Part of The Newsroom Playbook: What Law Firms Should Actually Expect From a Legal PR Agency
Your law firm has a PR agency.
Maybe it also has an internal marketing department, a communications team, a social media calendar, regular newsletters, and a steady stream of awards, rankings, and announcements.
But there’s a simpler question worth asking:
Are your lawyers actually in the news?
Many law firms invest significantly in marketing and public relations while their attorneys remain virtually invisible in the media.
That doesn’t necessarily mean the firm’s marketing operation isn’t doing valuable work. Law firm marketing encompasses an enormous range of responsibilities, from business development and branding to events, digital marketing, awards, and client communications.
But if one of the objectives of your law firm PR agency is to generate meaningful earned media coverage for attorneys—and that coverage isn’t happening—it’s reasonable to ask why.
Because PR activity and earned media are not the same thing.
What Is Your Law Firm PR Agency Actually Producing?
Legal marketing can be busy.
There are attorney biographies to update, Chambers submissions to prepare, newsletters to publish, social media posts to write, conferences to sponsor, website content to develop, awards to submit, and firm announcements to distribute.
All of that creates activity.
But law firm public relations should also produce something much easier to identify:
Media coverage.
Are attorneys being interviewed?
Are lawyers being quoted when major stories develop in their practice areas?
Are reporters calling the firm’s attorneys for analysis?
Are partners appearing in national, business, legal, trade, or local media?
If a law firm is paying a legal PR agency specifically for media relations, these are reasonable questions to ask.
A 40-page monthly activity report isn’t necessarily the same thing as a lawyer appearing in The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg, CNBC, Law360, or another publication that matters to the firm’s clients and prospects.
The objective isn’t simply to demonstrate that PR work is happening.
The objective is to create opportunities for attorneys to become visible, credible sources in the media.
Law Firm Marketing and Media Relations Require Different Skills
One reason for the disconnect is that law firm marketing and law firm PR are often grouped together.
They overlap, but they aren’t the same discipline.
Marketing professionals may be responsible for business development, branding, directories, events, sponsorships, website strategy, social media, client communications, and dozens of other functions.
Attorney media relations is much narrower.
It requires understanding what journalists are covering, identifying opportunities for individual attorneys, developing angles reporters may actually care about, and reaching the right journalist at the right moment.
Most importantly, it requires understanding how a newsroom works.
Reporters don’t care that a law firm needs more visibility this quarter.
They care about their story.
Successful PR for lawyers starts there.
Reporters Aren’t Looking for Law Firm Marketing
This sounds obvious, but it is where a lot of legal public relations goes wrong.
Reporters are not an extension of a law firm’s marketing department.
A journalist doesn’t need to help a partner build a personal brand. A television producer isn’t responsible for increasing a firm’s visibility. A business reporter doesn’t care that an attorney’s competitors have been receiving more press.
The journalist needs information.
That might mean understanding why a federal prosecution matters. It might mean finding an M&A attorney who can explain a major acquisition. It could be a litigator who understands a new lawsuit or an employment attorney who can quickly explain a major workplace ruling.
The law firm PR agency has to find the point where the reporter’s need and the attorney’s expertise intersect.
When that happens consistently, meaningful media coverage can follow.
“Our Attorneys Are Available for Comment” Is Not a Media Strategy
Reporters receive an enormous number of pitches.
Many amount to some version of:
“Our attorney is available to discuss this.”
That’s rarely enough.
Why this attorney?
What does the lawyer think?
What can the attorney tell the reporter that isn’t already in the story?
What is the angle?
A good PR firm for lawyers should be able to answer those questions before contacting the journalist.
Instead of simply offering an attorney, the pitch should give the reporter a reason to want that attorney.
That distinction seems small.
Inside a newsroom, it isn’t.
Good Legal PR Is Proactive
Another common problem is waiting for media opportunities to arrive.
A reporter sends a request. Someone forwards it around the firm. Eventually, an attorney responds.
That’s useful, but it’s reactive.
Strong law firm media relations should also be proactive.
Every day brings developments that create opportunities for lawyers:
- Government investigations
- Court rulings
- Corporate disputes
- Regulatory actions
- Mergers and acquisitions
- Data breaches
- New legislation
- Real estate transactions
- Employment controversies
- Artificial intelligence developments
- Major business disputes
- High-profile trials
A legal PR firm should be monitoring those developments and asking:
Which attorney knows this subject?
Does the attorney have something interesting to say?
Which reporters are covering it?
Can we get the lawyer in front of them before their deadlines?
That’s fundamentally different from waiting for someone to ask whether the firm has an expert available.
Speed Can Matter More Than the Perfect Pitch
Law firms are understandably cautious.
Newsrooms are understandably fast.
That combination can create problems.
A reporter may have three hours to finish a story. If it takes two hours for a media request to move through the firm’s internal process and another hour to determine whether an attorney can speak, the opportunity may be gone.
The reporter isn’t necessarily going to wait for the most credentialed lawyer.
The reporter may call the qualified lawyer who answers.
