Month: May 2017

The CLCA is delighted to welcome two new member firms – WeR1 Consultants, the leading investor and media communications agency based in Singapore, and Schneider | Minar | Jenewein Consulting (SMJ), one of Austria’s leading litigation and crisis communications agencies based in Vienna. This adds Asia to the CLCA’s footprint for the first time and expands our capabilities in Europe. Both firms are highly regarded in their home markets. The WeR1 team has worked on some of the most high profile court cases in Asia including matters involving criminal proceedings and financial class action-style suits. It has also led crisis management activities for companies in Malaysia, Hong Kong and India, where clients were experiencing fraud and bankruptcy situations. SMJ advises high-profile individuals, businesspeople and financiers during times of dispute. It has also led crisis responses for companies based in Austria and Switzerland. For further information about their capabilities please see websites WeR1 and Schneider | Minar | Jenewein Consulting (SMJ).

So, the news bulletins have been forced to rely on still sketches drawn from the memory of court-room accredited sketch artists. Perhaps even more surprising, these artists have to take a mental picture of their surroundings within the court room, such as the look of the judge, defendant, witnesses and barristers, and reproduce this picture with crayons outside the court room – no drawing is allowed inside the court! No wonder the broadcasters want the rules changed.

So the Judges allowed a test trial to be broadcast (after 3 years of negotiation) from a murder trial in Scotland that lasted 6 weeks and had 70 witnesses. This was distilled into a 2 hour programme that was broadcast for the first time on British TV last week. The reviews were glowing, certainly as to the way the footage was shot and edited to engage the viewer and build suspense as we got closer to the jury’s verdict. However, respected criminal law partner Michael Caplan QC from Kingsley Napley LLP, joined Bell Yard in sounding a note of caution for future trial reporting. Our article, first printed in the legal publication – Solicitors Journal – can be read here in full.

Litigation public relations has turned from a trendy topic into a serious discipline in the legal community, playing a rapidly increasing role on the criminal law side in white-collar proceedings, also due to a greater than ever doubtful handling of media issues by some prosecutors, while continuing to have a harder stand on the capital crime side, likely for practical and also ethical reasons. A much broader range of application can be found on the civil side, either as strategic advice to top executives being in a dispute with their (former) employer, or in B2B disputes, with IP battles and private follow-on lawsuits against cartel members complementing classic areas of litigation public relations consulting in competition law, securities law, and product liability law, e.g. visual legal communications and public affairs also gain in importance especially in mega-cases which are highly complex and by definition often also political.”

CLCA member firm in the US, Hellerman Baretz, has been honored by ‘The National Law Journal’ in its “Best of 2012” survey as “The Best Law Firm Crisis Management Firm.” It was also named “Best Legal PR Firm” in the same nationwide survey of the legal industry. These are well deserved recognition of HB’s expertise and reflect their strong reputation for crisis work in their marketplace.

See www.newlawjournal.co.uk and www.hellermanbaretz.com for further details.

CLCA member firm in the US, Hellerman Baretz, has added a Los Angeles operation to its office network. The West Coast office will be headed by Sharon Liang, former Legal Editor of the Daily Journal.

See www.hellermanbaretz.com for further details.

JUVE has published a big story about litigation PR in their November issue, describing a client case of Holzinger Associates and quoting Stephan Holzinger. In a JUVE survey among the top 50 law firms in Germany, Holzinger Associates was recommended as an Expert Consultancy.

www.juve.de

Attached please find the current program.

Stephan Holzinger of Holzinger Associates has been quoted as Litigation-PR-Expert in the liberal weekly “der Freitag”. The story critically analyses the increasing level of media-lisation of court trials in Germany. Available only in German language here.

Bell Yard’s Melanie Riley is quoted in PR Week magazine about the furore surrounding privacy injunctions in the UK and the prospect of journalists who flout the law via Twitter finding themselves subject to prosecution in future.

Stephan Holzinger commented on the salience of the Kachelmann trial from a public opinon’s perspective in ARD Morgenmagazin, Germany’s leading TV morning show.

