What should a law firm do if it faces a media storm? Lucy Trevelyan talks to lawyers and PR specialists.

It is every senior partner’s nightmare. You get up one morning and there’s a salacious story about your law firm plastered all over the tabloids. A media storm has begun, with you right in the eye. What do you do?


Yorkshire firm Beresfords, which received work from the Union of Democratic Mineworkers, found itself splashed all over the broadsheets this month, following revelations of a fraud squad investigation into the union’s involvement in a compensation scheme for mineworkers. The union responded by saying it is ‘confident’ that there has been no wrongdoing. The firm says in a statement that it has acted ‘with honesty and professionalism’ (see [2005] Gazette, 7 July, 4).


Stray e-mails are a common source of law firm embarrassment, with Norton Rose, Clifford Chance and Charles Russell all having found themselves in the spotlight for this reason in recent years. Last month it was City firm Baker & McKenzie’s turn, with senior associate Richard Phillips coming in for worldwide stick after an e-mail row with a secretary.


Mr Phillips e-mailed Jenny Amner asking her to foot the £4 bill for a ketchup stain on his trousers. Her cutting reply spread through the legal community like wildfire and was gleefully pounced on by national newspapers.


Baker & McKenzie declined to contribute to this article, but made it clear when Mr Phillips resigned from his post that he did so after the e-mail but before the media frenzy to pursue long-term study plans.


Solicitor Sue Stapely, strategic communications consultant with Quiller Consultants and author of Media Relations for Lawyers (Law Society Publishing, £39.95), says it is hard to control everyone’s tendency to gossip by e-mail, despite e-mail protocols.


‘Law firms are the leakiest of ships and most of the recent reputational disasters in major firms have flowed from those firms’ lawyers forwarding e-mails outside the firm, or gossiping to legal journalists.’


She says it is good to involve staff closely in the success of a firm, and help them understand how actions that can lead to the reputation of the firm being damaged can impact adversely on staff and their own careers. Ms Stapely adds that although every story should be separately assessed and an appropriate strategy devised for each one, keeping schtum is sometimes best.


‘More often than not, I advise people upset by a story that unless it is actually untrue or defamatory, they should make no comment and accept that if it’s in print it will be wrapping the chips in a day or two, and if they comment further, it may run for longer. The “ketchup trousers” story is one where additional comment and media interest enabled a very trivial story to run a lot longer than it should have done.’


However, Gus Sellitto, account director at Kysen PR – whose firm is frequently called in by law firms to help manage media storms – says: ‘There are times, especially with law firms, where confidentiality clauses require them to make no comment. However, if at all possible, I would advise firms to put over their side of the story rather than say “no comment”, which always looks worse than if you’ve said your piece.’


Birmingham solicitor Phil Shiner, principal at Public Interest Lawyers, experienced fierce media attention of the worst kind after he represented relatives of Iraqi civilians allegedly tortured and murdered by UK troops.


He recalls: ‘The Daily Mail put me on the front page with a two-page feature on me inside, complete with photographs of my house and details of my childhood, relationship with my parents, my divorce etcetera.


‘Here in the Midlands, the Sunday Mercury ran a two-page spread on the Sunday afterwards focusing on my relationship with my father. Not surprisingly, we received the whole range of responses: death threats, abusive phone calls and e-mails, an anonymous parcel of powder. Much of the abuse was focused on the fact that I was perceived as acting for Arabs and Muslims, as if they were savages.’


He adds: ‘Being in a media storm is terrible and stressful. May 2004 was one of the worst months of my life. There are no simple tips as to how to handle it. I gritted my teeth, tried to keep my dignity and self-respect, ignore the hostile stares I was receiving and the fact that people who would otherwise have greeted me were ignoring me – for example, parents at my son’s football tournament during that period. Eventually it died down.’


Mr Shiner says that although he does not believe libel suits are always sensible, since they can perpetuate a story, he did threaten Associated Newspapers with a libel action.


‘I did take the libel option just to show the Daily Mail I was not easy pickings. However, I cannot believe suing for libel is a good option and I used it only to show I meant business and then quietly dropped it.’


Mark Stephens, partner at London firm Finers Stephens Innocent, has also come in for some stick after clashes with the media, and even has a section of a Web site called Angry Harry dedicated to vilifying him. Not that it bothers him – ‘I added the link to my CV,’ he says.


‘I had a radio debate with a former editor of the News of the World. The next week there was an “axe murderer” type photo of me in the paper with an article about a case I was doing which was quite unsavoury. However, if you’re in the public eye, you live by it and die by it. If you don’t like it, you should go and do some residential conveyancing or something.’


He says that using the UK’s privacy laws or criminal libel laws in other jurisdictions can be dangerous.


‘If you go down this route, you could make enemies. Most of my clients have low media profiles because we don’t pick fights with editors or journalists. An editor may get a small fine for criminal libel and although you might hope it will have a deterrent effect, in reality you’re just encouraging them to put their best investigative journalist on you.’


But he says the threat of a libel suit can be a good way of killing a story, one he used to good effect when rumours of Princess Diana’s relationship with James Hewitt first appeared in The Sun.


‘We put it on the Press Association wire that we had issued proceedings for defamation and libel. I didn’t serve the writ, but it meant the story wasn’t followed in substance by other newspapers. It changed the story. The next day The Sun ran a story about Di giving evidence in a libel trial. The affair was overlooked until she admitted it on TV, which was a bit embarrassing.’


Mr Sellitto says he can bring a detached viewpoint to a situation that may not be as big a deal as the client thinks it is. He says it is imperative that he is called in early on a story so a news management plan can be devised, and that a firm’s senior management are involved.


‘Sometimes it’s a case of bringing the positives out. A story about a law firm sacking 60 people can be disastrous, but if you put it across as a restructuring exercise, done in consultation with staff, as a response to tough market conditions, it looks less negative.’


He says the difference in the past seven years of how law firms handle media enquiries has changed ‘out of all recognition’. There is now much better appreciation of the power of the media, he says.


Mr Stephens says it is vital to talk to the press as a human being rather than a lawyer, adding a touch of humour wherever possible. Although a senior spokesperson is preferred, this might not necessarily be the managing partner – especially if they are ‘a bit a starchy’, since pomposity does not go down well.


For four years, Ms Stapely mounted the media campaign for Sally Clark, the solicitor falsely accused and since cleared of murdering her two babies, on a pro bono basis.


She says: ‘If you are trying to campaign for a miscarriage of justice to be corrected, you need to build support with the widest audiences, from the public through to the law officers, and you need to brief the media, who in Sally’s case had misrepresented her case badly at first instance. You should never dissemble but prepare thoroughly, brief journalists comprehensively and be prepared for the fact that changing attitudes takes time.’


Lucy Trevelyan is a freelance journalist