Ray’s Hot Takes

This transcript of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR was generated using AI transcription and lightly edited for readability. It may contain errors, and speaker labels are approximate. The audio recording is the authoritative version.

Welcome to Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR, the podcast where we elevate the stories of the plaintiff's bar and dive into the key trends shaping the civil justice system today. I'm your host, Ray DeLorenzi, and in each episode, we'll bring you insightful interviews with leading attorneys, expert perspectives on current legal events, and in-depth discussions on the issues that matter most. Now, let's jump in.

There is clearly a problem with the media business and the news business, but that does not mean that there is necessarily a problem with a dearth of information. There's more ways to get information than ever. And how people are talking about you or your law firm, you have to be more ubiquitous.

Ray: Hey, everyone, welcome to a new episode of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR. I'm your host, Ray DeLorenzi, and today I'm actually not really going to be the host. For those of you who are familiar with the program, we typically have really amazing, legendary plaintiffs' lawyers on to discuss their cases and their careers. Today, my colleagues essentially forced me to do an episode where my wonderful friend and colleague Hannah Gallagher, who's here with me — and who's also our in-house podcast expert — is going to ask me questions that we've received from listeners and clients and get my takes on them. Hannah, welcome to the podcast.

Hannah: Hi, thank you. This is very exciting. I am an avid podcast listener and now a host slash guest. So yeah, we've received lots of comments, and internally we know Ray has some really hot takes. So I want to hear some of those and talk a little bit about PR and media and the legal world. So excited.

Ray: I don't know if folks will be able to see this, but I have this little trophy, and I received it at our annual holiday party in December. Everyone got a different trophy for something, and mine was most likely to have a piping hot take. So I feel like this is right in my wheelhouse. I'm not short of opinions, and, you know, I also tell it like it is. Nothing here will be filtered. So, Hannah, let me have it.

Hannah: I have some hot takes too, so we can talk about them. Awesome. Well, before we get into those hot takes — I guess I'll take over my host role — Ray, do you want to just tell us a little bit about where RebuttalPR came from in the first place and how you got into the legal PR niche? How did you get into that?

Ray: Sure. I will try to give the short version of the story. I used to live in Washington, D.C. I now live in the New York City suburbs in North Jersey. But when I lived in D.C., I was doing some political work, and then I ended up at the American Association for Justice, where I was communications director from 2008 to 2012. For those of you who are not familiar with AAJ — first, if you're a trial lawyer, a plaintiff's civil lawyer, and not a member of AAJ, you need to be a member of AAJ. They are the largest membership organization for plaintiffs' lawyers. They do amazing work on Capitol Hill to protect your practice, and amazing education events. We will be at AAJ's annual convention, which by the time this airs — it'll be early January, I think it'll air right before that — in San Francisco. AAJ is a tremendous organization, but I got to be communications director there, and that's where I got to learn about our civil justice system, the plaintiff's bar, and meet a lot of great plaintiffs' lawyers.

I left AAJ in 2012, and fast forward eight years, I decided when the pandemic hit and an existential crisis hit, like it did for many people, to start RebuttalPR to focus strictly on working for the plaintiff's bar and helping them with their cases and their practices from a public relations and communications perspective. And now we have an amazing team of about 24 people from coast to coast, including you, Hannah. So here you are.

Hannah: Love it. Exciting. Yeah, I mean, RebuttalPR is awesome. I've been here for a couple years, and it's a really fun field to be part of. So, love it. Well, let's hop into some of our hot takes. You know, I think right now the news is bombarded with political news and there's always a lot going on, but there's also legal news, and that's obviously what we're focused on. Can you give us your thoughts on what counts as news in your world in 2025? How do people get coverage? What's important? How do law firms get in the news if that's one of their goals?

Ray: Yeah. You know, I think — and this has always been the case, but I think it's been more exacerbated recently — news should be thought of as information. Where do people get their news? Where do they get their information? I imagine, like, when I was a kid and my mom would come home and tell my dad, or vice versa, oh, did you hear the news? And it was some in-town gossip. It wasn't something that was going to be on NBC Nightly News. People don't think of news as, oh, I saw this on broadcast news television. It's new information that they receive.

