In this episode, Jim and Tyson interview Wayne Pollock, the founder and CEO of COPO Strategies, a niche practice! Copo Strategies helps attorneys and clients make those clients’ cases in the Court of Public Opinion. They will go over his experience in public relations, his actual practice; marketing, strategies and different challenges.
The Firm: https://www.copostrategies.com/
The blog: https://copocetic.com/
About Chris: https://www.copostrategies.com/wayne-pollock
Hacking’s Hack: If you are a great Gmail user, check out INBOX. Lots of great functions and tweaks. https://inbox.google.com
Wayne’s Tip: You are your brand and your brand is you. You always need to be cognitive of what you are doing from a business perspective, a marketing perspective of your brand. And match your brand with who you are and the services you provide.
Tyson’s Tip: Inspired by William Eadie. Go to a service like MOZ (https://moz.com/) and plug your website and see how are you ranking. Find high volume keywords and attack those words in your content and marketing. It will give you traffic.
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Transcripts: Wayne Pollock: Niche Practice and Public Relations
Wayne Pollock
We are attorneys. We’d never dream of dropping a stack of judicial opinions on the desk of a clerk or a judge and say, Your Honor, these cases support the reason why we should win the case. Please read them. You’ll see and I’m sure you’ll agree with us. No, you write persuasive letters. Persuasive briefs are a court filing to convince a judge to rule in your favor or to convince opposing counsel to do what you want them to do.
Unknown Speaker
Run your law firm the right way. This is the maximum liar podcast, podcast, your hosts, Jim hacking and Tyson nutrix. Let’s partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.
Jim Hacking
You’re back on the maximum lawyer Podcast. I’m Jim hacking.
Tyson Mutrux
And I’m tasting musical
Jim Hacking
taste and I’m really excited about our guest today. His name’s Wayne Pollock. He was introduced to us by our friend William Ed. His firm cocoa strategies is a limited scope boutique law firm with a niche practice. They help other attorneys and clients make those clients cases in the court of public opinion. I think it’s going to be a great show. Wayne, welcome to the show.
Wayne Pollock
Hi, guys. We’re having me. Hey, Jim. Hey, Tyson. And before I get started, let me just say I’m a big fan of the podcast and I’m a subscriber. I think your episodes have a ton of useful information. I’m always scrambling at the end of each podcast to internalize what you guys have said and develop some action items for my business. So I’m excited to be here and I hope to give back through the content of my episode. When I
Tyson Mutrux
really love the name cocoa strategies, will you explain the meaning of cocoa just tell what you do?
Wayne Pollock
Absolutely. So cocoa strategies, cocoa stands for the court of public opinion. As I said, it’s a boutique limited scope law firm with a niche practice. We provide legal strategy and services in the form of communications, strategy, and services, working as a consultant to law firms or other lawyers, or as limited scope co counsel to clients. Me and my firm. We work with the media, and other third parties to generate public interest in a particular legal dispute, or to help clients deal with public and media interest in a legal dispute that they do not generate. And our services support the result of a favorable resolution of our clients legal disputes. while minimizing reputation the reputational harm the disputes could cause I launched my firm COPPA strategies because I had saw a need while I was at my big law and law 50 law firm for six and a half years after law school, I saw as litigation associate number of instances where either our firm opposing counsel or just outside the real world attorneys, we’re ignoring the court of public opinion to the detriment of their clients. And I saw a need where I think Klein will get into that later. But the clients want to have their stories told to the public to the press. They want lawyers to tell their stories in courts of law. But they also many times want to tell their story more broadly, look no further than the recent news coverage surrounding all the sexual harassment allegations against prominent men. You have alleged victims or victims who want to tell their stories, and they look to their attorney to do so. And unfortunately, many attorneys still in the mindset of declining to comment, or simply saying will vigorously defend this case, or not even returning the reporter’s phone calls. And that is detrimental to a client. It’s detrimental to the the actual legal dispute, if you’re able to turn up the pressure in the case, or other disputes against the other side that leverage that’s something that could help you resolve the case, more favorably. And just from a branding perspective. I didn’t want this to be the Law Offices of Wayne Pollock because I do a very niche area of the law. And in many instances I am brought on as a consultant or even brought on as counsel. And I thought COPO strategies was broad enough to cover what I do Strategies for Engaging the court of public opinion. But in a way, it’s also interesting, and it’s not just the law office of or Pollack Law Group. It’s something that that oftentimes gets people talking and saying, huh, what does that even mean? So when I explain it, I usually get the man that’s, that’s really interesting that you start his law firm to do that.
