Legal Awards… Do you regularly nominate yourself or your firm? No? If not – why not? If you’re otherwise into your PR and marketing, but you don’t ‘do’ awards you could be missing a trick. Awards aren’t for ‘show-offs’, they are for sensible lawyers who understand the value and importance of promoting their practice. A note: if you think awards are for numpties who like to blow their own trumpets, and you believe that PR and marketing is a load of fluff and self-promotion, you should stop reading now – this post will probably just annoy you. Is there an award for me? Yes! There are lots of different awards for lawyers to enter. There are the ‘big boys’ – such as The Lawyer Awards (submission deadline recently extended to Tuesday 25th February – so there’s still time), The Law Society’s Excellence Awards, and The Legal Business Awards which incidentally took place this week in London. If you’re not part of ‘Big Law’ or don’t think you’re quite ready for a national award, there are still loads of opportunities to be recognised for your expertise, niche, customer service or internal management structure (for example). Local awards specifically for lawyers exist, for example check out Manchester Law Society’s Legal Awards and The Yorkshire Legal Awards. And if you or your firm has a particular niche or strength, there are also awards for you. Personal injury firms are well serviced by the Proclaim Personal Injury Awards and The Claims Innovation Awards. Conveyancers can take part in The Conveyancing Awards and family lawyers have the Family Law Awards. Lawyers operating away from the major legal centres also have opportunities for recognition in local business awards. Typically run by Chambers’ of Commerce, local networking groups or business publications – there are usually specific categories for Law Firm of the Year or Legal Personality/Professional of the Year. Alternatively, why not consider entering less obvious categories such as Start-Up of the Year, Most Innovative Business or Entrepreneur of the Year. What next? Presuming you’ve now entered yourself or your firm for an award (and for tips on drafting award entries check out this post), the next step is usually to await the shortlist announcement. If you are shortlisted then *BAM* that’s PR opportunity number 1. If the awards you’ve entered operate in conjunction with a media partner (usually a local or national business/trade publication) then you can probably rest assured that you or your firm will be featured in that publication with a piece covering all of the shortlisted candidates. At this point, it’s worthwhile striking whilst the iron is hot and getting a press release about your shortlisting issued to other relevant outlets. You could think about sending this to your local paper’s business pages, local business publication, regional Chamber of Commerce or networking group for possible inclusion in their newsletter, or as a piece of member news for their website. Of course, the above are suggested actions only, and you must either carry out your own research to ensure you’re not spamming journalists with content they’ll never use or pay a PR to take control of this side of things. Note – time spent carrying out good research is fundamental to strong PR, without it you’ll just annoy journalists and limit your prospects of good coverage now and in the future. Away from the media relations side of things, you should certainly publish the release on your website, and you may also wish to tweet about it, and share it via LinkedIn and your individual/firm’s Google+ page. On shortlisting, your chances of actually winning are usually pretty good. Odds of between 1:3 and up to around 1:7 (for national awards such as The Excellence Awards) are fairly typical and it pays to be well prepared. Without being arrogant, there’s absolutely no reason not to create and approve a press release before the big event. This has two benefits: if you do win, you can issue the release immediately to your target media, or first thing the following day (regardless of how hungover you are). Even if you don’t win, you now have a handy precedent for use in the future. In addition to PR and media opportunities, it’s also important not to neglect the simple, but obvious, marketing opportunities that go hand in hand with an award win. To this end, don’t forget to utilise any award-winner logos on email footers, across your website, in your marketing materials and throughout your sales process. Remember to tell your clients about your success – a mention of the win, along with some strong images of the presentation, can be used in newsletters and on your website. At the end of the day, if an award is worth entering, it’s worth shouting about when you win. For more tips on award entries, check out our three part series: Why Should Lawyers Enter Awards? If you would like a copy of our Calendar of Awards for Lawyers, please drop us a line on info@lexrexcommunications.com By Victoria Moffatt LexRex offers a wide range of PR and marketing services to law firms and businesses that support law firms, including strategic brand and PR mapping, media relations, social media training and consultancy, awards entries, legal directory submissions and a range of PR and writing courses. If you would like more information about our services, please drop us a line via the above email address or tweet us @LexRexComms or @vicmoffatt.
