Most attorneys hire a PR firm exactly once, and usually at the worst possible moment. A case is about to make news, a reporter is already calling, or a filing is landing that you want the world to see. That is a bad time to be comparison-shopping.
So here is how to pick a legal PR firm you won’t regret, written by one. What actually matters, what to ignore, and when you might not need a firm at all.
Start with one question: do they understand litigation, or just PR?
This is the whole ballgame. Plenty of capable PR firms can get a product reviewed or a founder onto a podcast. Very few understand that in litigation, the wrong sentence to a reporter can end up in a motion.
A firm that understands litigation PR knows the difference between on the record and on background, knows how to talk about a case without wading into anything privileged, and knows the audience is not just readers. It is judges, defense counsel, potential plaintiffs, and a future jury pool. If the people across the table can’t speak fluently about how the press and the court interact, keep looking. Everything else on this list is secondary to this.
Plaintiff-side or defense-side?
Legal PR is not neutral. A firm that spends most of its time defending corporations against the kinds of claims you bring is oriented the wrong way for your work, and may have conflicts you won’t see until they matter.
Ask which side of the “v.” a firm usually sits on. Plaintiff-side work is its own craft: building a narrative before you file, turning a complaint into a story, and holding a defendant accountable in public without overstepping what the evidence supports. You want a firm that does this every week, not one that took your case as a change of pace.
Real media relationships, or a press-release machine?
Anyone can push a release over a wire. It does almost nothing, and for plaintiffs’ firms it is usually a waste of money. What moves a case is earned coverage: a reporter who already covers mass torts, consumer protection, or your practice area, who trusts the source and writes the story.
So ask for names. Which reporters and outlets cover the kind of litigation you handle, and what is the firm’s actual relationship with them? A firm with real relationships will answer easily. A firm selling volume will change the subject to how many “placements” they can generate.
Who actually does your work?
A common pattern: the senior partners pitch you, and a junior team you never met runs the account. In litigation that is a real risk, because the person talking to reporters needs judgment about your case, not just media training.
Ask who will handle your matter day to day, and whether the people in the room will be the people doing the work. You are hiring judgment under pressure. Make sure you are hiring the right people’s judgment.
How do they define success?
Be careful with vanity metrics. “Impressions” and advertising-equivalent values are easy to inflate and tell you almost nothing about whether the coverage helped your case.
Better firms talk about the things that actually matter: did the story land in outlets your audience reads, did it carry your message accurately, did it shift how the case is understood. Ask how a firm measures its work and how you will see results. If the answer is a dashboard of big numbers with no connection to your goals, that is a firm optimizing for looking busy.
Will they coordinate with your legal strategy?
Communications and litigation strategy have to move together. A PR firm that freelances, putting out statements or pitching stories without your sign-off, is a liability, not an asset.
The right firm treats your trial team as the lead, understands what cannot be said and why, and folds its work into your case strategy rather than running alongside it. Ask directly: what will you not do without our approval? The answer tells you how they think about their role.
The short version: questions to ask on the call
- Who specifically will work on my case, day to day?
- Which reporters and outlets covering my type of litigation do you actually have relationships with?
- Walk me through a case where your work changed the narrative.
- How do you coordinate with our trial team, and what won’t you do without our sign-off?
- How do you define success, and how will I see it?
Red flags
- Guaranteed coverage or placements. No one controls what a reporter writes. A guarantee means they are either overpromising or paying for it.
- Press-release wires as the core offer. That is volume, not strategy.
- Can’t name reporters or beats. Real relationships are specific.
- A senior pitch, then a junior handoff. Meet the people who will do the work.
- Vanity metrics as the headline result. Impressions are not outcomes.
- No curiosity about your legal strategy. If they don’t ask, they don’t understand the job.
When you might not need a firm at all
We would rather tell you this than sell you something you don’t need. A single local story, a one-off announcement, or a small matter where the spend won’t change anything are often fine to handle in-house or with your existing team. If you have communications people who genuinely understand litigation, you may already be covered.
Where a firm earns its keep is the high-stakes case: the one where the narrative matters as much as the verdict, where a defendant is spending real money to shape the story, and where getting the public framing wrong is expensive. That is the moment to have the right people in place, ideally before you file, not after the calls start.
There is also the work that happens between cases, and it matters more than most firms realize. Ongoing firm PR and marketing builds the reputation and relationships you draw on when a big case finally lands: reporters who already know your name, referring attorneys who think of you first, and a public profile that makes your attorneys the obvious voice on the issues you litigate. A reporter is far more likely to take the story when the source is a firm they already know, and cases are easier to attract when yours is the name people in your space recognize. That standing gets built quietly, over time, which is why the firms in the press during a marquee case are usually the ones who did the work long before it.
The bottom line
Choosing a legal PR firm comes down to one thing: judgment about your case, in public, under pressure. Media relationships, senior attention, and honest measurement all matter, but they follow from a firm that understands litigation first and PR second.
If you are weighing your options, it is worth seeing how firms actually compare. We put together a straightforward look at the field here: legal PR agencies for law firms. Read it, ask the questions above, and hire the firm whose answers you believe.