And the difference now, compared to when I was younger, and as time has gone on, is there are more places to get information than ever. There is clearly a problem with the media business and the news business. But that does not mean that there's necessarily a problem with a dearth of information. There's more ways to get information than ever. And in terms of how people are talking about you or your law firm, you have to be more ubiquitous. You have to be in a lot more places.

There was a time when there were lawyers who would just do billboards, some that would only do radio or only do TV. Now you can have a practice that specializes in a certain area and not do TV, billboards, or radio. You have to find what your core audience is, where that core audience gets their information, and then really target that core audience based on where they get their information in order to reach them. So that's my view. I think "news" is a loaded term and a misnomer when you really have to think about the information environment.

Hannah: Yeah. On the flip side of that, I know I've heard you talk about how settlements and verdicts, with their numbers alone, are not news. Just publishing your big number anywhere and not explaining what the case is — that's not necessarily news. So can you explain that a little bit more? What makes a verdict or a settlement or a case newsworthy?

Ray: Yeah. So, not to get into politics, but right now Congress is debating the BBB, the big beautiful bill. I forget what all the letters are, but I think that's what it is. And this bill is estimated to cost trillions of dollars. I'm not getting into the merits or politics of it, but the idea that anyone at this point understands the difference between hundreds of millions and billions and trillions — it's just zeros, and the numbers wash over people. There's no real understanding anymore of what all that means. I think this really started with the financial crisis when they were doing bailouts of banks. Again, I'm not getting into the wisdom of those things, but it cost hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars, and people were just like, you know, that's a lot of money. But what does that mean?

So, going back to your original question, every law firm talks about its verdicts. Okay, 5 million, 6 million, 10 million, 20 million. But what does that leave the person on the other end to think? Like, oh, they had a $10 million verdict — what if it was a $20 million case? I don't know. Look, there's a certain segment of the population that wants to go with a law firm where maybe bigger is better, or one that promises a quicker resolution. But people have always been, and currently are, driven by stories. They want a story to be told. And saying you got a $20 million verdict doesn't tell a story. It just says you have a $20 million verdict. What is the story behind it? Did the insurance company offer three nickels, and then you went to trial and got 20 million? Who was the person behind it? Did they have a family? What were the long-term consequences of that injury?

I think those stories are what make something interesting. A verdict for 20 million by itself maybe is an interesting story, but stories involve people and emotions, not just cold hard numbers. And especially for us, we're in a business and industry that requires storytelling. You see it on the news, in quotes, on TV, but you never see a story like, they got a $20 million verdict, the end. It's a story. What is the information, the facts behind it, that make it unique, interesting, and something that will pull people in? And I think that's what people also want in their lawyer.

Hannah: Yeah. Yeah. That's what we like to do — talk to plaintiffs all the time and get the personal story behind what's going on in a case, rather than just, this is what happened. So I like that.

Ray: And, you know, Hannah, you can speak to this. None of these plaintiffs go into these cases being like, I want $20 million. Or if they got that verdict, they're not like, I got $20 million, hooray! I mean, they've gone through the worst thing imaginable in their life. They aren't, at the end of the day, thinking, oh, I got $20 million. They're thinking, okay, how do I now piece my life back together when I am an amputee, or I had the death of a loved one? When a lawyer really focuses on that — again, it may attract a certain kind of client — but in our experience, when we talk with the clients of these law firms day in and day out, they're not looking for a number. They're looking for peace, to be made whole, to move on with their life. I don't know what the dollar number speaks to at the end of the day.

Hannah: Yeah, they're angry, sad. They don't want this to happen to other people. That's almost the main thing we hear from all of the plaintiffs we work with: I don't want this to happen to anyone else. How do I make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else? And a lot of times, bringing a legal case, talking about it in public, that sort of thing is hopefully what pushes change. So that's definitely what I hear — nothing about the money, other than being made whole again from whatever they experienced.