Welcome to 2014, and to a fresh and exciting start. Here at LexRex Towers we’re building up to an action packed January and we’re excited about working with a number of new legal PR clients, and to developing some fantastic business opportunities sent our way recently by existing clients of the business. This month, we’ll also start implementing the 2014 PR plans we’ve created for our existing clients. For us, December is usually a busy month spent finalising strategies and agreeing targets and measurable ROI’s with all of our clients. But it isn’t too late to start thinking about implementing a new PR campaign, as well as reviewing your successes and failures in 2013. Good legal PR is all about a number of different elements, including: 1. Understanding your strengths and USP’s 2. Creating key messages that reflect these 3. Knowing your target audiences 4. Building campaigns around the key messages which reach the target audiences It’s also really important to plan and measure your activities. A PR plan should include not only your key messages and target audiences, but also a budget, a timeframe, a set of SMART targets and measurement criteria, and an over-reaching strategy with tactics to support this – such as media relations, social media, events, awards and legal directory entries. It’s also imperative that the plan ties into and supports the firm’s business objectives and targets, and is signed off and approved at the highest level. It’s relatively easy to create a PR plan in-house, but if you do decide to outsource your legal PR, or elements of it, an agency or freelancer worth their salt should always incorporate an element of planning into their brief. Ideally, this PR planning – or mapping as we call it here at LexRex – should happen right at the start of the campaign, and include a session with the management team as well as any in-house marketing support. Management support is fundamental to ensuring any strategy and plan is adhered to, and provides top level buy-in – which is a key driver to successful implementation. So, here’s to 2014 and to continued excellence in legal PR! The LexRex team wishes you all a fantastic new year. Hopefully this post has provided a handy kick up the butt on the PR front, or at least given food for thought. As ever, comments and feedback are gratefully received. By Victoria Moffatt LexRex offers a wide range of PR and marketing services to law firms, including strategic brand and PR mapping, media relations, social media consultancy, awards entries, legal directory submissions and a range of PR and writing courses. If you would like more information about our services, please drop us a line via email: info@lexrexcommunications.com or tweet us: @LexRexComms or @vicmoffatt
A very busy few weeks here at LexRex Towers… We’ve just completed our first year in business – YIPPEE! And now we’re preparing our accounts. We’re all very excited to see our figures on paper, but not so excited about our impending tax bill… So, what have we been up to? Well, on September 19th we celebrated our first year in business with a FABULOUS party in Manchester, with some of our closest friends, wonderful clients and lovely contacts. By all accounts, a fabulous night was had by all. In October, we were extremely pleased to welcome on board our fabulous event and party planning consultant, Kate Mackenzie. A fellow ex-practitioner, Kate really knows her lawyers but more importantly she puts on a great event! We are already looking forward to hosting an extremely exciting conference in April 2014 on behalf of one of our clients; which we have no doubt will draw the crowds from far and wide… More to follow on that front. *Watch this space*. Also in October, we cheered on our client Aequitas Legal at the Law Society Excellence Awards 2013. We are very pleased to report that the firm took home the Excellence In Client Service Award, and despite missing out on the LexCel Award for Excellence in Practice Management, managing partner Sucheet Amin was, we’re told, “over the moon” at winning a gong. We should point out that it was Aequitas’ first time entering the awards, so to be shortlisted for not one, but two awards, and to scoop (arguably) one of the most prestigious – was a MASSIVE achievement. Well done Such and the team, and onwards and upwards in 2014! This month we’re looking forward to supporting Such and the team at the Manchester Young Talent Awards, which take place on Thursday 21st November. Once again we’ll be cheering for Such, as he’s shortlisted for the Legal Professional of the Year Award. Good luck Such! The Manchester Legal Awards 2014 were announced last week, and we’ll be encouraging our clients to enter. If you need some help deciding upon which categories to enter, or some support in drafting your submissions, why not give us a shout – our awards entries are award-winning after all! The awards ceremony is taking place on Thursday 6th March, and will no doubt be THE event to attend in spring. We can’t wait. We’ve also had a lot of great media coverage to celebrate recently. Of course, Aequitas Legal’s win at the Excellence Awards made a good story, and to date, we’ve had strong local success with Northwich law firm, Susan Howarth and Co’s new family law initiative. Our favourite piece of coverage was probably Jo Norris’ comment in the Guardian Small Business Network article on the importance of good cashflow management. Excellent work Jo! Legal consultancy, Zebra LC has been keeping us busy as managing director Zoe Holland moves and shakes across the PI market, providing due diligence advice on a number of high profile deals. Finally… We can’t wait for the Christmas markets to return to Manchester on Friday 15th November, and we’re looking forward to a bit of a knees up and bratwurst all round, with the team at Ratio Law to celebrate a full year of working together. Happy days! So, a lot going on here at the moment, but we’re always excited to meet new clients. So if you fancy a coffee and a chat, or a mulled wine and a mince pie, be sure to give us a shout. To contact us, please drop us an email: info@lexrexcommunications.com or tweet us: @LexRexComms or @vicmoffatt