A good attorney PR agency understands this and helps create a process that allows lawyers to move quickly without being careless.
Sometimes the difference between being quoted and being absent from the story is simply a matter of timing.
Your Best Media Attorneys May Not Be the Most Senior Attorneys
Law firms also sometimes make the mistake of deciding who should receive media opportunities based almost entirely on seniority.
The most senior partner isn’t always the best media source.
Reporters value attorneys who are:
- Responsive
- Knowledgeable
- Clear
- Comfortable speaking in plain English
- Willing to offer useful perspective
- Available when news breaks
- Focused on the subject within their expertise
Sometimes that’s the chair of the practice group.
Sometimes it’s a younger partner who follows the subject obsessively and can explain it better than anyone else.
A strong lawyer PR strategy identifies the attorneys who can perform well with journalists and creates opportunities around them.
Media relations should serve the firm’s objectives, but it also has to serve the reporter’s needs.
Are You Pitching Stories or Pitching Lawyers?
This is another useful test for a law firm PR firm.
There is a major difference between pitching a lawyer and pitching an idea.
“John Smith is a partner in our firm’s commercial litigation practice and is available for interviews” isn’t particularly compelling.
A pitch explaining why a major court decision could suddenly expose hundreds of companies to litigation is a story.
The attorney becomes the expert who can explain it.
The best legal media relations programs don’t begin with:
How can we promote this lawyer?
They begin with:
What would make a reporter interested in speaking with this lawyer today?
That shift changes everything.
Meaningful Media Coverage Should Build on Itself
One of the goals of sustained attorney public relations should be reducing the amount of introduction required over time.
The first placement may require a cold pitch.
The second might be easier.
After several good interviews, a reporter may begin contacting the attorney directly.
Other journalists may see the lawyer quoted and reach out.
Producers may discover previous television appearances.
An attorney who was initially unknown to the press can gradually become a familiar source within a particular beat.
This is why a good law firm PR strategy isn’t simply about counting clips.
It’s about building media equity around individual lawyers and practice areas.
Eventually, the question changes from:
How do we get reporters interested in this attorney?
to:
How do we handle all of the opportunities coming in?
That’s a much better problem for a law firm to have.
What Should Law Firms Expect From a PR Agency?
Different law firm PR agencies offer different services, and law firms have different objectives.
There is no universal number of media placements that every firm should expect.
But if earned media is part of the engagement, law firms should expect a clear strategy for producing meaningful media opportunities.
That means:
- Identifying attorneys and practice areas with media potential
- Developing relevant story ideas
- Monitoring the news for opportunities
- Building targeted reporter lists
- Researching individual journalists and their coverage
- Pitching journalists individually
- Preparing attorneys for interviews
- Responding quickly to media opportunities
- Tracking meaningful earned media results
- Building long-term journalist relationships
Most importantly, it means generating opportunities for lawyers to actually speak with the media.
The Simplest Law Firm PR Metric
There are plenty of sophisticated ways to measure legal PR and law firm marketing.
Share of voice.
Website traffic.
Domain authority.
Social engagement.
Referral traffic.
Search visibility.
Those metrics can matter.
But law firms paying for earned media should occasionally use a much simpler measurement.
Open Google News.
Search the names of the attorneys the firm wants to promote.
What do you see?
If the answer is very little, another question follows naturally:
Why?
A law firm can have impressive marketing operations, polished branding, a strong website, and a busy PR calendar.
But if the goal is to get lawyers into the news, eventually the lawyers have to get into the news.
How Inside Advantage PR Approaches Legal Media Relations
Inside Advantage PR is a national law firm PR agency and legal PR firm focused on earned media for attorneys and law firms.
Led by a former ABC News reporter, Inside Advantage PR brings newsroom experience to legal public relations, attorney media relations, litigation PR, and law firm communications.
The agency helps lawyers identify relevant media opportunities, develop compelling story angles, communicate effectively with journalists, and build long-term relationships with reporters covering their practice areas.
The goal isn’t simply to generate more activity.
It’s to create meaningful opportunities for attorneys to become credible media sources.
For law firms seeking national, business, legal, trade, television, digital, or local media coverage, that requires an understanding of what journalists actually need—not simply a list of reporters and a database of email addresses.
Final Thoughts
Your law firm may already have a marketing department.
It may already have a PR agency.
It may already have a communications strategy.
But if one of your goals is to build attorney visibility through earned media, there’s one question worth asking:
Are your lawyers actually getting quoted?
Successful law firm PR isn’t about sending the most emails, producing the longest reports, or distributing the most press releases.
It’s about understanding the newsroom.
It’s about identifying stories where your attorneys can genuinely add value.
It’s about reaching the right journalist at the right time.
It’s about building enough trust that reporters eventually think of your lawyers when news breaks.
Media coverage isn’t random.
It’s a craft.
Law firms that understand how legal PR, attorney PR, and law firm media relations work are better positioned to turn their attorneys’ expertise into meaningful earned media opportunities.
And ultimately, that’s what a successful law firm PR agency should help make possible.
