Winning the Reputation War will Help you Win the Legal Battle.

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Reality: winning the reputation war will help you win the legal battle.
Your client’s reputation may be more valuable than the matter you are litigating over, or at least the other side’s reputation may be. So winning in the court of public opinion is just as important, and sometimes even more so, than winning in the courtroom. But the courtroom and the outside world are connected for two important reasons. Firstly, because it is of fundamental importance that justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done; and secondly because judges and jurors, no matter how impartial, urbane and sophisticated they may be, do not in reality sit in a vacuum, but ride the bus of popular culture to a greater or lesser extent, whether they like it or not.
In other words, there are two conversations going on: one inside the courtroom to persuade the judge, and the other outside the courtroom to persuade the public. But the reality is that these two conversations are linked. Not only to the extent that they make the same arguments in different ways, but also because one cannot help but inform the other.
This means that you need to develop your PR strategy alongside your legal strategy, from the outset. In the most extreme circumstances, your PR strategy might dictate that you should not litigate, no matter how good your case, because of the balance between the possible legal gain and the certain reputational risks involved for your client. At the other end of the scale, your PR strategy might dictate that you bring a particular case, in a particular jurisdiction, which you might not otherwise have brought, because of how that case will play in your overall strategy, and how that will set up both the legal and public narrative for other current and future cases. Or there will be times when you consider a legal case to be too weak, complex, costly, slow or unrewarding for your client, but where the reputational concerns of the other side mean that a carefully orchestrated settlement PR campaign, threatening to litigate, can bring the other side to make a settlement offer to your client. And when it comes to class actions, it is often not possible to bring or manage the legal claim at all without a strong litigation PR campaign recruiting and keeping informed the corporates or consumers involved.
This asymmetric approach to litigation and PR is particularly key in commercial litigation, but its deployment in any case can often mean the difference between success and failure for your client, both inside and outside the courtroom.

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