Jim Hacking
When you talk to us a little bit about your background in public relations and how working in public relations before you went to law school sort of infuses what you do today.
Wayne Pollock
I worked in public relations at a local Philadelphia area, public relations advertising firm for four years. And while I was there, I dealt with the media on a daily basis. And that gave me a sense of what the media looks at what they’re interested in how to communicate to the media. Now that was 1011 years ago, and certainly the media has changed with the rise of social media with more and more More sophisticated online media and online content being served to news consumers. But having a PR background as a lawyer really gives me an edge in dealing with the press and dealing with the legal issues that come up in a legal dispute, become able to translate. And I’m able to help tell this oftentimes complex legal story in a way that is easily digestible by the medium that is framed in a way that lets the media understand why this is relevant to them to their readers. And hopefully, with that understanding of why it’s relevant, they’ll be more likely to run a story or conveying those thoughts or issues to to their readers. You know, we had attorneys, we’ve never dream of dropping a stack of judicial opinions on the desk of a clerk or a judge and say, Your Honor, these cases support the reason why we should win the case. Please read them you’ll see and I’m sure you’ll agree with us, you know, you write persuasive letters, persuasive briefs, other court filings to convince a judge to rule in your favor or to convince opposing counsel to do what you want them to do is the same thing with the media. A lot of attorneys think that they can just wait for a reporter to to go on pacer and find their case, or that once they even find that case, magically, the reporter will know what to say, have a grasp of the legal issues in the facts at issue and simply just, you know, like a story as to how it works. attorneys need to be strategic and persuasive when they reach out to the media, when they reach out to other third parties who might be interested in joining forces with the with the lawyer based on the legal dispute at issue. And it needs to be some hand holding. And again, the PR background helps me understand what reporters once and need. When you combine that with my understanding of the legal world legal disputes with the process of litigation. Oftentimes, it’s confusing. Sometimes reporters get stuck on procedural issues, like I had a reporter from a local business publication who was really interested in the standard for a motion dismiss at the Federal Court level, like he thought it was incredible that you could move to dismiss a case if there was no claim as a matter of law. And that was like a very small part of why I was talking to him. But thus, my ability to translate legal issues to a digestible level for a reporter and vice versa, is helpful. So the PR background I think is is really, for me a key skill that separates what I do from other lawyers. And my legal background separates what I do from other PR people. Good luck with a PR person being able to translate and getting instant knowledge of like, for example, a motion to dismiss decision, or good luck was to a PR person trying to advise a lawyer on what public statements could run afoul of ethical rules, or it could bump up against defamatory concerns. And certainly being able to be limited scope co counsel and come in to preserve the attorney client privilege. It’s a big deal, because most PR people cannot get attorney client privilege, even when they’re hired by a law firm to do work concerning legal disputes.
Tyson Mutrux
When one of our good buddies, Mitch Jackson is big into newsjacking. Hit some really big ones this week. Are there ways that we can get ahead of these stories? Sort of like like Mitch does, and shape the story in our favor? And can you talk a little bit about that? Absolutely.