I definitely agree. You mentioned a little bit ago that there are lots of different ways people are getting their media. I'm a podcast junkie — I don't watch as much traditional TV media anymore. Do you think traditional media — the New York Times, the big newspapers, TV, CNN, all the big outlets — are they still important? Do we still need to go to them? Or should people just be on podcasts more, be on social media, posting videos? What do you think about that?

Ray: You know, there are kind of multiple answers there. First, I think you kind of need to be everywhere, but you also have to be where your audience is. If you look at the national nightly news, which decades ago used to get tens of millions of people watching every night — those days are long over. But still, multiple millions of people watch the nightly news, and I think there's a discrediting of that information source that is done at your own peril. Your local TV broadcast — the numbers may not be huge, but it's a huge percentage of your community. And those numbers really matter. We've seen time and again where a lawyer is on local TV or in their local paper, and that drives more potential clients contacting them.

Now, that doesn't mean you're also not appearing on a podcast or engaging in legal publications that could be seen by referral sources. There's just not a silver bullet or one-size-fits-all. But I think there's always this bias for people to go to the shiny new toy — podcast, TikTok — when there are plenty of places where a million people, multiple millions of people, are still viewing. Now, let's say you're working on something and you have an audience of one, an audience of 10. Is being on, let's say, CNN — okay, let's say they have 100,000, 200,000 people watching — but the 10 people you care about, are they watching that? If not, then you have to figure out what the goal is and where your audience is. I'm not saying all this to dismiss the importance of podcasts or social media, but I think the pendulum has gone too far in one direction when you're missing the boat on where a lot of trust and eyeballs still are.

Hannah: Yeah. And I think we talk with the firms and clients we work with about matching the image of your firm and your types of cases to what makes sense for you. Some lawyers are going to be great TikTok personalities and actually get a good message across and look good and sound good on TikTok. Some don't, and for some it doesn't make any sense. So do you have any thoughts on how you match your image and your firm's brand to different sorts of media? Are there certain types of cases that work well in big newspapers, on TV, that sort of thing?

Ray: I think people can smell authenticity from a mile away. If I were to be a TikTok influencer, it would be completely ridiculous. That's just not who I am — nothing against people who have that in them. But whatever you do in your law practice, or in life quite honestly, it has to be authentic to who you are, because when a potential client sees a lawyer, they have to be able to feel a connection and, importantly, feel like they can trust them. And trust — we've done some polling on this — that is the number one factor for people in all walks of life, particularly when they feel like basic institutions like our government have failed them. They want to know who they can trust. And if you're engaging in a way that doesn't put trust forward, I wouldn't do it.

So, to go back to your other question — does this story lend itself to X, Y, or Z? The other thing to keep in mind: people say, oh, everyone gets their news from social media. But where do you think these social media people get that information from? They're getting it from mainstream news sources and then repurposing it. So a lot of that stuff that ends up on social media is due to the fact that it was in a more mainstream outlet, and they're reworking it, giving their own take on it. It doesn't mean there are no social media influencers who can break their own news, but it's much less often than your more traditional, quote-unquote, news outlets.

Hannah: Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. It's a whole new world of media. Shifting a little bit, another area we work on quite often is with legal trades and legal media. Some lawyers really like it — Law360, Law.com — and some lawyers don't see the value in it. Do you think it's a mistake to ignore the legal trades? Do you think we should be targeting them more? Why do some lawyers dismiss it, and why do some really love it? What do you think about those?

Ray: Yeah, I can't speak for every lawyer and why they dismiss it. I think a lot of times some of these outlets pick up on a filing in a case that no one has known about for three years, and all of a sudden Law360 calls about some response to a motion to dismiss, and you're like, why now? It's just an oddity. But should you care about them? You have to think about who is reading these outlets, and it's other lawyers and judges. Do you care what other lawyers and judges think about you and your reputation? If the answer is no, then okay, maybe you shouldn't care about a Law.com or a Bloomberg Law or a Reuters Legal or a Law360. But I suspect you do and should care about what judges and other lawyers, particularly referring attorneys, think about you and your practice. And I think not engaging on those, you do so at your own peril. There is a lot of value there.