The newly founded BUJ association, representing corporate lawyers in Germany, reports in the first edition of their magazine “unternehmensjurist” about litigation PR, featuring CLCA founding member Stephan Holzinger as litigation PR-pioneer in Germany.

The CLCA is delighted to welcome a new member firm in Northern Europe — Van Kempen Litigation PR based in The Hague. Highly regarded for its crisis and litigation work, Van Kempen recently launched a dedicated unit to further grow this part of its business. It has experience of shareholder disputes, (tax) fraud, environmental catastrophe (criminal prosecution), mass litigation, medical (neglect) and forced relocation matters and has supported several internationally-known Netherlands based companies during sustained and high profile crises. For more information about Van Kempen Litigation PR’s capabilities click here.

Read Bell Yard Communication’s rough guide to how social media is transforming the world of litigation PR in the UK: click here.

CLCA member firm Holzinger Associates has published a study of trends in lawsuit reporting in three German media sources for the period 2008-2010. Whilst the volume of reports involving legal matters increased, there was a disproportionate increase in the number of “no comment” responses which can result in a loss of trust and damage to a company or person’s credibility the author argues. The growth of the importance of social media in litigation PR is also mentioned. Click here for more information

CLCA member firm Community is mentioned as a leading player in the field of litigation PR in Italian newspaper ItaliaOggi. The article also refers to Community being part of the CLCA international network of crisis experts which is able to assist with cross-border disputes. See pdf here.

CLCA-member Stephan Holzinger will present current trends and hot issues of Litigation-PR at a conference of netzwerk recherche e.V. and Hamburg University’s Rudolf-Augstein (Der Spiegel) professorial chair. The netzwerk recherche (“research network”) is the association of investigative journalists and editors in Germany. For the full programm, see here.

On 17th February 2011, two member firms will be representing the CLCA at the prestigious “World Forum for Communication Top Managers” in Davos.

Community, one of Italy’s leading communications consultancies, has joined the international Crisis & Litigation Communicators Alliance (CLCA), becoming their representative firm in Italy. PDF-Coverage

A professional article about the essentials of Litigation PR in Switzerland written by CLCA partner Roland Binz and Franco Gullotti, published in the official lawyers magazine Switzerland (only available in German language).

Member firms of the CLC-Alliance will come together in New York City for the bi-annual meeting of the Alliance. In addition to meetings with several U.S. law firms and reporters, CLC-A members Stephan Holzinger and Melanie Riley will participate in a panel on litigation PR with the Law Firm Media Professionals group (www.lfmp.org).

CLCA-Chairman Stephan Holzinger has been featured as expert in an article about litigation-PR and spin-doctoring in the courtroom of public opinion in Germany by Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung: www.faz.net.

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“Good news travels fast,” the saying goes, “and bad news travels even faster.” That addendum may sound pessimistic, but it has never been more true than it is now when it comes to PR and companies in crisis. Given today’s global business environment and lightning-quick communications, news of a corporate public relations crisis can hopscotch from one continent to another in minutes, causing lasting harm in multiple locations without careful management.

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The Crisis & Litigation Communicators’ Alliance (CLCA) has recently been featured in Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany), Wirtschaftsblatt and Der Standard.at (both Austria), as well as in the trade publications The Holmes Report and Bulldog Reporter (both USA), Persönlich and Klein Report (both Switzerland), PR REPORT and PR-Journal (both Germany), PR Week and Gorkana PR News (both UK), and Extradienst.at and Medianet.at (both Austria). Copies of the editorials are available through CLCA office.

Stephan Holzinger, Chairman of CLCA, speaks at PR PLUS in Heidelberg to communication professionals from many firms about litigation communications in a fireside chat. PR PLUS is Germany’s only private PR-education with a state-acknowledged university degree.

When several former members of Dresdner Kleinwort’s London-based management committee found themselves in dispute with the investment bank’s new owner, Commerzbank, earlier this year over unpaid severance and guaranteed bonus packages, media interest was not just confined to the UK where the legal claims were filed. Given the bank’s German HQ, the sizeable German government shareholding and that the Claimants ran global businesses within Dresdner Kleinwort with a significant German client base, the lawsuits attracted greater media attention in Germany than in the UK.

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