Before the first witness is sworn in, has your case already lost the room?
Long before a jury is seated, people are forming opinions. They’re reading headlines, scrolling past news alerts, and absorbing whatever version of events has made it into the public conversation. By the time those same people show up to voir dire, they’re not blank slates — they’re consumers of a narrative that someone else wrote.
In most high-profile cases, that someone is the defense.
The Problem With “Letting the Case Speak for Itself”
Defense-side communications teams don’t wait for trial. They brief reporters, place op-eds, and seed favorable framing into coverage long before a jury pool is ever assembled. By the time prospective jurors fill out their questionnaires, many have already encountered a version of the story that the other side wrote.
Plaintiff firms that wait until trial to think about narrative aren’t being cautious, they’re arriving late to a conversation that’s already been shaped without them.
Public perception doesn’t reset at the courthouse door. After more than 15 years working alongside the nation’s leading plaintiff firms, we’ve seen firsthand what happens on both sides of this equation. The cases where firms engaged early and where the public understood what was at stake before trial ever began looked very different in the jury box than the ones where the defense had months of uncontested narrative-building behind them.
What Strategic Pre-Trial Communications Actually Looks Like
Proactive media engagement before trial isn’t about trying a case in the press. It’s about ensuring that the public record reflects the human stakes of the litigation — the real people affected, the pattern of conduct at issue, and the broader significance of the case.
When plaintiff firms engage thoughtfully before trial, they ensure that the public record reflects what’s actually at stake: the people harmed, the conduct at issue, and the significance of the fight ahead. That kind of groundwork doesn’t just shape public perception, it sets the stage for a jury pool that walks in having heard both sides of the story, not just one.
Contact us to learn more about how RebuttalPR can help take your firm to the next level.
