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
European royalty, inventors, multimillionaire entrepreneurs, suspected murderers, people who have lost capacity, children who have suffered traumatic birth injuries, individuals who are going through divorce or separation. The above are all examples of the type of people our law firm clients work with. At LexRex we are recruiting for a PR Account Manager. So if you think that the above sounds interesting – please read on. We are a small, dynamic team of PR, brand and marketing experts who work with law firms and businesses that support law firms across England and Wales. We are a group of highly specialist professionals and a close-knit team. Following recent rapid growth and a number of new instructions from law firm clients, we are looking for an employed account manager to join us. Please see below for the job description and how to apply. We strive to be an inclusive employer, so if for any reason you don’t quite meet all of the requirements of the job description, please do apply anyway. We will treat you fairly. If you have any questions about the role – please do get in touch via email: hello@lexrexcommunications.com PR Account Manager: LexRex Communications Job Summary We are a fast-growing PR agency for the legal sector. We are looking for an account manager to support our ongoing growth and to manage a range of accounts for existing and new law firm clients. Who are we? We are a small, dynamic team of PR, brand and marketing experts based in Cheshire. We work with law firms and businesses that support law firms across England and Wales. We are a group of highly specialist professionals and a close-knit team. What do we do? We help law firms to grow – by helping lawyers to stand out from the crowd. We do this by creating bespoke PR strategies that align with each client law firm’s growth strategy and deliver measurable results. We now need to increase our team with the addition of a new expert. About LexRex Our values are Excellence, Energy and Balance. We strive for excellence in all areas of the business, we bring energy to everything that we do, and we want balance across our professional and private lives. Our offices are in Bollington, Cheshire. We undertake some UK travel, rarely overnight and usually limited to the North and London. Working hours and location This role requires at least 25 hours per week. Full time will be considered. One day per week minimum (and depending on experience) will be spent in our offices in Bollington, Cheshire. No side hustles or freelancing outside of working hours permitted. Responsibilities and Duties Account management: You will run client PR accounts with support and direction from our senior team. Your roll will include: Media relations: identifying strong media angles from client contact, newsjacking, creating pitches, selling-in to media, ongoing media liaison and building relationships with key stakeholders in media, reporting. Copywriting: drafting press releases, bylined articles on behalf of clients, comments, award submissions. Social media: creating assets, drafting copy, scheduling posts, reporting. Relationship management: developing and maintaining relationships with key stakeholders within our client organisations ranging from management, individual solicitors and more junior colleagues. New business: supporting new business proposals, pitching, initial business development activities. Strategy: supporting the senior team in strategy and facilitation sessions with new clients, creating strategies. Reporting and admin: drafting monthly reports, collating data into reports, supporting admin. We do have administrative support, but some administrative work is part and parcel of the role. We have a relatively ‘flat’ management structure, so this role will report directly to the managing director. Support and direction will be available from other members of the team including the managing director as needed. We are an approachable, collegiate team. Training will be provided on an ongoing basis, professional qualifications may also be available over time. Qualifications and Skills 2 – 3 years+ PR experience – B2B in agency (ideally some professional services) or in-house with a law firm Degree OR demonstrable evidence of strong written skills (please do apply if the latter applies to you, we will treat you fairly and equally) The ability to run client accounts and the experience to enable you to fulfil the duties outlined above (training will be provided on the specifics of working with law firm clients if necessary) A positive attitude, optimism, ‘can-do’ approach, calm under pressure Salary and Benefits Salary £28 – £32,000 per annum, pro rata 28 days holiday per annum, pro rata Christmas closure P/T and flexible hours available Ability to work from home (experience dependent) Relaxed, supportive environment – we are not your ‘typical’ PR agency To apply – please email victoria.moffatt@lexrexcommunications.com with your CV or LinkedIn profile and a brief covering letter. Closing date: 1st December 2022
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