This week I’m writing about something that continues to surprise me – the prevalence of the belief that PR is advertising. It’s not, of course, although the two disciplines are intrinsically linked. PR is all about communicating with key audiences. In my line of work, it’s usually about promoting a legal service to those audiences. However, it is not typically paid-for promotion in the same sense as advertising. One element of PR – perhaps the most well-known – is media relations. Media relations is, in essence, about creating opportunities in the media for clients. It can include placing and writing bylined articles, providing comments for articles, writing and issuing press releases and securing interviews for television, radio, print or online publications (for example). All of these opportunities are free. This means they are accepted on merit and newsworthiness alone. No money changes hands between journalist and client. On the flip-side; advertising is paid-for content and may include television or radio adverts, sponsored columns and advertorials (paid for adverts that have the look and feel of editorial), leaflets, pop-ups or banners. Because advertising is paid-for, it is usually promotional in nature, often overtly so. There is often a cross-over between PR and advertising, for example, PRs are often responsible for writing the content for advertorial and sponsored columns. The real difference though is that PR is earned, advertising is paid-for. Simples. By Victoria Moffatt LexRex offers a wide range of PR and marketing services to law firms, including strategic brand and PR mapping, media relations, social media consultancy and support and a range of PR and writing courses. If you would like more information about our services, please drop us a line via email: info@lexrexcommunications.com or tweet us: @LexRexComms or @vicmoffatt
After a short break, the LexRex blog is back, and this week I’m explaining why I think September is a great time for lawyers to undertake a strategic review of their PR activities. I can’t be the only person who feels that it’s September, not January, that signifies the start of a new year. Perhaps it’s a kick-back from school but I still use an academic diary, and I always find those first few days of early September exciting and fresh. Things slow down over the summer months for no other reason than the fact that people go on holiday, meaning that pushing through sales, starting new projects or even just speaking to the right person becomes a merry-go-round of frustration. For me, this period of relative quiet time is great for catching up, working through the to-do list, getting stuck into some CPD activity and squeezing in a holiday. In contrast September always seems like a month of opportunity, a time for reviewing progress to date and planning for the future. So that’s why this post is all about reviewing your firm’s PR activity – and what better time than now to be thinking about that? So why should you review your PR? Well if you have an agency, marketing/PR person/team or use the services of a freelancer, it’s likely that you are making something of an investment in their service. So it’s important to know that you’re getting a return. A ‘return’ should be possible to measure simply by referring to the initial objectives and targets agreed at the outset… If you don’t currently measure PR activity and results, now may be the time to make the change. PR targets don’t need to be complicated but ideally they will be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable/action-oriented, relevant/realistic and time-bound). In any event, the process of setting targets and goals tends to be a useful exercise in itself. In-house and indeed agency teams are often pressured to deliver against sometimes impossible expectations from some partners. For this reason it can be helpful to identify the teams with higher-than-achievable ambitions, to ensure that the available time is allocated appropriately. For example some partners want endless coverage and will pester for service that goes over and above the agreed retainer (or that exceeds what the internal team can realistically deliver), whilst other teams are completely uninterested in PR yet have specialist expertise that could provide excellent content for press releases, media comments or blog posts. This means that a pattern of ‘he who shouts loudest’ is often at risk of arising – which is fantastic for the team with a lot to say – but is potentially destructive for other, quieter teams who may need a little more encouragement to promote their expertise. Once the firm’s PR weaknesses have been identified (and every firm has them) it’s much easier to take steps to remedy them. For example, if the family team provide blog posts for the firm’s generic blog on a weekly basis, but the IP team struggle to do anything at all; a casual visitor to the blog may not realise the firm even has IP expertise. Of course, if that person is looking for an IP lawyer – that’s potentially an opportunity lost. Once the IP team’s weakness on the blogging front has been identified however, steps can be taken to remedy it. They could include outsourcing the blog