Andy Blum is Part PR Person, Part Psychologist

Andy Blum

In terms of public relations, advertising and marketing, law firms are essentially still in their teenage to young adult years, according to Andy Blum of AJB Communications.

O’Dwyer’s discussed the lay of the land for PR in the professional services sector with Blum.

A PR consultant and media trainer, Blum has directed proactive and crisis communications for clients ranging from a parent of a victim of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting fighting back against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to the Trump-esque hush-money kerfuffle John Edwards caused by using nearly $1 million from wealthy donors to hide his pregnant mistress during his 2008 presidential campaign.

Blum has also directed PR for more than 50 authors, and for professional and financial services firms, renewable energy companies, NGOs, startups and PR agencies.

Unlike other industries with less ethical and client restrictions, lawyers couldn’t even advertise until after a series of 1977 and 1978 U.S. Supreme Court rulings, Blum explained.

A legal affairs journalist once told Blum that he had to literally chase after lawyers to get them to comment. “PR didn’t take right away,” Blum said.

Now, it is a free for all, but with limits, according to Blum. He described how just about every major law firm and even smaller ones have a marketing department, and either a PR person or an outside PR agency or both.

Elephant in the room

Blum addressed the Trump factor given the pressure his administration has put on law firms to toe the line for him.

“Why not fight back as litigators?” Blum asked, echoing what he heard from other PR pros. Blum noted that law firms have all different political stripes, but don’t want to upset their clients and take a wrong political stand. “They just want to make as much peace as they can and get back to business,” Blum said.

This past year or so has seen the Trump administration go after law firms to make them get rid of their DEI programs, Blum noted.

More than 40 law firms participated in a program called the Mansfield Certification which required them to track and verify that they consider at least 30% historically underrepresented candidates (including women, lawyers of color, LGBTQ+ lawyers, and lawyers with disabilities) for leadership roles, equity partnerships, and senior lateral positions.

The administration wrote letters to the law firms about Mansfield, but most firms declined to comment in the media.

Mansfield died when Trump's pressure led to the permanent closure of Diversity Lab, the consultancy behind Mansfield. “They didn’t want to get further down in the muck,” Blum said. “Everyone’s worried about the bottom line.”

There are large full-service PR agencies representing law firms and then there are the niche agencies specializing in law firm PR, Blum explained.

Lawyers practicing a range of types of law, like deal law, can get PR hits, but often the biggest legal PR stars are those in white collar defense, big bankruptcies or high-profile cases with politician or celebrity clients, Blum continued.

Every time there’s a major case in the media, such as with Luigi Mangione, it develops into a litigation PR story. Blum described how in the legal circus surrounding the Mangione trial even his influencers were granted press credentials.

Part PR person, part psychologist

Blum stressed that he’s more than just a PR advisor with his clients, he’s very often an emotional shoulder to lean on.

In the Sandy Hook case, a parent hired Blum to place an op-ed to make the case against the conspiracy theories Alex Jones was spreading that the shooting had never happened and crisis actors had staged the whole thing.

The parents weren’t fighting so much for money, but for the memory of their children that was being disrespected by Jones, Blum explained. The parent had already created a foundation to fight digital harassment.

Blum placed the op-ed three years after the shooting. “It’s easy to question whether an op-ed can help you make your case, but you’ll get other media to talk to you,” Blum said.

“I spent many hours consoling the parent and helping him cope with the terrible situation,” Blum said. “Remember that with every case, to the person involved, it’s always a big issue.”

It’s essential to work hand in hand with a client’s lawyers, Blum stressed. “PR wants to do one thing, but the lawyer wants to do another,” Blum acknowledged.

He pointed to the Jack Abramoff case that involved illegal kickbacks from $60 million in fees billed to Native American tribes running lucrative casinos. There were 10,000 news stories written about Abramoff, Blum noted.

“A lawyer described the case as standing in a tsunami with an umbrella,” Blum said. “You have to work with the lawyers to make sure you give the right answer to the press.”

Abramoff is a good example of how a case based in one state can easily spread nationwide because the Indian casinos were located in multiple states, Blum noted.

Abramoff plead guilty in 2006 to federal corruption, fraud, and tax evasion.

Litigation PR can be used to defend a client or, just as importantly, to help move the case along, according to Blum. He described a real estate case involving a deal gone bad in Harlem. The lawsuit dragged on forever though, Blum admitted. His counsel to the client went unheeded.

In the end, after 8 years, the other side just got tired and settled though.

“When hired to do PR, the client has to let you do it,” Blum said.

Before going into PR, Blum was a reporter, editor and freelance writer for UPI, The Wall Street Journal (Leisure & Arts), The New York Times News Service, The International Herald Tribune, Time Magazine, ABCnews.com, The National Law Journal and other media outlets. He founded AJB Communications in 2013.

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