Wayne Pollock
So the newsjacking that Mitch does, is more on the legal marketing side of talking to the media. And you guys had a really great podcast episode A while back, I think it’s called Easy publicity. That also talked more about this type of legal marketing publicity. And that is related to what I do. But let me give you the news jacking, which has been around for forever. By the way, it’s cool to call it newsjacking. But it’s been a fundamental public relations or marketing tool for forever, which is to say that you as an attorney can position yourself as an expert, in particular areas of law, when you are reaching out to reporters who you know, are likely to cover a particular story that comes into your area of law. So for example, if you’re an employment discrimination attorney, you can track which reporters at your local papers are covering the Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer type of sexual harassment stories, and hopefully reach out to them and say, Hey, I’m Joe Blow. I’m an employment discrimination attorney in St. Louis, in San Francisco, wherever. And I’d be happy to chat with you about these types of cases as they come up. I’ve done XY and Z I have prosecutor, I’ve defended the types of cases and I can help you with this. And building that relationship helps to get you hopefully more pressed for your practice and your particular area of the law that you can be perceived as an expert in what I’m talking about is getting publicity and using public City and public interest as a tool in your legal toolkit to help resolve your cases more favorably for your clients. And also, when applicable help protect their reputation against the damage that often happens when someone is named as a defendant in a legal dispute. But in terms of still getting ahead of the stories, there are things you can do, if you know that you are suing. So that’s the litigation framework right now, because it’s often where this comes about. It’s certainly not the only area of the law where there is a court of public opinion, engagement opportunity. But let’s stick with basic litigation for now. If you know, you are suing a local university, well find the local newspaper reporters or the online media reporters who cover universities as a beat, it’s not too difficult to simply go on to those websites, and just search for the names perhaps the name of the defendant, you’re suing or even other schools, universities in the area, do a search and see who is writing on them writing on those stories, you might find that you have one reporter who covers the higher education beat or the local school system. And that’s where you want to talk to, are there trade publications out there. industry publications that cover a particular industry, that tends to write about developments in that industry, including lawsuits. And here’s a hint, if they have an online blog, or an online media components, in addition to a monthly or weekly publication that comes in paper, they need content on a daily basis. And they might very well be interested to hear about the cases that you have concerning a company in that industry, for example, pharmaceutical or construction or technology. Likewise, if you are defending clients, you might want to look at who has covered your client before. And who would make sense for you to reach out to say, look, this lawsuit to be filed. There are some crazy allegations here. I want to make myself available to you, either for on the Record interview or on background interview, I can make my client available to to talk to you through talking through these allegations and why we don’t think they have much merit. There is an offense and a defense to be played when you’re talking about the court of public opinion. And oftentimes the best defense is a good offense. And that would be going to reporters proactively. And saying, look, here’s what we’re doing to remedy the systematic problem that is reported on as a result of this legal dispute. So the newsjacking has a cousin when it comes to the court of public opinion. And that’s proactive engagement, not waiting for reporters to find your case, but instead reaching out to them to say, look, we filed this particular case you might be interested in because XYZ or a case was filed against my client. And here’s why we think it doesn’t have merit. And let me get into it if I may, just just to add on. So I forget the defamation concern here. There is terrible case law across the country. Notably, in my home state of Pennsylvania, it’s at the PA Supreme Court level, it’s in New York, in New Jersey, it’s in a number of states that says as a matter of law, attorneys could be liable for defamation, again, as a matter of law, if they send copies of filings to reporters that contain defamatory allegations. In essence, in certain instances, attorneys lose the protection of litigation privilege, from defamation, where they send their complaints to the media, because the act of sending the complaint to the medium, neither arises naturally out of the proceeding, or is irrelevant to what is going on in the proceeding. That’s bad case law, because I don’t think it’s true. I think what you’re when you talk to the press, you’re very much related. It’s related to what you’re doing in the court of law. But nonetheless, there are bad cases that they attorneys could be liable for as a matter of law for defamation. So the easy way around that is to simply tell the reporter the docket number, so when you’re pitching the reporter, you say, you should know this complaint was filed recently in the Southern District of New York. The allegations are XY and Z the complaint alleges XYZ here is a docket number. Let me know if you have any questions and that for the most part should steer you clear as an attorney from the type of defamation concern when you’re reaching out to the press.
Jim Hacking
That’s a great tip when I have been known to send copies of complaints to reporters so I will probably stop doing that and do
Wayne Pollock
news you can use exactly so speaking of
Jim Hacking
news, you can use my wife and I just got finished watching the law and order Menendez brothers story on NBC and you know, this was back pre OJ even in pre vaccine in was a barely a startup. And Leslie Abramson was their lawyer and that case was without a doubt fought in the court of public opinion. And from start to finish, I wonder, you know, what are the concerns because she was battling with the judge a lot and a lot of the problems that she had, in the court of public opinion stem from these rulings that she got from the judge, and what are sort of the rules for lawyers engaging in public discussion of cases while the cases are being tried? Sure.
