Company: Bowman and Brooke LLP
Agency: Levick Strategic Communications
Timeframe: March 2004 to May 2005
Everyone knows the concept of diversity in the workforce is a noble and worthy cause. The challenge, however, is showing that diversity is also a profitable business
strategy.
The Minneapolis-based law firm Bowman and Brooke LLP prides itself on workforce diversity, which is no mean feat since its main focus - products liability defense law -
is a legal niche which has traditionally been a white male bailiwick. In order to promote its commitment to diversity and to enhance both its business development goals and
recruiting operations, Bowman and Brooke needed to offer a prime example of how a diverse staff can achieve winning results.
Enter Alana Bassin and Talia. Bassin is a Bowman and Brooke partner who argued a spirited and successful defense on behalf of their client Ecolab Inc. in a nationally-
recognized two-week-long Texas court case. Talia is Bassin's infant daughter, who made her own courtroom debut at the age of 10 months (albeit as an observer) while her mom was
center stage trying the case.
For Amanda Walsh, director of marketing at Bowman and Brooke, this mother and daughter combo proved to be the perfect case study to show the firm's commitment to advancing the
career of women lawyers - particularly those who may fear their career viability would be jeopardized by motherhood. "My idea of doing PR is to have a business goal," she
explains. "My objective was clear: Within law firms, there is the challenge to improve their diversity efforts. I was on the hunt for stories that I could use for an
example."
Todd Felts, director of Levick Strategic Communications in Washington, DC, worked with Walsh on crafting this PR strategy. Felts points out that diversity-related
stories resonate deep with the business community - particularly with companies that are miles ahead on the subject.
"Diversity is important because those companies are made up of strong diverse workforces," says Felts. "We needed to communicate that the client and law firm share this key
goal."
Bowman and Brooke is also ahead of the curve here: Twelve of its 66 partners are women, including Bassin. That by itself was not newsworthy, but the fact Bassin made partner
after giving birth to Talia was uncommon (many women put their legal careers on hold after becoming mothers). Even more unusual was Bassin's decision to take her infant from
Minneapolis to Texas for her court case (Bassin was still breastfeeding Talia and could not leave her home).
But rather than exploit mother and child in the court setting while the trial was underway, Walsh waited for the case to conclude in March 2004 before setting the PR wheels
into motion. "I was looking for a way to create news out of what we've done," she said.
Narrow Aim
Instead of going into a full-blast PR campaign to blanket the media with this story, Walsh and Felts decided to take a very different approach and limit its press outreach to a
pair of publications: the New York Times and the weekly Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal.
For Felts, the Times was a natural choice. "We were looking to reach large companies that only the New York Times could reach," he explains. "We wanted to do
this without going into the Los Angeles or Chicago dailies or the Dallas Morning News. The New York Times was very strategic from a budgetary standpoint - it made
the most sense."
In choosing a local media outlet, Walsh felt there was no better option than the law section of the weekly Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. "The Minneapolis
Star-Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press do not have legal human interest stories," she says of the two leading local dailies. "We have a business monthly and a
couple of legal publications here, but we saw this as going beyond the legal community."
However, neither story was a quick slam-dunk to set up. Walsh was in touch with her contacts at the Business Journal for six months before a feature story appeared in
the February 25, 2005 edition (by then Talia was 20 months old and Bassin was expecting her second child). At the Times, Felts opted to bypass the reporters who cover
legal affairs in order to play up the maternal aspects of Bassin's baby-on-board courtroom journey.
"I needed to find the right reporter at the Times," he says. "I was looking for a woman reporter who understands the challenges with balancing work and family
issues."
The reporter Felts contacted was Melinda Ligos, who writes for the Times' Business Travel section. Ligos was intrigued and her article appeared in the May 5, 2005
edition. In both publications, Bassin and Talia were photographed together.
From the two hits alone, Bowman and Brooke saw a flurry of response. "We got tons of calls when the articles came out," recalls Walsh. "Alana and the other partners got
calls. And two associates rejoined the firm 10 years after they left to start their respective families."
Walsh adds her firm uses the press coverage as part of its recruiting efforts and in its mentoring endeavors with younger female lawyers who expressed concern about balancing
careers and families. The program was honored last month with an Honorable Mention in the PR News 2006 Legal PR Awards - where it was entered under the playful title
"You've Come a Long Way, Baby."
Contacts: Amanda Walsh, [email protected]; Todd Felts, [email protected].
Lessons Learned: Promoting Diversity
If you are planning to promote a diversity employment program, here are some tips that you need to remember:
- Stress results. When promoting diversity, always remember the real story comes in showing the ROI on this concept. Play up the significant improvements and
tangible results that come from recruiting and maintaining a diverse workforce. It is a human resources story with a bottom line punch.
- Yes, they are role models. The employees being highlighted in your media push on diversity will, for better or worse, be judged as role models by many people.
Therefore, make sure they know this beforehand. Media training is strongly advised to assure all of the obvious questions and some potentially sneaky questions are handled
properly.
- Make sure the entire organization is practicing diversity. It won't take much for a cynical journalist to snoop around and discover the demographic breakdown of the
upper echelon of your organization. In cases like this, one cannot help but recall the sharp comment made by the Rev. Al Sharpton on the lack of minority representation within
Rudolph Giuliani's administration when he was mayor of New York: It's just like Mount Everest - the higher up you go, the whiter it gets!