Taking The Schilling, Part II

When Schillings said it was adding a comms business to its legal eagles the initial reaction was one of scepticism.

Though as we noted at the time, the media landscape has changed and reputation management is getting more difficult, largely because some fool went and invented the internet.

So the firm isn’t about straight PR as it is traditionally understood. It’s about “cyber experts, data specialists, intelligence gatherers and others coming together in one place to analyse client risk”.

The people involved include Victoria O’Byrne, who has worked for the Royal Family and Sir Richard Branson among other top jobs.

And George Pascoe-Watson, the former chair of Portland and a former political editor of The Sun, which suggests that Schillings isn’t just dipping its toes in here – it means it.

The other day PR Week reported that senior staff from BP, Edelman, Portland and Teneo have joined Schillings Communications – they intend to make a splash.

One rival in the reputation management space told me this: “Other legal firms have obviously tried this, it is an expensive thing to do, putting a senior team together, with people that haven’t worked together before etc. They need to start earning revenues fast, otherwise the cash burn can get pretty painful.”

Schillings takes issue with that – it thinks no one has tried it quite like this before.

And Schillings’ point might be that since it has been outsourcing comms work to PR agencies for years, it knows exactly how it works and should be able to start making money quite quickly.

Clients want lawyers, comms pros, digital specialists and the rest in one place offering one coherent strategy, rather than having their lawyers and their PR experts in different places saying different things.

So is this all about playing defence, about keeping clients out of the press?

Not necessarily.

One insider says: “Even though clients may want privacy (and many do) they increasingly realise that others will define them and their organisations if they don’t take steps to write their own story in some way.  The best antidote to attack is to build your reputation on your own terms.”

I, and other hacks, are still struggling to see how Schillings – combative libel lawyers that they are – makes pals with journalists.

The lawyers, of course, don’t intend to.

Developing, as they say….