Wayne Pollock
So and let me just say that I think the area of criminal law is an immensely fertile ground for court of public opinion engagement. Unfortunately, most of the time, the prosecutors, whether it’s state or federal, are running circles around the criminal defense attorneys, especially younger ones, or older ones who don’t don’t really know how to use the media. And you see this a number of instances, most recently. I don’t know if many of your listeners are calling along the Penn State threat hazing case where a 19 year old sophomore at Penn State University died during an alleged frat hazing incident. And there’s a criminal case against 20, something of the fret members, and the District Attorney in the county where Penn State located in Pennsylvania is a master of public relations. She’s fantastic. When it comes to PR. She was just on Megyn Kelly today, about a week or two ago after she had a press conference to announce new charges against some of them set members, she was there. And basically for eight minutes. During this interview, she was making her case for why these additional charges were both reasonable, why these charges should stick and why these frat members were guilty. It was fascinating TV, but most people didn’t even understand or know what was being told to them. So I’ll get out of a second. But generally speaking from an ethics perspective, most states follow the ABA model rule, rule 3.6 trial publicity, which says that attorneys cannot make statements that they know or reasonably should know will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicator proceeding. The US Supreme Court defines that adjudicator proceeding as the trial, both the ability for a court for a judge to assemble jurors, and the ability for jurors to determine a case on their own based on the facts entered into evidence and not facts that they learn about outside of the court, through the media and through other public means. So you’ve got that type of general prohibition. But there are huge safe harbors and almost swallow the rule. For example, attorneys can always talk about the claims offensive and defenses in the case, they can always talk about the contents of a public record. And they can always robots, negative, adverse prejudicial publicity, when they are their clients, were not the ones to generate it, they only have to the only limitation is that the rebuttal has to be net limited as to what is necessary to undo the negative publicity. So basically, you have to respond to the exact types of claims or issues that the other side has raised in the public. But again, those those safe harbors, and it’s a fraction of the safe harbor isn’t a rule, rule three, six, the factual safe harbors, they’re potent, and they give attorney wide leverage and wide discretion to talk publicly about cases. When it comes to ongoing cases. As you get closer to trial, and you’re actually during trial, what you say to a to the public is going to be under a more close microscope by the judge, and is going to be looked at as potentially more likely to interfere with or to substantially materially prejudice the trial than if those comments were said three months prior six months prior. So what you want to do when you’re talking publicly about cases, you could certainly even during a trial, comment on the judge’s ruling comment on the claims or offensive or defenses in the case. But you need to stay away from the types of issues and the substance of issues that the jurors will be considering. So for example, and this is in the rural two, as a comment to the rule. attorneys want to stay away from talking about the kind of evidence they’ll be admitted. They want to stay away from the credibility of witnesses or parties in the case, they want to stay away from test results or examinations. They want to stay away from evidence that they know with a reasonable likelihood is not going to be inadmissible. So if you stick about it in your mind, you can see how when a judge rules on a particular matter, you could say we’re pleased that the judge ruled, as we’ve said all along x y z and we’re happy to judge agrees or vice versa, but you don’t want to get into attacking certainly that Judge that’s gonna be a problem. You don’t want to be attacking The people as not credible, or as you know scumbags. You don’t want to be attacking evidence as crappy or strong and persuasive, if it’s a content of a public record, so it’s probably a discussed during an open trial date where there was a course open and people are reporting on it, that’s fine. But as you’re in the middle of a trial, and that’s really when you get to be ready to be on your game in terms of ethically, because that is where there’s more of a chance for you as an attorney, to say something that could be unethical. And there are many court rules. So aside from the ethical rules, there are many court rules, Federal Court rules that mirror the language of Rule three, six. So from an ethical perspective, you’ve got Rule three, six, but from like a sanctions perspective, you have many local rules in the federal court system. So you can have a judge who says I’m not going to wait for the disciplinary board of your state to rule on this clearly unethical statement, I’m going to sanction you by doing X, Y, or Z.
Tyson Mutrux
Well, the question I have is, let’s say you’ve got a criminal case, the defendant has hired a criminal defense attorney. And so they’ve already spent that money. And then the attorney says, Listen, we need to bring in Wade Pollack, because Wayne is going to win this case in the court of public opinion, right? Is there hesitation? Usually, it’s from that defendant from that client saying, Listen, I’ve already paid an attorney. Why do I need to pay this Wayne Pollock guy? If so, what’s your what’s your response to that?
