“Corporations involved in a lawsuit are often more afraid of a loss of reputation in the public’s eyes than loosing the case in the courtroom. Litigation communications is therefore gaining in importance. Lawyers have to take this development into account.”

JUVE has published a big story about litigation PR in their November issue, describing a client case of Holzinger Associates and quoting Stephan Holzinger. In a JUVE survey among the top 50 law firms in Germany, Holzinger Associates was recommended as an Expert Consultancy.

www.juve.de

Retired Army Colonel Rudy Burwell Joins CLC-A Member Firm Hellerman Baretz as EVP for Crisis Communications & Litigation PR.

CLC-Alliance member firm Hellerman Baretz Communications is pleased to announce that retired Army Colonel Rudy Burwell has joined as Executive Vice President of Crisis Communications and Litigation Public Relations in its Washington office. Burwell has over 20 years of crisis management experience both abroad and in the United States, including serving as the Chief of Media Operations for the Multi-National Corps during Operation Iraqi Freedom and as the Director of Army Reserve Communications. For more information, click here.

CLCA founding member and inaugural chairman Stephan Holzinger will speak as a panelist on the 5th Annual Conference on the Globalization of Class Actions and Mass Litigation in The Hague from 8-9 December 2011.

Attached please find the current program.

Media

The newly founded BUJ association, representing corporate lawyers in Germany, reports in the first edition of their magazine “unternehmensjurist” about litigation PR, featuring CLCA founding member Stephan Holzinger as litigation PR-pioneer in Germany.

New CLCA member in the Netherlands

The CLCA is delighted to welcome a new member firm in Northern Europe — Van Kempen Litigation PR based in The Hague. Highly regarded for its crisis and litigation work, Van Kempen recently launched a dedicated unit to further grow this part of its business. It has experience of shareholder disputes, (tax) fraud, environmental catastrophe (criminal prosecution), mass litigation, medical (neglect) and forced relocation matters and has supported several internationally-known Netherlands based companies during sustained and high profile crises. For more information about Van Kempen Litigation PR’s capabilities click here.

Study shows increase in reporting of legal disputes in German media and in dangerous ‘no comment’ responses

CLCA member firm Holzinger Associates has published a study of trends in lawsuit reporting in three German media sources for the period 2008-2010. Whilst the volume of reports involving legal matters increased, there was a disproportionate increase in the number of “no comment” responses which can result in a loss of trust and damage to a company or person’s credibility the author argues. The growth of the importance of social media in litigation PR is also mentioned. Click here for more information

Journalism and PR – between co-operation and confrontation

CLCA-member Stephan Holzinger will present current trends and hot issues of Litigation-PR at a conference of netzwerk recherche e.V. and Hamburg University’s Rudolf-Augstein (Der Spiegel) professorial chair. The netzwerk recherche (“research network”) is the association of investigative journalists and editors in Germany. For the full programm, see here.