Media & Communications Corner

Quigley covers media-relations efforts for Crowell & Moring's five offices ' Washington, DC, London, Brussels, California and New York. She works together with her 'indispensable' media, PR and communications specialist Jessica Jobe, and frequently taps into the news background of a marketing manager in California to extend her team resources and further results.

Quigley also has help in London and Brussels from PR agencies, which she equates to extensions of the in-house team. The firm uses Hinze Communications in London and Hill & Knowlton in Brussels. She manages both agency relationships via weekly conference calls, and notes the importance of having consultants that you can trust. Rather than acting as a gatekeeper to the firm and the lawyers, she encourages the agencies to build relationships with the lawyers directly, on their own. She says this is essential for quality press ' and it provides her consultants with the ability to give better advice because they truly understand the business. 'We don't think consultants can do their job unless they have access to lawyers. They must go to your offices and seek out relationships. If the relationship is working well you will have a consultant who is able to find the middle ground between executing your PR plan and serving as your trusted counselor,' she says.