Wayne Pollock
It may surprise you to learn that the clients are generally easier sell than the attorneys, the attorneys want to first of all, the attorney feel like they are being imposed upon sometimes they feel like the work that I’m doing is somehow overlapping with their work. They might feel like they can handle it. They’re the attorney after all, like they’re hired to do all of these things, including talking to the press, they should be the ones to do it. I get some pushback from from attorneys more often than I do, aren’t clients for from a business perspective, I try to structure my fees in a way that is not going to feel redundant when a client says, oh, geez, yeah, I’m paying my primary attorney that I need your specialized assistance is gonna cost me double, it’s not gonna cost them double. I try and work with the primary attorney and a client to structure something that that makes sense. And that’s mutually beneficial for all parties. But there are some attorneys for every attorney I need. That is understanding of the need to outsource this type of expertise, because I don’t have it. And it’s time consuming. I do occasionally run into another attorney who says, Well, that’s what I do. Like, I talked to the press when they call. And I usually say Well, that’s the difference is, I’m the one who helps generate those press calls. You simply sit back and wait until someone calls you and sometimes you can’t wait. There was an interesting case recently, I was in Philadelphia working for nausea. The Philadelphia District Attorney was indicted for basically bribery, and was later pled guilty. There was an onslaught of bad publicity about his case. Why? Well, the practice, federal prosecutors released a press release, they held a press conference, they were able to get the court of public opinion buzzing about these allegations of wrongdoing. And the defense attorneys, they didn’t know how to include they know how to respond. It got to the point where the it was clear from some reporting in major newspapers, that the federal government was leaking information that was not in the indictment to the press. Now, most attorneys don’t even know how to look for that. They just they just gloss over that. But that to me, would have been the entire basis for your response, which is to say, hey, look, not only are they trying to convince convict our client, a court of law, they’re trying to get a head start in the court of public opinion. And they’re shameless. They are leaking documents to the press. And when I give that example, that’s when the attorneys who sometimes push back say, What do you mean, they’re leaking information? What do you mean, and they understand that it’s specialized expertise was not just you being an attorney? Naturally, knowing how to do this, you have to have some background with media with persuasion. And really, we look at the most prominent lawyers in the media. There’s two reasons why they’re there. One there, they’re generally there because they answer the phone when reporters call when a reporter says, Look, we saw this case was filed. You want to comment on it. They typically say, Oh, hell yeah, I want to comment on it. So they pick up the phone and to they’re not afraid to call a reporter when they find Are case and don’t want to wait. You know, if they’re involved in a huge personal injury case or a huge discrimination case, they’re not afraid to pick up the phone so that the the willingness to engage a credible court of public opinion has this nice stealthy marketing benefit, too, which is your stature and your prominence is bound to increase in your practice area and in your geography. Because people are reading articles about you. It’s a cousin of the newsjacking. But here, it’s not just you commenting on an article, not you commenting on illegal disputes that you knew about. You’re involved in the case. And unlike a court of law, well, guess what, no one’s reading your court filings? Nope. Very few prospective clients are read your court filings here, when you’ve got an article in your local daily paper or on an online media, where people are basically watching you in action, and watching your persuasion in action. That’s golden, the marketing for you that both could lead to a client than in there, and also can be repurposed for your blog for your social media feeds. And your newsletter. Wayne explained
Jim Hacking
to us how the process would work in working with you and let’s let’s not talk about so much like a very, very high profile case, but sort of a bread and butter case that some of our listeners would probably come across. I mean, I think it’s easy to get publicity if you’re defending Michael Flynn, who’s in the process of pleading guilty right now to lying to the FBI. But so what in an everyday kind of a case, how would you work with us? How would you advise us? How would the relationship go.
