Philadelphia Bench Bar Conference – Underlying Media Theme

I attended the Philadelphia Bar Association Bench-Bar Conference last weekend in Atlantic City, New Jersey. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and found it quite interesting that in many of the panels – it was publicity and the law that was a recurring theme.

Some of the myriad topics included:

o The need of the Judiciary to be more public
o The affect of blogging on Judicial elections
o The need to use the media to educate the public about the roles of the Court
o The need to control/respect the power of the media
o The role the media plays in disseminating information about cases
o The need to train the Judiciary about the media and vice versa
o The need for attorneys and judges to understand and utilize the media
o Law school does not teach students how to promote or communicate via mass media
o The cost of judicial elections tried in the media
o The ethics of dealing with the media
o The need to embrace the media
o The issues of fair and impartial trials that are “tried in the media”
o The need for attorneys to be media trained
o How not to be a jerk when dealing with the media
o The opportunities surrounding the media

I left the conference energized and excited about being a strategic communications expert in the legal industry.

It’s a growing field and there’s a lot of ground we need to make up for the last century of “no comment” answers, however, we’re well on our way to a more enlightened industry!