And another thing to consider: a lot of times Law.com or Law360 or Reuters — I don't want to leave anyone out — Bloomberg Law, they are breaking news. The New York Times will pick up a story because it was in Law360 first, because the New York Times is not in the business of tracking thousands of dockets. Law360 is. And they'll often report on something that then gets run up the ladder. So the fact that it may just be a Law360 story — it has the potential to become a lot bigger than that. I think engaging in those areas is really important. And again, I'm not big on giving blanket statements — it always depends — but I would not minimize their reach and impact, that's for sure.

Hannah: Yeah, I agree. There are some really great Law360, Law.com, and Bloomberg reporters who we talk to frequently, and they cover interesting stuff and write good stories, and then lead us down a path we didn't know we could go down, and we get connected with a reporter. So it is an interesting area. Well, something that was covered in the New York Times recently was the dragon lawyer saga, which — I know there was a lot of discussion internally at RebuttalPR about the value of this. If people aren't familiar, a lawyer put their logo, a huge dragon, on a bunch of filings, and got a bunch of attention for their filings, and the court threw it out, pretty much saying this is outrageous and you shouldn't be promoting your firm as part of your legal filings. I know you'll have strong opinions on this. Can you give us your thoughts about the dragon lawyer and what that reveals about marketing and advertising for lawyers today?

Ray: Yeah, I actually probably wouldn't have had a strong opinion on this, but I heard from other people in the legal business slash marketing world who were like, oh, this is a good thing, it's good advertising for this lawyer. And my head exploded. The idea of being a lawyer isn't to get more cases — it is to serve your clients. How was this client served by this when the case got dismissed? I can't imagine the judge views this lawyer very highly. They put this logo, a watermark, on every page of their filing. And there were some people in legal marketing who were like, oh, all press is good press. No, it's not. That is not true. This person did a disservice to their client. Now, maybe there is a type of client that will be attracted to this lawyer — I don't think there are many of them — but this lawyer made it about themselves in some ways and not about doing the best for their client. I just can't imagine why anyone would think that's a good idea.

I don't even know what the case was. None of the coverage was about the actual case or the client. I couldn't even tell you. It was just about this marketing ploy that they used. So that kind of tells you everything you need to know. Your case is thrown out, and nobody even knows about it. And who was going to see this filing? Opposing counsel, the judge, and the judge's clerks — not the lawyer's marketing team. And look, the New York Times covered it, and it was like, oh, I got in the New York Times. That is not a good thing. I don't even know why anyone would say that all press is good for us. We can go through plenty of people who have been in the news, and it's not for good things.

Hannah: Yeah, yeah. Well, definitely frustrating, but also an interesting PR and marketing topic to discuss internally. Okay, I have a couple of quick rapid-fire questions for you to give your hot take on. We've covered a few of them, but I want your quick answers. So, legal TikTok — smart or cringey?

Ray: I think it's mostly cringe. But for some lawyers it may work. Again, it depends on what market you're in. I think most of TikTok is cringe. But you know what? I also say good on those lawyers for getting out there in a way — they're trying something different, and I think there's something to be celebrated for that. And hey, there are clients we work with and help do TikToks, and it's on brand for them. But a lot of lawyers are doing it and it's just not on brand.

Hannah: Yeah. Should lawyers be on Reddit? If so, what should they be on Reddit for?

Ray: Reddit is interesting. I try to stay off social media because I think it can be a toxic hellscape. Reddit, I love, though. I'm not sure it's going to help a lawyer find clients, but I think it actually helps you stay on the cutting edge of some stuff and learn from others in a community. Think about it as a community, like a networking event or a bar event. There's a lawyers' subreddit that I look at. There are ones on technology I like to look at. I think there are interesting elements for anyone running a business to learn from other people. To be commenting on legal matters, though, I think is probably not the safest bet or the best use. Are you on Reddit, Hannah?

