Maneuvering well through Washington, D.C. is no easy feat, but Richard Levick has carved out a spot in the nation's capital and in the global community with a unique twist on the art of PR. His firm, with eight offices around the world and headquartered at the National Press Building, provides media relations for legal eagles. Levick's claim to fame is that Levick Strategic Communications places its clients in 15 to 20 stories worldwide every day with big shots like ABC World News Tonight and the New York Times. PR NEWS spoke to Levick about how he marries PR and law, two professions that have long been on opposite sides of the fence.
PRN: It's no surprise that lawyers aren't the most loved professionals, so does working for an industry with this kind of stigma make your job doubly difficult?
Levick:
Since long before the time of Shakespeare, lawyers have been taking it on the chin. But really, in terms of how lawyers are perceived overall, you're talking more about something an association can affect - in this case, primarily the American Bar Association.
Defending the industry hasn't been a large part of what we do - no more so than someone who does PR for the president of the U.S. is responsible for defending the constitution on a daily basis. What we do is provide business development and litigation PR. We're working lawyers from law firms into news streams so they're reaching their target audiences.
PRN: Where did your business get its roots?
Levick:
Twenty-one years ago, the Supreme Court ruled state bars couldn't prohibit law firms from advertising and marketing. The first law firms which engaged in marketing activities were the "If you've got a phone, you've got a lawyer" types. That eventually got other law firms to think, not just about law, but about growing business.
For example, in 1991, Howrey & Simon did some aggressive advertising. That obviously was controversial, but it also focused attention on the issue of how to market a law firm. Law firms had to stop thinking as partnerships and start thinking as businesses. Many began to realize that building a business isn't just a matter of doing good work and marketing by playing golf. They realized that communicating through advertising, the media, market research, etc., can mean a lot. That's when the push for PR for corporate law firms started to take off. Five years ago, the question for law firms was 'Why? Why should we do this?' Now the question now is 'How? How do we do this?'
This is a booming business. Our minimum fees begin at $10,000 a month and we're concerned that that's too low because I have too many law firms calling me every week for our services.
PRN: Who has been in the news recently that you placed?
Levick:
Just this past week, we put one of our clients, Womble & Carlyle, in the news to provide its expertise regarding the privatization-of-prisons issue and the question of whether it's working. There is a significant suit regarding the death of a prisoner that the media is following and we negotiated a "60 Minutes" appearance for our client to provide insight. Our work entails preparing our clients for the story - we're there at the shoot - determining strategy. We also negotiated two stories last week with "20/20" that are likely to air in the near future.
PRN: How did you fall into this?
Levick:
I didn't go to school in journalism or mass communications. My background is heavily political. I worked for Ralph Nader-based organizations for seven years. I was the chief lobbyist and executive director of the Public Interest Research Group in Michigan. Through that, I understood then that PR could build momentum to help get legislation passed.
This helped provide the foundation for what I do today.
This kind of expertise requires a unique skill set: You have to understand the legal community but you also have to have strong PR skills as well as have the business acumen and political appreciation to understand the matrix of how these things come together.
PRN: So that acumen has led you to what kinds of cases?
Levick:
Right now, I am going to be deliberately unclear about the facts because these are cases that we're currently engaged in. One involves the murder of a police informant and law firms representing a police department. Another involves a class-action suit in which racial discrimination is charged. While we do some work for plantiff law firms, overwhelmingly the work we do is defense oriented.
An example would be that, right now, we're seeing increasingly that disgruntled customers are going on the Internet and filing suits themselves. In this country, there is no risk in joining a class-action suit, and companies are coming under fire in cases where the biggest concern is the loss of reputation and market share because it's the accusations - not the merit of the case - that is costing them.
Which leads me to what we're doing. The key issue is companies come to law firms with business problems, not legal ones, but lawyers often perceive them as legal issues.
We're perceiving them as legal and market share and reputation issues.
PRN: Your line of work is especially interesting because PR and lawyers have often been at odds and this can be perceived as a marriage of the two in some way. Any comment?
Levick:
A law firm that doesn't understand the importance of PR is a lot like a doctor who isn't sensitive to the importance of electricity. That means you don't need to be the technician, but you better know how to turn the power on when you need it.
It's no longer just about winning or settlements it's about preserving the value of a company. What we care about is market share and reputation because law firms are finding that they need to be sensitive to these issues. When we take on a litigation matter, firms are often in a crisis mode.
The mistake many PR firms make is thinking that it's all about what the attorneys say they want as the result, but we're thinking about why things are important and we look at how to leverage value so that there's a sense of importance about what we're doing. Too often, lawyers say "This is what I want," and PR pros say "okay" and deliver that. And the lawyers may not really want that at the end of the day.
You've got to say to them, "Let's think about why." A lot of PR firms only do OMASC - Only Mom And Spouse Care - placements, because that's what law firms ask of them. But we say, "No, we're not going to do that." How results are graded at the end of the year is looking at business development, not ego, which is how a lot of promotional support has been driven.
If it's not news, we're not doing it, but when we see an opportunity, we're going to leverage it to the maximum.
Levick's Ledger
Headquarters: National Press Building
U.S, Locations: Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C.
Overseas locations: London, Frankfurt, Germany (within the month)
Founded: Feb. 1, 1998
Employees: 19
No. of Clients: 40 - will not disclose names, but represents 14 percent of America Lawyer's Top 100 law firms
Projected 1998 Revenue: Over $2 million
Phone: 301/530-2753