Cari Brunelle, Partner, HBC
The two cofounders and only partners of HBC marked the agency’s tenth anniversary in late 2013 by naming Cari Brunelle the agency’s third and only female partner. With a background in broadcast news, she moved easily into communications for a state agency and two universities before switching to legal PR. Cari has proven indispensable to leaders of law firms and CEOs who regularly rely on her judgment in high-stakes matters. In the legal profession, she is widely known for guiding the country’s top 100 law firms through critical news events like the acquisition of other firms, multimillion dollar deals, “bet the company” court wins and potentially disruptive crisis communications.
Cari has led a team that counsels clients on the “bet the company” matters such as a publicly traded medical device company seeking to go private, a major law firm in merger discussions necessary to save it from bankruptcy, a gasoline distributor accused of antitrust violations and a group of physicians practice groups trying to stop a large healthcare company from terminating their hospital contracts. While sevveral are still ongoing, her counsel for the medical device company was the culmination of more than 10 years of work with the company. She advised the CEO on messaging throughout the process of going private so as to avoid negative PR that might jeopardize the deal.