Litigation PR: When to Comment...
As Sun Tzu said in ‘The Art of War’: “Attack is the secret of defence; defence is the planning of an attack.” The decision whether to be reactive or proactive in your litigation PR strategy is to a great extent a false one in practice. For example, you may decide to keep quiet unless the other side goes on the PR offensive. But all good journalists seek balance in their stories as far as possible, and in particular like to get the view of the other side of a case, as well as encouraging rebuttal comments from those who will be criticised, so you will get an early warning of the impending attack when you or your client are asked to comment. Then you can deploy the full force of your carefully prepared reactive PR strategy, preemptively turning the fire of the attack back on your opponent, either killing their article or shaping it to your own messaging. Sometimes no comment at all really is the best comment, but usually only when you are either losing hard or winning big. But these