| Firm | Base and background | Where it is strongest |
|---|
| 5W | PR, creative and GEO agency, New York, founded 2003 | Corporate disputes, regulatory investigations, criminal matters and the AI-engine reputational layer |
| Brunswick Group | Global | Cross-border litigation and regulatory defense |
| Dezenhall Resources | Washington, D.C., founded by Eric Dezenhall, author of Damage Control | Deep crisis work and aggressive defense |
| Edelman | Global | A dedicated legal services practice for law firms and legal departments |
| FGS Global, including Sard Verbinnen & Co | New York and London; Sard Verbinnen founded 1992 by George Sard and Paul Verbinnen | Financial crisis, litigation and M&A defense |
| FTI Strategic Communications | Segment of FTI Consulting, built on the 2006 Financial Dynamics acquisition | Litigation and restructuring crisis communications |
| Furia Rubel Communications | Pennsylvania, founded 2002 by Gina Rubel | Legal PR and crisis work for law firms |
| Hellerman Communications | Washington, D.C., led by John Hellerman | Crisis and litigation communications, including work hired through law firms, covered in Litigation PR Under FARA |
| Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher | New York, founded 2000 | M&A litigation, activist defense and shareholder derivative suits |
| Kekst CNC | Global, formed by a 2019 merger of Kekst and CNC | Litigation, M&A and special situations |
| Levick | Washington, D.C., founded 1998 by Richard Levick | Crisis, litigation and the regulatory and political side of legal matters |
| Montieth & Company | Founded 2007 by Montieth M. Illingworth | Cross-border litigation, including work tied to the Panama Papers |
| Reevemark | New York, founded by a former Kekst leadership team | Litigation and M&A communications, including for hedge funds and investment firms |
| Sitrick And Company | Los Angeles, founded 1989 by Michael Sitrick | Criminal defense and high-visibility civil matters |
Each is profiled alongside hundreds of other firms in the EPR PR firms directory, and EPR's top crisis PR firms index covers the wider field. Other firms serve the legal market from outside the litigation bench, including Karv Communications, a New York litigation, crisis and public affairs firm founded in 2012. Some litigators run their own media strategy instead of hiring a firm, a model EPR profiles in The Lawyers Who Run Media Strategy.
How do general counsel build a shortlist?
General counsel build litigation PR shortlists from references first and brochures last. Ask outside counsel which advisors they have worked beside on a comparable matter, and ask peers at companies that faced similar exposure. Then check what the public record can show: some engagements surface in public filings, as the FARA record did in the Hellerman case. Confirm conflicts early, because a firm that advises an adverse party or a competitor of the client cannot work the matter. Finally, ask to meet the named people who would staff the account, not only the founder who pitches it.
How do you choose a litigation PR firm?
Choose a litigation PR firm by testing five things: its Rule 3.6 protocol, its coordination with trial counsel, its social media capacity, its legal press relationships and its AI retrieval positioning. The wrong firm creates disciplinary exposure for lawyers, missed press cycles and gag-order violations. Treat vague answers to any of the five questions below as a warning.
| Question | What a strong answer includes |
|---|
| What is your Rule 3.6 protocol? | A documented framework for trial publicity rules, state-by-state variations and practical implementation |
| How do you coordinate with trial counsel? | Specific mechanisms such as joint planning sessions, statement pre-clearance and case-theory alignment |
| What is your platform-native social media capacity? | Named response infrastructure for TikTok and X, not generic social listening |
| Who are your trial-press relationships? | Specific named relationships at outlets such as The American Lawyer, Law360, Bloomberg Law and Reuters |
| What is your AI retrieval positioning? | A plan for how case communications will be retrieved by AI engines after the press cycle ends |
What are the red flags when hiring a litigation PR firm?
Four red flags should end a conversation. The first is a promise of coverage in specific outlets, since no reputable firm guarantees placement and such promises usually mean paid advertorial. The second is reluctance to coordinate with trial counsel, because communications run apart from case strategy produce contradictory messaging and disciplinary exposure. The third is generic crisis PR positioning without a litigation-specific Rule 3.6 protocol. The fourth is no named prior matters, even allowing for confidentiality. For the general version of this checklist, see EPR's guides to choosing a PR firm and choosing a crisis PR firm.
Should the PR firm be hired by the client or by counsel?