writing process, providing writing training to the team or perhaps creating a separate family law blog to host all of that valuable content. When undertaking a PR review, it’s also worth considering what’s worked in the past, and what hasn’t been so successful. If the firm’s focus is on traditional media coverage in the local business pages; why not undertake a review of the coverage achieved in the previous 12 months. Think about which press releases were used widely, and which never saw the light of day again. Review time is also an excellent opportunity for brainstorming new initiatives – which don’t have to be high tech or newfangled. Events can be successful if they are insightful and well-targeted. Seemingly old-fashioned techniques like taking clients out to lunch, making thoughtful referrals and introductions still work – so use them strategically, and measure the cost:benefit ratio of doing so. Media relations, content marketing and blogging, Twitter and strategic LinkedIn usage may all have a place in your PR and marketing arsenal; but you must be strategic and consistent in how you use them. If the team is struggling to think up new strategies, or the past year’s activities haven’t worked as well as expected; it may be time to think about bringing somebody new to the table. For tips on choosing a PR agency check out my series of articles on expertise, chemistry and conflicts of interest. By Victoria Moffatt LexRex offers a wide range of PR and marketing services to law firms, including strategic brand and PR mapping, media relations, social media consultancy and support and a range of PR and writing courses. If you would like more information about our services, please drop us a line via email: info@lexrexcommunications.com or tweet us: @LexRexComms or @vicmoffatt
Last week I wrote about re-using press releases to ensure you get your money’s worth from each one. In this post I’m explaining how to do the same for blog posts. So, once you’ve written a post that’s not only valuable but interesting, and audience appropriate – what next? Well first of all, you need to promote it. So do the obvious and share it on Twitter, post a link to it on your LinkedIn profile and add it to your firm’s and your individual Google+ page (assuming you use this for professional purposes). After you’re shared the content across a variety of platforms, think about how you can re-use it. The obvious starting point is your firm’s newsletter. Depending upon the size of your blog audience, you could think about re-writing the piece. If you decide to do this – consider whether you can make it more relevant to a particular set of clients. If you send out a variety of different newsletters, even more reason to focus the content for that particular group. If you have just the one newsletter, and the content is relevant to a large proportion of its readership, turn it into a ‘top tips’ piece or similar. Also consider whether the content might be of interest as a guest blog. Popular bloggers are often open to content from different writers to help lighten the load of writing fresh, insightful content, but also because they want to add value to their readership by posting new perspectives and handy information. Think about the blogs that you read, and whether there might be room for some of your writing. If there is a cross-over between their content and likely audience, and your target audience, then get in touch. Before you make your approach though, just mentally sense-check your proposal. Ensure that your pitch shows that you understand the blog you want to write for. Many bloggers write out of a passion for their subject and poorly thought-out, irrelevant pitches are not only ineffective, but may cause offence. By Victoria Moffatt. LexRex provides specialist PR and communications consultancy to law firms across the UK. Headed by ex-lawyer Victoria Moffatt, we understand both the law and the art of communications. LexRex now offers a range of different writing training courses, including the popular ‘Exciting Writing for Lawyers’ and ‘Clear Writing for Junior Lawyers’ workshops. If you would like further information about these new products or our other services, please drop us a line via email: info@lexrexcommunications.com or tweet us: @LexRexComms or@vicmoffatt
This week’s post is a guide for lawyers on making the most of and re-using press release content. In later posts I’ll cover articles and blogs. But first, a moment of reminiscence… Back in the day when I was a practising solicitor, I had a ring-binder full of precedent documents. This included sample particulars of claims, defences, grievance letters and letters of advice. To save time I would turn to this folder at least once a week, and either use the content as guidance or as a refresher, or even; in straight-forward repeat matters such as residential landlord and tenant claims, reuse the copy verbatim. Now I’m sure I’m not the only person with a sneaky ring binder. Although these days it would probably be a file on my desktop. But why is my precedent folder relevant to this blog? Well, it’s the concept of re-using and recycling that’s relevant here. When I speak to lawyers about their PR and online marketing strategies (if indeed they have such a thing), one of the complaints I hear over and over again is that they simply don’t have the time to create as much content as they would like. Now, I ‘get’ this, but there are ways to make it easier upon yourself – you just need to learn to recycle. If you have some great news – big deal, new partner announcements, year-end results etc. you will most probably issue a press release. That in itself is probably at least half a day’s work