Wayne Pollock
So the goal of my work is to help attorneys in those clients clearly resolve the client’s cases. So the legal strategy always comes first. And unlike a PR person, where sometimes it’s all about just getting publicity, this is very much targeted, we want to impact the case, ethically and strategically. And we want to resolve the case as favorably as possible while also helping to minimize any reputational harm. So the way we work with other lawyers, is we get a feel we work with attorneys to get a feel for developments. In their cases, developments can be filings of complaints, filings of dispositive motions, discovery, or even trial. And we work with them to figure out what aspect of this case development, if any, is relevant to the media? And if so, who will we be talking to, in the media or publicly about in this case, to generate increased interest and awareness? In a way it’s it’s issue spotting, but a different kind of issue spotting. So unlike writing a complaint where you are issue spotting the relevant facts, and the legal claims that you think makes sense, and packaging them together, in the form of this narrative document, what I’m doing is looking at the substance of the complaint, the facts, or the substance of the real facts, the area of law that’s being discussed and being applied, plus what’s going on in society, what’s going on locally, regionally, nationally, in particular industries. And who would be interested in talking to us about that. So for discrimination case, you know, there are we’re in arguably peak sexual harassment awareness era. So you better believe that any sexual harassment case that’s filed is going to get a lot more spotlight than normal, because that is what is on the tip of the tongue of most people right now in 2017, December 2017, when this podcast is being recorded, so we would help other attorneys isolate which reporters would be of interest to us which publications will be of interest to us, which third parties would be of interest to us? So for example, you know, just like there are amicus briefs at the appellate level, and really any level, I guess, when it comes to filing briefs, you could also view third party advocacy groups as almost like mov or Mishi, for the court of public opinion. So let’s say you’ve got a small, you know, problematic type of technology issue, where you think your client is being wrongly sued by the government or by a third party for violating the law that is unconstitutional. Well, what about reaching out to the ACLU, or the Electronic Frontier Foundation, it’s third parties who have their own publicity, unquote, public opinion, engagement cycles that can help you. So we look to those third parties as well. We work with the lawyers, we generally handle the media outreach, so we’ll draft the pitch to the reporters, normally over email, we’ll also draft messaging. So when a reporter calls and says, I don’t have time for an interview, do you have a statement you could send me we have something in the can normally 100 200 words that will hopefully be persuasive, strategic, non statutory, and help to make the clients case in this particular article. That is more persuasive than you as an attorney being called or in the middle of something, and the reporter wanting to talk to you and you say, Oh, gee, I just get back to you and you forget and you lose the opportunity. So we work with attorneys to look at developments in cases to determine if they are newsworthy or can be of interest to other third parties. We then handle that outreach to the third parties, including the media, we help to conduct the interviews sometimes I do on background interviews with reporters to give them a sense of of what the legal issues are here on background news that we won’t be quoted directly, that they could use the information to do their own reporting, but they’re not going to comment and say, Wayne Pollack says the essence of a sexual harassment claim claim is this. It’s more for their background to learn about an issue or a legal dispute. A lot of it is the issue spotting, a lot of it is saying, you know, you’ve got this Goldmine right here of interesting cases, you need to get out there with it. I would, I’m willing to bet that you, Jim, you Tyson and many of the listeners to this episode, have cases in their firm that could be of interest to the press, and could be of interest to quote public opinion, but they just don’t realize it. And in some instances, that is a missed opportunity for marketing. But in the vast majority of instances, I think that’s a missed opportunity to make your clients case in the court of public opinion and get a better result. We know how this works. Because we’re lawyers, we know that there are times where, when another side is threatened with ongoing litigation, and the possibility of certain things becoming public, they do not want to go any further with the case, they know that discovery will be a problem. They know that there’s news articles about the disputes, and then being alleged to have done wrong things. It’s going to be a problem for them. And they resolve the case quickly. Great example of this guys would be in early 2017. I think March, United Airlines had a problem when they dragged a passenger David Tao off of an airline, you may recall that video went viral, he was wearing glasses, his nose bloodied, his glasses were broken. It was a big deal. That case settled real quick, like all his attorney, all Mr. Daniels attorneys did was file some type of claim in Illinois State Court concerning discovery, some procedural issue, it was filed complaint, the case was settled before a complaint. Why? Because every news article about that complaint, would have had a link to that viral social media video of him being dragged. And what do you think that was worth to United to resolve that case, and get it over with as soon as possible to get off the pages of the newspaper, off of your news feed online, on social media, and get them back to focusing on trying to be a good company and in the perception of the company, to your point not every attorney is gonna have because of high profile cases. But for the vast majority of cases, particularly litigation, you’re going to find instances where reaching out to the court of public opinion, is something that would be helpful to the case and to the client. I’m just
Tyson Mutrux
curious, what are some of the self help tools that that attorneys can use? If they can’t afford to hire you, for example? Like what are your thoughts on using press releases and things like that? I think
Wayne Pollock