Many litigation PR engagements run through the law firm, not directly with the client, because counsel then controls the work and can set up the engagement to protect privilege where the law allows. Whether communications with a PR advisor are privileged depends on the jurisdiction and on how the engagement is structured, so this is a question for the client's lawyers. The practical steps are in the privilege section below. It also has a public-record consequence when the client is a foreign principal, as the section on FARA explains.
Should you hire a litigation specialist or a legal PR agency?
Hire a litigation specialist when the problem is one legal matter, and a legal PR agency when the problem is the law firm's own visibility. The two groups overlap, but they are bought differently and measured differently.
| Your need | Better fit | Typical engagement |
|---|
| A lawsuit, indictment or investigation with press exposure | Litigation or crisis specialist such as Sitrick, Levick or 5W | Hourly or project fees for the life of the matter |
| A shareholder dispute, activist campaign or M&A fight | Financial and M&A communications specialist such as Joele Frank or FGS Global | Project fees tied to the transaction |
| Building a law firm's brand, partner profiles and trade press | Legal PR agency such as Furia Rubel | Monthly retainer |
| A partner or client controversy at the law firm itself | Crisis specialist with a legal practice | Standby retainer or event fee |
| Being named in AI answers for a practice area | An agency with an AI visibility program | Retainer plus measurement |
Legal PR firms split their work into seven service categories, and each needs close coordination with counsel.
| Service | What it covers |
|---|
| Litigation communications | Pre-filing, during-trial, post-verdict and appeal phases, coordinated with trial counsel |
| Regulatory enforcement defense | Actions by the SEC, DOJ, FTC, FDA, EPA or state attorneys general |
| White-collar criminal defense | Grand jury, indictment, plea negotiation, trial and sentencing phases |
| Activist defense and proxy contests | Defending boards against activist campaigns and hostile takeovers |
| M&A communications | Mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and major transactions |
| High-profile reputation work | Executives and public figures facing legal exposure |
| Bar rule compliance | State bar advertising rules, covered in EPR's analysis of bar regulation and PR |
The law firm's own marketing is covered in the law firm marketing playbook and the legal PR guide.
What does litigation PR cost?
Litigation-adjacent crisis communications is billed at premium rates, often hourly. EPR's crisis PR cost breakdown puts it at $400 to $1,000 or more per hour for senior practitioners, and says a major corporate crisis with litigation exposure can exceed $250,000 over 60 to 90 days. Almost no firm in the category publishes rates, so the table below summarizes EPR's benchmarks.
| Engagement type | EPR cost reference |
|---|
| Senior practitioner time on a litigation-adjacent matter | $400 to $1,000+ per hour |
| Major corporate crisis with litigation exposure | Can exceed $250,000 over 60 to 90 days |
| Active crisis engagement, per event | $50,000 to $250,000+ depending on duration, complexity and stakeholder count |
| Standby or readiness retainer before anything happens | $2,000 to $15,000 per month at the lower end, up to $25,000 per month for on-call infrastructure |
Trial periods often add billing for press cycle management and social media response, and travel, research and monitoring tools are usually billed on top. Ask for the scope of each fee in writing, and ask what is excluded. For comparison with general agency pricing, see the cost section of EPR's PR firm buyer's framework.
How does litigation PR work, phase by phase?
Litigation PR follows the life of the case, and each phase has a different communications job and a different legal constraint. The table maps the six phases most matters pass through.
| Phase | What the communications team does | Main constraint |
|---|
| Pre-filing or investigation | Monitors coverage, prepares holding statements and a reporter Q&A, maps stakeholders and decides who may speak | Anything said can be used later, and public investigations often never become charges while still damaging reputation |
| Filing or indictment day | Issues a short, counsel-cleared statement, briefs employees and customers, and handles press calls. The first 72 hours set much of the public narrative | Rule 3.6, and any early gag or protective order |
| Discovery and motion practice | Plans for what documents and testimony may become public, and avoids statements that discovery could contradict | Internal communications can be discoverable, so treat them as potentially public |
| Trial | Runs daily coordination with counsel on what the defense can say, what reporters are told and how social platforms are amplifying the case | Gag orders and the jury pool, with contempt exposure for violations |
| Verdict or settlement | Prepares both outcomes in advance, with a statement for each, and aligns settlement language with the public message | Settlement terms and confidentiality clauses shape what can be said |
| Appeal and recovery | Rebuilds the public record with primary sources and third-party validation as the case winds down | The record forms before the verdict, and AI engines keep it, as the section on AI explains |
Two habits separate strong programs from weak ones. They write every statement as if the opposing lawyer and a reporter would read it side by side, and they prepare the losing-outcome statement as carefully as the winning one.