for somebody. Now – what else do you do with that copy once you’ve issued the release? Nothing? More fool you. If your news is covered anywhere, you’ve probably got the basics right and you should stick a copy of the release in your firm’s version of my ring binder. You can then use this as inspiration next time you have something to say. In addition, after you’ve given your target media the chance to use or discard your press release, reword it slightly and publish it on your website. Then – share it on LinkedIn and think about putting it on your Google+ page. Consider tweeting a few links (over time) to the announcement on your website or any online coverage and whilst you’re at it, retweet any tweets covering your news issued by any of your target media*, or any indeed other friendly tweets that mention your firm in this context. Finally, you can re-use the copy all over again when you create your next client newsletter. Honestly… that’s quite a list of things you can do with a 500 word press release… *You do follow your target publications and the relevant journalists on Twitter – don’t you? By Victoria Moffatt
Writing… It’s a topic I’ve covered before, and if you’re interested, check out my posts on writing a law blog and writing clearly. Today though, I want to cover writing techniques at a more granular level. My experience is that writing is an act of constant editing. The hardest bit is typically getting something on paper, but once that first draft is written, it is then simply a matter of chopping and changing the content until you’re happy. Tip 1: just do it I think a lot of people do ‘just do it’ and then press publish or send. Please don’t do this. Check your writing carefully and at the very least, run a spelling and grammar check. But don’t rely solely upon this, as it will only highlight incorrectly spelt words, not those used incorrectly – for example ‘any’ rather than ‘and’. I edit all copy ruthlessly and endlessly. I’m also obsessed with brevity and clarity. I read a great post on LinkedIn this week about cutting irrelevant words from writing and announcements. The article is spot on and you can check it out here. Tip 2: edit edit edit Sometimes, I really struggle to get something down – often when I’m tired, or if I’ve already written a lot of content that day. When floundering I try to move onto something less demanding for an hour or so. Tip 3: write when you are fresh and full of beans My pet hate is the use of the same word or phrase over and over again. If you’ve used ‘professional’ once, try not to rely upon it again. The same goes for specialist, expert, unique, valuable etc. It’s lazy writing and there’s usually no excuse for it. Thesaurus.com is a handy resource, as is the Microsoft synonyms tool. You can also use the ‘find’ function if you fear you’ve over-used a particular word. Sometimes repetition cannot be helped – but even just being conscious of avoiding it will probably make you a better writer. Tip 4: don’t overuse favourite words or phrases I like to keep my sentences really short. That’s because I think they are easy to read. In addition, short sentences enable me to keep to the point, and hopefully encourage my reader to continue. Punctuation is a little bit like breathing. (Takes a breath) Insert commas and full stops at natural pause-points and you won’t go far wrong. (Takes a breath). If you write really long sentences without making use of punctuation marks your reader will find it difficult to understand where one idea ends and the next begins, they will also hate you for being unclear and for not giving them permission to stop and breathe. If I’m honest, even writing that sentence was a struggle, and reading it back makes my eyes start crossing. Hopefully you understand my point. Tip 5: keep sentences short and make use of punctuation marks The above 5 ideas are just the points that I use to guide my writing, so let me know if you think I’ve missed anything fundamental. By Victoria Moffatt LexRex provides specialist PR and communications consultancy to law firms across the UK. Headed by ex-lawyer Victoria Moffatt, we understand both the law and the art of communications. LexRex now offers a range of different writing training courses, including the popular ‘Exciting Writing for Lawyers’ and ‘Clear Writing for Junior Lawyers’ workshops. If you would like further information about these new products or our other services, please drop us a line via email: info@lexrexcommunications.com or tweet us: @LexRexCommsor @vicmoffatt
In this, the third of three posts on how to choose a legal PR agency, I’m writing about what lawyers can do to avoid conflicts of interest when instructing a PR agency. In the earlier posts in this series, I’ve written about ensuring your agency has the requisite expertise and also how to ensure you have the right chemistry with your PR team. A relationship with a PR agency necessitates trust and openness. By the very nature of the work that an agency will typically do for you, they will (or should) know exactly what’s happening at the highest level of the business. If you are considering merging with another firm, or even if the SRA has recently been in touch – your PR agency should know about it. If they already understand where your business is going, and why, they can be prepared if the you-know-what hits the you-know-what. Of course, issues can arise if you use a PR agency that already works with another law firm. By the way, the logic of this post also applies to digital marketing and SEO agencies. So, what exactly are the issues that may arise? The obvious example would be an agency doing exactly the same work for two law firms with exactly the same offering in exactly the same location. For example, a PR agency providing media relations support to two PI firms in Liverpool. Both firms have the same target audience in the same geographical location. There is clearly a conflict of interest. An alternative, but less obvious, example of a conflict of interest would be a PR agency providing SEO copywriting services to two law firms – one in Cambridge, one in Newcastle – both of whom have decided to create a niche focusing upon a very small national audience. In fairness, most good (and sensible) agencies have policies in place to avoid conflicts. However, I have seen cross-overs occur. So what should law firms look out for, and what reasonable steps can they take to avoid a conflict arising. 