press releases are more helpful from a marketing perspective than they are for getting publicity. I would say that you could always put up a press release, spend a couple 100 bucks, put it on a press release news just issued a press release distribution wire like Business Wire, PR Newswire PR web, they kind of just see what happens, and that that could work for for some attorneys. But many reporters are almost spammed by legions of PR people who are sending them press releases to be able to mail the Porter and then in the subject line, simply say, lawsuit. Cohen, you know, sexual harassment claims filed against XYZ company that is going to get a bit more attention. Because right now, and I think for the foreseeable future, a legal issue a lawsuit seems to be more serious than you as a as a business person announcing that your new company is opening up a new office or even your law firms opening up a new office. You know, the tension and conflict at issue in a legal dispute usually makes for interesting reading. So press releases, I think are good for the website. As you build your marketing and you build your credibility to say we did this case we filed this case we received this verdict. Again, be careful when you’re writing a press release. Make sure you are quoting the allegations of the complaint and always saying the allegations are the complaint says make sure that you are avoiding defamation concerns when possible. In terms of self help, I can give some really easy homework that think it’d be helpful to everybody listen to the podcast. Keep an eye out for the next time you read an article about a legal dispute or litigation, keep your eyes open and read as an active reader same way you would read an opposing counsels letter, or settlement demand or court filings. Look at what the article is really about. Did you notice what the legal development was? Was it a complaint was a discovery was a trial? Whose perspective to this case to the nude article come from? Was it the plaintiff defendant, who was quoted where the court filings quoted, were the defendants were the parties quoted, or the attorneys quoted to anybody declined to comment, either the plaintiff’s attorney or the defense attorney or maybe even the parties? And then once you actually actually look, look at that and thought about this, what did you think about those parties? After reading the article? Did you think that one party has a better case than the other? Why did you think that? Did one side come across more favorably? Did you as a lawyer have a gut reaction to say, wow, these defendants really screwed up, even though you know, there are two sides to a story and the plaintiff often gets to frame the legal dispute in a manner that they choose based on them getting to the courthouse first. And as you unpack that, when you read these types of articles, you might be able to better pitch reporters and reach out to reporters, because then you know how the sausage is made a bit know what the end result looks like. And you can make sure that you’re commenting or providing necessary materials, to give the reporter what he or she needs to write a coherent story that is hopefully, persuasively favoring your client so that the press release angle, the analytical reading angle is another way of self helping. And I think from a client service perspective, you know, get a sense from your clients, do they want you to tell their story? Do they feel like they’ve been wronged in a way that desires or demands greater public awareness of a of a case, your clients could be the beneficiaries of additional non legal help through publicity and through awareness, where you have people stepping out of the woodwork and saying, You know what, I read about this hugely unfair landlord tenant disputes, I can’t believe that your client has two or three kids and have to live like this based on the landlord. Here’s a $10,000 donation for the meseta hotel, or here is some other gesture of goodwill that could help your client, look at what your client is going through and determine is this something that if more people knew about it, they might flock to their aid? And if so, is there a human interest side to this, I’m willing to bet that a reporter is going to be interested in covering the story.
Jim Hacking
Alright, so for my last question, I want to take it a little bit in a different direction, Wayne, and my thought is this that right now, immigration with Donald Trump in the White House is a very hot topic. And I’d like to raise my profile nationally, and to start commenting in national publications or on the television. And I’m wondering what suggestions you might have for me in a situation like that,
Wayne Pollock
I would suggest that you look at all of the people who have covered the immigration bans, or other aspects of immigration, regionally and nationally, look at those articles. And you assemble basically a media list of employers that have covered this before and who are likely to cover it down the road. And I would draft a two or three paragraph email, have a catchy subject line about, you know, potential expert resource for immigration law. And in your paragraph, or two or three, explain who you are, why you are someone that could comment on the immigration issues that this reporters covering and perhaps even include, as a third paragraph, your view on what’s next or what you expect to happen next, and blast that email out when you know there’s something coming up where there’ll be immigration stories out there based on developments, nationally or locally. And if you even want it to get really technical, you could create some type of email marketing newsletter that’s simply for reporters and explain that you’re sending this not necessarily because you expect press coverage of the letter, but you are wanting to use yourself as someone who is an expert on this topic. And with that repetition, you will hopefully be able to get some press and like all marketing and public relations. It is a snowball rolling downhill not a boulder being rolled uphill. You start with a small local publication, a weekly publication, a local online publication. And once you get a couple of those, now you can your snowball that into maybe the local daily newspaper or original publication, and then maybe the national law publication, then maybe it’s a national daily newspaper, you snowball, but you have to start small because people want to be able to know that you have actually been quoted as an expert before, people are, especially reporters are hesitant to take a chance on someone who they don’t know. Or when they Google you or look at your bio, you don’t have any articles, or any media engagements listed. But to your point, I think getting your name out there can be a benefit to you, once you introduce yourself to the right people. If this has to be immigration reporters or reporters, we’ve covered that
Tyson Mutrux
topic. A lot of great information Wayne, we really appreciate it. We are up against the time. So before we get to our tips in our hack of the week, I do want to first thank well, you medium for introducing us to this is a great guest for our listeners. I also want to remind everyone to go to iTunes or wherever you get your podcast and give us a five star review really does make a difference. We want to make sure that we get all this information this great content out to everyone. So make sure you share us and give us five star reviews. Jimmy Do you have a hack of the week?