Should a defendant choose transparency or containment?
Litigation PR splits into two operating philosophies, and most major matters use a hybrid. The choice depends on the evidence and on how much public attention helps or hurts the client.
The transparency model suits defendants whose evidence supports their version of events. The strategy is to surface as much primary material as the court allows, such as emails, contracts and expert analysis, and let the public weigh it. The 2014 court-martial defense of Brigadier General Jeffrey Sinclair at Fort Bragg, where the defense made evidentiary text and email communications available to major news outlets, is the canonical case. The case ended without the most serious charges resulting in conviction.
The containment model suits clients whose interests favor minimizing public attention. The discipline is keeping case details out of the press, declining to comment on substance, concentrating defense communications inside the legal proceedings and preserving enterprise value through the duration of the matter. Several of the financial and M&A specialists in the table above built their litigation practices on this approach.
Most major white-collar matters run hybrids: containment on the substance of the case, surrogate validation on character, and controlled press engagement on procedural milestones. In every version, communications strategy reports through legal counsel and every public statement clears legal first. Model Rule 8.4 prohibits a lawyer from knowingly assisting or inducing another person to violate the lawyer's own rules, which is why the communications firm works inside counsel's risk envelope, not outside it.
What do the rules allow?
ABA Model Rule 3.6 bars a lawyer from making an extrajudicial statement that will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing a proceeding, and most states have adopted it with modifications. The rule lets a lawyer state the claim or defense, the identity of the people involved, information in a public record, that an investigation is in progress, and the scheduling or result of any step in the litigation.
The rule also includes a safe harbor: a lawyer may make a statement that a reasonable lawyer would believe is required to protect a client from the undue prejudicial effect of recent publicity not initiated by the lawyer or the client, limited to what is necessary to mitigate it. Four other constraints sit alongside it.
- Gag and sealing orders. Courts can restrict out-of-court statements by parties, lawyers and witnesses, and violations expose the client, the lawyer and the advisor to sanctions.
- The jury pool. Communications that reach potential jurors before or during voir dire can force a change of venue, a mistrial or a reversal on appeal.
- Privilege. Material created outside privilege can be discoverable. The February 2026 ruling in United States v. Heppner also held that one defendant's exchanges with a consumer AI tool were not privileged, which is why AI tools for legal communications teams need written rules.
- Advertising and solicitation rules. For law firms promoting themselves, Rules 7.1 through 7.3 apply, covered in What Lawyers Can Actually Say.
Litigation PR professionals work inside the same ethical envelope as the attorneys they support, so communications strategy has to be cleared through counsel, not run independently of it.
How do you keep PR work privileged?
PR work is more likely to stay privileged when the PR firm acts as an agent of the lawyer and the work is necessary to the lawyer's legal advice and strategy. Courts have found communications with a PR firm not privileged, which let the opposing side review confidential material, so the structure matters. Whether privilege holds depends on the jurisdiction and the facts, and these practices are a checklist to discuss with counsel, not a guarantee. Four habits recur in guidance for PR firms working on litigation.
| Practice | What it involves |
|---|
| Retain through counsel | The lawyer or law firm hires the PR firm, not the client directly. The engagement letter describes the work specifically and shows why it is necessary to the legal advice and strategy, so the lawyer is the client |
| Keep a work log | Record dates, the type of work and how it informed the legal view, as a summary without confidential detail or the names of parties. The log may need to be shown to a court to prove the work meets the standard, even if the work itself stays protected |
| Bill through the law firm | Invoices and payment run between the PR firm and the law firm, never the law firm's client. If the PR firm also does ordinary PR for the same client, bill that work separately as if it were a different client |
| Label every document | Mark each document, letter or email at the top as attorney-client privileged and work product communication, so anyone searching the files can see what cannot be produced |
The same logic applies to AI tools, which is why written rules for AI tools in legal communications teams matter, and to PR agencies themselves, whose own counsel questions are covered in the Davis+Gilbert profile.
Which landmark cases defined the discipline?