1. Ask the question. It’s not at all unreasonable to ask whether the agency you are considering appointing already works with any other law firms. If they do – find out what the nature of their brief is. Are you happy that it’s dissimilar enough to the work that you want them to do? 2. Be willing to walk away. If you’re not quite happy with the answer they give about controlling and avoiding client conflicts of interest, either keep asking until you get a satisfactory answer – or forget it. 3. Don’t adopt a tunnel vision approach. There aren’t that many specialist legal PR agencies nor are there many general PR agencies with excellent legal PR departments. If you find an agency that already works with one or more law firms (as indeed we do), then as long as you are confident there’s no conflict, and they can assure you of this – you should be safe with them. 4. Think about the future. It’s all very well and good doing all this research and appointing your agency, but what if they then accept another client that you believe creates a conflict with your own firm? Discuss what is/is not acceptable to you at the outset. That way there will be no nasty surprises at a later date. By Victoria Moffatt For more information about the legal PR services that LexRex can offer, please take a look at our website. Alternatively, to arrange a friendly chat with Victoria, please contact us at info@lexrexcommunications.com or via Twitter @vicmoffatt or @lexrexcomms
In this, the second in a series of three posts for lawyers about choosing a legal PR agency, I’m talking about chemistry, and why it’s so important. PR is all about communications – with the media, with clients, with referrers, with staff, with partners. For maximum effectiveness, the lines of communications need to be clear. Would you trust your deepest, darkest secrets to somebody you didn’t like, or worse didn’t trust? Of course not and the same goes with PR. Like it or not, to do the best job, your PR team need to know your secrets. You’ll need to let the cat out of the bag and drag the skeleton out of the closet if you truly want the most out of the relationship. Why? Because without knowing your firm’s bad bits, it’s difficult to promote their good bits. If you are making redundancies or considering a law firm merger – you must tell your PR immediately. If a disgruntled employee leaks the news to a journalist and we don’t know about it, we’re immediately on the back foot. We’ll have to rush about putting together a reactive statement, the journalist will probably print something in the meantime and the rumour mill will go wild in the absence of facts. Alternatively, you can tell us about your plans in advance (and in confidence, of course). That way, we can create a pro-active statement for release when you’re ready. We can advise you on when this announcement should be made, and we can ensure that all press enquiries come through us. That way everybody is calm, the journalists get their story (with facts) and the wind is removed from your disgruntled employee’s sails. Whilst not everybody will be happy, usually impossible in a redundancy or merger situation, the matter will have been handled professionally and in an ordered manner. So; back to chemistry. Here are a few suggestions for ensuring great chemistry and a long term relationship with your legal PR team: 1. Mutual respect and trust is fundamental to a good working relationship. Meet the proposed team for coffee on at least one occasion before engaging. Be decisive and honest with yourself about whether you can work closely with them 2. If you are choosing an agency via a pitch process, check that the pitch team is also the team you’ll be working with 3. Ensure that a senior member of the team will be available for day to day contact. Many agencies will use junior level staff to draft copy but strategic direction should come from above 4. Be honest at all times – communications is a two way street 5. Be willing to have difficult discussions. It’s far better to be grilled by your PR in the first instance than by a journalist who has managed to get past your gatekeeper. (PRs will know exactly what questions a journalist wants to know the answers to and that’s why they ask them – they’re not being aggressive or nosey) 6. Take our advice – we know what we’re talking about (although ensure that you have followed our advice on expertise in our 1st post on choosing a legal PR agency ) 7. Stick to your side of the bargain. Be available when necessary, accept that PR is important and should be high up on your priorities and expect to be disturbed at inconvenient times – the news agenda waits for nobody. By Victoria Moffatt For more information about the legal PR services that LexRex can offer, please take a look at our website. Alternatively, to arrange a friendly chat with Victoria, please contact us at info@lexrexcommunications.com or via Twitter @vicmoffatt or @lexrexcomms