Jim Hacking
I do. But before I do, I just wanted to ask Wayne how do we get a hold of you? How do our listeners find you?
Wayne Pollock
My website is COPO strategy. That’s it. C O P O Kobo strategies.com. I’m on Twitter as Wayne Pollack full one word Wayne Pollack underscore C S, I am on Facebook, we’re in pollock.cs. I have a blog co post annex to POC e. T IC kind of like copacetic. But your branding perspective, I thought copacetic was pretty cool, called the sec.com is our blog. But through a couple of strategies, you’ll be able to reach me through email, social media and
Jim Hacking
consult. My hack of the week is I’ve gone back to inbox. So you know, I’m a big gmail user and I was living in Gmail and I always would click on my emails as marked as unread. So I’d have this little stack of unread allegedly unread emails, but really email they just needed to do something with and I’ve switched back to inbox.google.com for my email. And once you get the hang of it about 20 emails, and you can send them out for to remind you later to look at them. The next morning, the next evening, it’s really gotten me much more engaged with the email and moving things out a lot faster and in a sort of organized fashion.
Tyson Mutrux
Nice that you’re the second attorney this week, reintroduced me to inbox so maybe I’ll try it out and see how I like it. Alright, Wayne, so you’ve listened to podcasts, you know how it is you got a tip of the week for us?
Wayne Pollock
I do. My tip is that you are your brand and your brand is you you always need to be cognizant of what you’re doing from a business perspective, a marketing perspective, a substantive perspective of your brand, and match your brand with who you are. And the services you provide a quick example. For me, all you need to know about Randy is Jimmy Buffett and Margaritaville. When we think Margaritaville when you think of Jimmy Buffett and you look at him and look at his songs, what do they connote? What do they bring to your mind, they bring this peaceful beach paradise have no worries, no concerns, and like fun and enjoyment. You want your clients, you want the medium, you want opposing counsel, you want referring attorneys to have one consistent view of you, and what you’re trying to build. And that should be displayed through the people who pick up the phone at your firm, your emails, your social media posts, and even your interpersonal communications. And just the way you handle yourself when you’re at social functions, professional functions, you name it. Very good
Tyson Mutrux
advice. Alright, so my tip is actually inspired by Willie MIDI. We had Willie media on about a month ago. And he’s talking about SEO and how the internet is weak. And he is so right. So because we’ve launched a couple new websites, and I’ve been editing my old website, and I’ve seen it just been gigantic increase in my numbers, doing simple things. But this this tip is to go to a service like Moz and say Mozi or when I’ve been using recently is the hot th e h o th. And just plug your website in and see where you are ranking for certain keywords and find the high volume keywords. So here’s the tip, find the high volume keywords are coming through and ones that you’re sort of lacking on and attack those keywords. So edit, whatever blog posts, you have a page on your website, that’s that’s driving that traffic, add some content to it, and you’ll see your numbers increase by three, four or five pages. It’s really incredible. So go do that. It’s gonna make a huge difference. We’re getting traffic now. We have a brand new website. It’s only a couple of months old, and we’re already seeing traffic come through the website for personal injury In St. Louis, which is a very, very competitive market. So Willie meet, he’s right, the internet is weak to go out and attack your website.
