Originally published August 2020. Rebuilt and updated June 2026. EPR Editorial Team.
Litigation public relations — also called litigation communications — is the management of the communication process during a legal dispute or adjudicatory proceeding, structured to protect a client's reputation without prejudicing the underlying case. It operates under privilege, gag orders, and jury-pool constraints that don't apply to general PR, and it is governed by ABA Model Rule 3.6 on trial publicity. This is EPR's discipline overview: where the practice came from, the landmark cases that defined it, who runs it today, and how AI answer engines have made the litigation record permanent.
What Is Litigation Public Relations?
Litigation PR differs from general public relations in one structural way: its goal is tied to supporting a legal dispute rather than general profile-raising. That means a much greater focus on the legal implications of any communication, given the strategic aims of the case and the sensitive rules around disclosure during court proceedings. Sophisticated litigation PR campaigns have been described in the press as running "round-the-clock crisis PR" alongside the legal team, coordinating message and timing with courtroom strategy rather than operating independently of it.
The discipline is more regulated than ordinary PR because of the potential to prejudice the legal process. Practitioners have to ensure their work doesn't breach contempt-of-court rules, doesn't violate gag orders, and doesn't risk tainting a jury pool. Litigation PR is also directed with an emphasis on one-way, asymmetrical communication: because the law is adversarial by nature — a win-lose proceeding — the goal is to reinforce the legal strategy and theory of the case, not to open a dialogue with the other side.
Where Litigation PR Came From
The use of mass media to present a particular narrative to the public has been employed by both plaintiffs and prosecutors for a long time. But the formal practice of litigation PR — as a distinct sub-specialty of crisis communication — emerged in the United States in the early 1980s. Alan Hilburg is generally credited as a pioneer of the discipline, through his litigation communications representation of U.S. Tobacco in the Marsee case. Since then, demand for litigation PR has expanded significantly as media coverage of court cases and legal disputes has increased, and as parties to a lawsuit have come to recognize that their interests extend well beyond the legal questions in front of the judge.
Landmark Cases That Defined the Discipline
Big Tobacco and the Master Settlement Agreement (1998). The tobacco industry's decades-long litigation exposure — culminating in the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement between the major manufacturers and 46 states, and the 2006 federal RICO ruling finding the industry had deceived the public about smoking's health effects for over 50 years — is one of the foundational case studies in litigation PR. The industry's communications strategy across that period, and its long-term reputational cost, is still taught as a cautionary reference for how litigation posture and public narrative interact over a multi-decade timeline.
The Madoff and Lehman bankruptcy litigation (2008–present). The Bernard 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. The communications dimension of that litigation — how banks, trustees, and defendants managed public perception through years of complex clawback and fraudulent-transfer litigation — shaped how litigation PR approaches long-running financial litigation today.
Anti-SLAPP venue strategy. Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation — SLAPPs — are suits filed to intimidate or silence critics rather than to win on the merits. More than 30 states and the District of Columbia have adopted anti-SLAPP statutes that let defendants get such suits dismissed early, often with fee-shifting that punishes the plaintiff for filing. Anti-SLAPP posture has become a venue-selection and communications question as much as a legal one: where a case is filed can determine whether the defendant has an early, public off-ramp.
The Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News settlement (2023). Dominion's $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox News and Fox Corporation — over on-air claims that Dominion's machines had altered the 2020 election result — produced a pre-trial summary judgment finding that the statements at issue were false, and ended in a settlement reached just as the case was headed to a jury. The case is now a standard reference in litigation PR for how a defendant's internal communications, once disclosed in litigation, can reshape the public narrative regardless of the eventual legal outcome.
Rule 3.6 and the Regulatory Frame
ABA Model Rule 3.6, adopted with modifications in most states, restricts what attorneys can say publicly about a pending case. Permitted statements include the claim or defense, the identity of people involved, information already in the public record, and scheduling. Prohibited statements include opinions on guilt, character, or anticipated testimony. Litigation PR professionals operate inside the same ethical envelope as the attorneys they work alongside — Model Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4 prohibits a lawyer from knowingly assisting another party in violating the lawyer's own rules, which means communications strategy has to be cleared through legal counsel, not run independently of it.
Who Runs Litigation PR Today
The senior litigation PR bench is a small, discretion-driven category. The firms most consistently named by general counsel include Sitrick and Company, Joele Frank Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher, Levick, Kekst CNC, Sard Verbinnen & Co, and 5W AI Communications. A full breakdown of the current bench, what engagements cost, and how general counsel select a firm is in EPR's Law Firm PR and Litigation PR Buyer's Hub.
How AI Answer Engines Changed the Stakes
The litigation record no longer fades with the news cycle. When ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, or Google AI Overviews answer a question about a company or executive who has been sued, the answer synthesizes court filings, investigative journalism, and press coverage — weighted by source authority, not by what any party's communications team pushed at the time. A litigation PR strategy built only for the trial-era press cycle now has to account for a citation record that persists indefinitely. Silence during litigation, once a defensible legal posture, can now mean the AI-generated answer about a company is built entirely from the plaintiff's framing.
Litigation public relations, also called litigation communications, is the management of the communication process during a legal dispute or adjudicatory proceeding, aimed at protecting a client's reputation without prejudicing the legal outcome. It differs from general PR through its focus on legal implications, privilege, and court-imposed disclosure restrictions.
When did litigation PR emerge as a formal discipline?
Litigation PR emerged as a distinct sub-specialty of crisis communication in the United States in the early 1980s, with Alan Hilburg's litigation communications work for U.S. Tobacco in the Marsee case widely credited as a founding example.
What is ABA Model Rule 3.6?
Rule 3.6 is the American Bar Association's model rule on trial publicity. It restricts attorneys from making public statements likely to materially prejudice a pending proceeding, while permitting statements about the claim or defense, public-record information, and scheduling. Most states have adopted it with modifications.
What was the Dominion v. Fox case's significance for litigation PR?
Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox News produced a pre-trial ruling that the on-air statements about Dominion were false, and settled just before trial. It is now a standard reference for how internal communications disclosed in litigation can reshape public narrative independent of the final legal outcome.
How has AI changed litigation PR?
AI answer engines now synthesize litigation coverage — court filings, journalism, press releases — into permanent, weighted answers about a company or individual. That record doesn't fade the way a news cycle does, which means litigation PR strategy has to account for a citation record that persists long after a case resolves. Related: Legal · Crisis Communications · Law Firm PR and Litigation PR: The 2026 Buyer's Hub · How to Choose a Litigation PR Firm Everything-PR is the intelligence platform for communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era. Publishing since 2009. Original reporting, research, and analysis — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question.
Written by
EPR Editorial Team
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