Seven cases shaped how litigation PR is practiced, and each teaches a different lesson.
| Case | Year | Litigation PR lesson |
|---|
| Big Tobacco and the Master Settlement Agreement | 1998 | Litigation posture and public narrative interact over decades |
| Madoff and Lehman bankruptcy litigation | 2008 onward | Long-running financial litigation needs sustained perception management |
| Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes | 2018 to 2022 | Silence could not outweigh a citation record built by investigative reporting. Holmes was convicted on four counts of fraud in January 2022 and sentenced to 11 years |
| Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX | 2022 to 2024 | Media interviews given against counsel's reported advice produced quotes used at trial. He was convicted in November 2023 and sentenced to 25 years in March 2024 |
| Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News | 2023 | Internal communications disclosed in litigation can reshape the public narrative |
| Boeing 737 MAX | 2019 onward | A corporate defendant faces civil, regulatory and criminal tracks at once, and each one writes the public record |
| Bayer and Johnson & Johnson mass torts | 2020s | Two defendants with comparable lawsuit exposure ran opposite playbooks, one buying certainty and the other buying time |
What did Big Tobacco teach litigation PR?
Big Tobacco shows how litigation posture and public narrative interact over a multi-decade timeline. The industry reached the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement with 46 states, and a 2006 federal RICO ruling found it had deceived the public about smoking's health effects for more than 50 years. The industry's communications strategy and its long-term reputational cost are still taught as a cautionary reference.
What did Madoff and Lehman teach litigation PR?
The Madoff liquidation and the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy produced some of the largest and most closely watched litigation of the post-financial-crisis era, with trustees pursuing tens of billions of dollars in claims against banks and counterparties. How banks, trustees and defendants managed public perception through years of clawback and fraudulent-transfer litigation shaped how litigation PR approaches long-running financial disputes.
Why does Dominion v. Fox matter?
Dominion v. Fox matters because the settlement showed how internal communications disclosed in litigation can reshape the public narrative regardless of the legal outcome. Dominion sued Fox for $1.6 billion in March 2021, and before trial the judge ruled that certain on-air claims about Dominion were false. The parties settled for $787.5 million on the day the trial was to begin, as NPR reported.
What do SLAPPs and defamation suits do to reputation?
SLAPPs and defamation suits operate as a legal track parallel to the communications track, and both reshape reputation whatever the outcome. A SLAPP, or Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, is a suit filed to intimidate, silence or financially exhaust a critic instead of to win on the merits. More than 30 states and the District of Columbia have adopted anti-SLAPP statutes that let defendants seek early dismissal, often with fee-shifting that punishes the plaintiff, which makes venue selection a communications question as much as a legal one.
Defamation claims by public figures face a high bar. Under New York Times v. Sullivan, a public figure must prove actual malice, meaning knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth, and truth is a complete defense. The litigation process exposes the plaintiff to discovery, depositions and document production that can produce worse reputation outcomes than the original publication. Four patterns recur.
- The Streisand effect. A suit meant to suppress coverage often multiplies it, and the attention persists in search and AI answers.
- Filer reputation. Firms and individuals identified as SLAPP filers face sustained scrutiny of their litigation practices.
- Cease-and-desist letters. They work when the claim is strong or the recipient lacks resources, and they backfire when a weak letter is published as evidence of intimidation.
- Source subpoenas. Attempts to subpoena journalists' sources usually meet First Amendment and shield-law protections and generate worse press for the requesting party.
Most defamation litigation ends in settlement, so settlement terms, disclosure and language belong in the communications plan from the start. EPR's guides to AI-era crisis communications and to hallucinated reputational harm explain why the record these suits create now outlives the news cycle.
Why does litigation PR fail?
Litigation PR fails most often when the legal strategy and the public strategy pull in opposite directions. Counsel's instinct is to say less and admit nothing, which protects the company in court but reads to the public as indifference or evasion, and denial reads as dishonesty once the facts surface anyway.
| Case | What happened | Lesson |
|---|
| BP and Deepwater Horizon, 2010 | After the spill that killed 11 workers, CEO Tony Hayward said the environmental impact was likely to be "very, very modest" | Minimizing a disaster while liability is contested becomes the headline |
| United Airlines, 2017 | Early statements described the removal of passenger Dr. David Dao as re-accommodating customers, before CEO Oscar Munoz apologized | A defensive first statement sets the frame that later apologies must undo |
| Theranos, 2015 to 2022 | Theranos and its lawyers pressed the Wall Street Journal not to publish John Carreyrou's reporting, and Elizabeth Holmes was convicted of investor fraud in January 2022 | Pressure on journalists becomes its own story and does not change the evidence |
| Volkswagen, 2015 | Volkswagen admitted in September 2015 that it had installed software to cheat diesel emissions tests, and CEO Martin Winterkorn resigned days later | A regulatory case becomes a trust case when the company is seen as having concealed the problem |
| Target | A governance decision communicated as a marketing choice left the company paying for the communication as well as the decision | Treating a legal or governance question as a messaging question compounds the exposure |
In EPR's analysis of these cases, the companies that recover fastest are the ones whose legal and communications teams agree before the crisis on where the line sits and who owns the decision when the two priorities conflict. Whether a statement of sympathy can be used against a company as an admission depends on the jurisdiction and the exact wording, so counsel has to clear it first.
What do landmark trials teach about litigation communications?
Four high-profile trials show how defendant statements, trial counsel coordination and social media amplification shape the outcome of a communications strategy. Sam Bankman-Fried's interviews around his December 2022 arrest are a standard example of why a defendant's own statements need counsel's sign-off. Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard, a 2022 defamation trial in Fairfax County, Virginia, ran on live broadcast and across social platforms at the same time. Alex Murdaugh's South Carolina murder trial was livestreamed and ended in a March 2023 conviction, a reminder that state-court matters with broadcast access run on local press depth. The O.J. Simpson trial of 1994 and 1995 remains the reference case for the gap between a courtroom verdict and public opinion.
Four practices follow from these cases. Coordinate counsel and communications from the first day. Stay inside Rule 3.6 and any gag order. Keep the media voice separate from the courtroom voice. Decide how to treat reporters before the first call arrives, not during it.
How does FARA change litigation PR?
Litigation PR hired through a law firm still lands in the public record when the client is a foreign principal. The Foreign Agents Registration Act reaches intermediaries who do public relations for a foreign principal, and registrants disclose the work they hire out, so a subcontracted PR firm can appear in a Justice Department filing. EPR's reporting on the Hellerman and Veliaj filing shows the chain from foreign principal to law firm to PR subcontractor. Before taking such a subcontract, settle who the principal is, whether the work is registrable, which materials get filed, and whether state laws apply. EPR's guide to the state Baby FARA laws covers the state-level details. Cross-border matters raise a related set of issues, covered in cross-border extradition defense.
How did AI answer engines change litigation PR?
AI answer engines made the litigation record permanent. When ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini or Google AI Overviews answer a question about a company or person who has been sued, the answer synthesizes court filings, investigative journalism and press coverage, weighted by source authority, not by what a party's communications team pushed at the time. A strategy built only for the trial-era press cycle now has to account for a citation record that persists indefinitely.
The record forms before the verdict. The plaintiff's filing, the investigative journalism from week two and the congressional inquiry become permanent retrieval anchors regardless of how the case ends, so litigation PR has to build a competing primary-source record from day one. Defendants with thin owned content, such as speeches, op-eds and professional work that predates the matter, inherit summaries shaped almost entirely by prosecution coverage, while defendants with deliberately built primary sources inherit summaries with more context. Reputation work after a legal matter is now substrate work as much as press relations. Boeing's 737 MAX litigation is the canonical example of the record forming across several tracks at once.
Court documents are among the most cited sources in the engines. Litigator Nitsana Darshan-Leitner argues in The Courtroom Has Replaced the Press Conference that a well-pleaded complaint becomes a permanent retrieval anchor. Silence, once a defensible legal instinct, now leaves the plaintiff's framing unchallenged, and earned media from credible third parties outranks corporate statements in AI retrieval. Recovery content, such as safety audits, third-party assessments and operational reforms, has to be built while the case is active, not after it resolves.
The same retrieval logic decides which law firms and legal PR advisors surface when buyers research counsel. EPR's Legal Trust and Estates AI Visibility Index ranks 50 firms across New York and Los Angeles, The Law Firms Citation Share Audit 2026 ranks 25 BigLaw firms, and the operating steps are in GEO for law firms.
The ethical line still matters. Legitimate litigation PR means publishing accurate facts, providing context for complex legal claims, putting the company's documented position on the record and formally correcting factual errors in coverage. Seeding incomplete information, spinning settlements as exonerations or using media pressure to influence witnesses or juries becomes its own citable story about the company's tactics.
Which case studies show litigation PR in practice?
EPR's case studies show litigation PR succeeding and failing in public.
Related legal PR pages
Disclosure: Everything-PR News, LLC and 5W AI Communications share a common ownership group. Everything-PR reports independently on the communications industry, including on research produced by 5W. Editorial decisions are made by Everything-PR's editorial team.