Hannah: A little bit, sometimes, but not as much as you, I don't think.

Ray: Well, I just learned a couple days ago that you have a Substack.

Hannah: Well, top secret information being revealed, but yes.

Ray: Top secret Substack. All right, I have strong opinions about this one.

Hannah: Is SEO dead? Was it ever important?

Ray: It's not dead. I think SEO is very much misunderstood. Like anywhere else, there are good PR practitioners and good SEO practitioners, and there's a sea of bad ones. The algorithms are a black box, and for folks who think they have this secret sauce — I think that's silly. What is important is putting out useful information for people and networking in the appropriate circles to reach your audience. I think a lot of that gets you 80% of the way there. But honestly, a lot of law firms can't get 80% of the way there. A lot of law firms are run by amazing lawyers who don't know a lot about business or marketing their business.

And again, I don't want to dismiss some really good SEO practitioners out there, but I think the whole field's been overrun by a lot of really bad ones. The future of SEO is also very much up in the air with AI. I've been seeing out there, oh, we can trick your — this was supposed to be a quick take, whoops, I'm just going on — you know, there are ways we can trick your SEO to come up in AI. That is a bunch of nonsense. They're coming out with new models every three weeks, and we have no idea what they're training the models on. Give me a break. So how are we optimizing if we don't know what we're optimizing for?

It actually underscores that if you have every law firm under the sun doing SEO, what distinguishes your firm from everyone else? We talked about storytelling before, and that's huge. But what are you doing in your community? And think of community not in the strict sense of your geography, but of the audiences and people who should care about you and your firm, and how are you reaching them? I think that's a much better idea. It's not as easy as just saying, go do my SEO. You have to think through, okay, here are my audiences, here are the places they congregate, how do I reach out to them? But at the end of the day, it helps build a brand and a community of people and ambassadors that will have a much longer-lasting impact on your firm and its success than trying to capitalize on the SEO trick of the day.

Hannah: Yeah. Well, I had a few more, but I kind of liked that as an ending statement from you.

Ray: Oh, I want to know — what are you leaving in the bank?

Hannah: Well, I mean, we could do a couple more of these episodes, I guess. Yeah.

Ray: Hannah, in the world of legal and PR, what's been your bugaboo of late? What is it that's driving you nuts?

Hannah: You know, I listen to tons of podcasts all the time. My biggest obsession recently has been these pollution and environmental dramas going on around the country. There are lots of legal cases about, I don't even know, PFAS and all this other stuff. I listen to tons of podcasts just about local towns that are feeling the effects of climate change. I don't know the legal avenues there, but that's been my obsession recently. I'm the podcast guru — I listen to lots of those. So I'm hoping someday people will start paying attention to the climate a little bit more, and we'll get some PR for that part of the world. But for now, I'll listen to my podcasts and hopefully come back to this one.

Ray: I think a space to watch, especially on podcasts, is the monetization of them. There are more sponsorships than ever. But the barrier to entry for a podcast is really low. I mean, we started a podcast and we're just doing it. We don't have any sponsors. I'm not slinging, you know, mattresses or anything.

Hannah: Yeah. Or meal services.

Ray: Yeah. But they are amazing at storytelling. I also wonder if they're going to suffer the same fate as the news industry, where these are expensive stories to tell, but they're also important ones to tell. Again, the fact that there's really no barrier to entry, I think, makes it a great way for people who want to be storytellers to enter the space.

Hannah: Yeah, it's long form — lots of time, it takes time, and time's expensive. But I also think it's important to tell these kinds of stories in a long-form way. So I love the podcast world, and thanks for letting me take over your host position today. Hopefully we'll do it again.

Ray: You did pretty good, Hannah, for a first-time podcast host. We should do this more often.

Hannah: Yeah, we should.

Ray: All right. Good to know. Well, everyone, thanks for listening to the latest edition of Raising the Bar with RebuttalPR. I'm Ray DeLorenzi. Thanks again to Hannah Gallagher for stepping in as the host, and we will see you next time.

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