in agency-land, I was frantically upskilling into PR via a distance learning course and hoovering up knowledge about strategic PR, ethical PR, industry best practice and the academic fundamentals that underlie the practice. As an aside – and it continues to astonish me – incredibly few PRs have undertaken formal PR training. For the record, I’m a proud Chartered PR professional and enjoy the CPD that comes with that external kitemark. At this point, it has to be said, my options were pretty limited. I didn’t want to be a lawyer in a law firm, I didn’t want to work in delivery at an agency. I tried but failed to get an in-house PR job (they are really rare and you need broader marketing skills, which I didn’t have at that time). Also – another point of realisation was that I really, really hated being told what to do. Which can be a problem when you have a job or indeed a boss. So that’s how LexRex was born. The name is from Latin and very roughly translates as ‘The law is King’ or ‘The law of the King’. Which I always thought was quite clever. It’s very rare that people ask though – so I guess they are either cleverer than me, or they assume it’s a meaningless name. Has anything changed in legal PR over the past 10 years? A lot has changed and nothing has changed. When I started in PR, the decline in print media was already in full swing and that has played out to an extent. In the end though, the media hasn’t really lost any of its power, it’s just that we now consume our content in different ways to how we used to. A good, strong story continues to sell. There are still 8 ‘engaging elements’ that tend to exist in all news stories – these include things like weirdness, emotion, proximity, geography to name a few. Lawyers continue to be at the forefront of the news, every single day. Lawyers continue to be maligned in the press (just look at the barristers’ strike for evidence of that). Lawyers continue to astonish me with their intelligence, dedication to their clients and for, on the whole, being jolly nice people to work with. Social media has changed. Twitter was ‘big’ when I was transitioning out of law and into PR. Instagram wasn’t even a ‘thing’ let alone a ‘big’ thing. LinkedIn has continued to grow as (I) predicted and is now the platform of choice for many if not most lawyers to raise their professional profiles and that of their teams and firm. Broadcast coverage is still really bloody hard to secure, and some journalists continue to be tricky to deal with (sorry guys but it’s true). One very good change though is that lawyers no longer seem to ask me to put out press releases to announce their new websites. And that’s a very good thing. Have you learned anything during the past 10 years? Yes, many hard lessons have been learnt at the coalface of running a business. It turns that having a business AND a baby, is really hard work. Who knew that having a baby with allergies and a corresponding aversion to sleep, a toddler AND a business would be nigh on impossible? Seriously, why did nobody warn me…? It remains impossible to ‘have it all’. But with lots of planning, support with childcare and life admin, it’s possible to have a decent time of it and avoid feeling too guilty too often. But honestly, with really young kids – if you want to do the whole part-time nursery thing (which I did), you just gotta stick it out until they get older. Oh and school is a bummer because – 3.15pm finishing time + holidays. Again, it’s an ongoing juggle but support on that front; whether paid, from a co-parent, friends, relatives – however you get it – is really, really helpful. Cash. When they say cash is king – they mean it. Cash really is king. You can the world’s most profitable business, but if you run out of cash, you are quite literally
Media relations typically form an essential cornerstone in any PR project or retainer. Historically, agencies have put their clients into the media spotlight to promote, raise profile, respond to negative publicity, repair reputations and create thought leaders and indeed thought leadership. Done well, media relations can be extremely powerful; enabling lawyers and indeed the broader firm to broadcast their key messages to their target audiences and often beyond. Strategy-led media relations is a tactic used to support a broader set of business goals, themselves driven by the firm’s business strategy; and is usually therefore just one tactic amongst a range of other effective and measurable tactics aimed at achieving or exceeding the said goals in order to deliver the strategy. But over the course of the past decade (and probably earlier) media relations and the media has been changing. As social media has grown as a news source (albeit an unregulated and often factually incorrect one), some traditional media sources have contracted. The printed newspaper is the most obvious casualty, with readership figures for the National publications tending to have halved over the previous decade, for example: The Sun – readership figures: 3,006,565 in 2010; 1,410,896 in 2019. The Daily Telegraph – readership figures: 691,128 in 2010; 360,345 in 2019.
How to become a media expert – if only the answer to that question was easy. Well, in some ways, it is. The route to becoming a media expert isn’t particularly complicated, and it’s certainly not some magical dark PR art. It is quite simply a combination of some or all of the following: 1. Spotting the real story 2. Opportunity 3. Confidence 4. Resilience 5. Relationships I’ll examine the five elements here: 1. Spotting the real story Sometimes a story breaks, and it’s easy for everyone to see what the story is. However, sometimes the skill lies in getting underneath its skin, to examine how the headline might provide opportunities to talk about many other aspects, almost like an orange separating into segments. For example – COVID19 (sorry, I promised myself I wouldn’t go there) COVID is the headline story (still). However, the segments or secondary stories include – employment law: can employers force employees to get vaccinated? Immigration law: can countries close borders to their own citizens and can children with parents living in different countries travel for contact? Medical negligence: can cancer patients sue the NHS for delayed treatment or diagnosis resulting in a more serious prognosis than would normally be expected. The list goes on. Anybody with an ability to segment a story, and work out where their narrative or angle fits in, is already miles ahead of the competition. Go and look at the news today, and see what your story is. 2. Opportunity Sometimes opportunity just comes knocking. It certainly did for Ayesha Vardag when she represented Karin Radmacher in her divorce back in 2010. Ms Vardag now carries the tag of ‘Britain’s most expensive divorce lawyer’ and is often in the press (albeit ‘cardigan-gate’ perhaps undermined the adage that any press is always good press). Why? She got a great client, won an impressive case, and capitalised upon that success to create a powerful media brand. See also, Nick Freeman AKA Mr Loophole; former driving offences solicitor to a certain Mr Beckham; and Fiona Shackleton, divorce lawyer to Paul McCartney (and recipient of a jug of water over her head courtesy of an angry Heather Mills-McCartney back in 2008). You could rename this section ‘luck’ and still be correct. That said, many people have amazing opportunities to PR-themselves with these sorts of matters, but let the chance pass. Don’t be that person. 3. Confidence You must have confidence to become a media expert. Arrogance doesn’t usually go down too well with journalists, but equally, you need to be able to discuss your area of expertise in a confident, clear and accessible way. If confidence is something you struggle with, our top tips for handling imposter syndrome are worthwhile checking out. 4. Resilience If you don’t have a multi-million pound divorce to manage or footballers who keep you on speed dial, what’s to be done? There are still many, many opportunities to build a media profile. Keep up with the news agenda, look out for media opportunities, and don’t be afraid to push your expertise. Also, start small and don’t be snobby about the trade or regional press (for example). It is pretty rare to get straight onto the TV or radio (if that’s your aim), without putting significant effort first with smaller publications, and getting a name for yourself as an expert in your field. Also, remember that the media isn’t there to make you famous. It’s to report on whatever events are happening on any particular day in question. You will be ignored, turned down and sent away with a flea in your ear… Don’t take it personally, it happens to everyone – particularly the flacks (as the hacks like to call us). 5. Relationships If you are able to secure opportunities, be nice! Keep in touch with the journalist / editor / producer you’ve dealt with. Be available, be helpful and be polite. We all know that it’s relationships that really make the world go around, so guard and nurture them. You never know where the editor of a tiny one-man-band publication will end up. Victoria Moffatt is the founder and managing director of LexRex Communications, and a former solicitor. To find out more about our services, please visit: https://www.lexrexcommunications.com/ You can also contact us on 0161 393 6121 or email us on info@lexrexcommunications.com Connect with Victoria on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn
