by For general counsel managing active litigation exposure, the hardest stretch of a case is the one no film depicts: the months between filing and verdict, when the public record fills faster than any legal team can answer it. Litigation communications govern that stretch. Two of Hollywood’s most enduring legal dramas, “Erin Brockovich” and “A Civil Action,” skip it almost entirely.
Both films follow the same arc: a plaintiffs’ bar lawyer with more conviction than resources, a corporate defendant with more lawyers than the courtroom can hold, and a settlement that closes the story. Both are also films about how a story gets built, which fact gets kept, and which character carries an argument too complicated for a jury to absorb in the abstract. That is a communications problem, and neither film treats it as one.
That gap between the legal record and the public one is where litigation communications operate.
Why Litigation Is Two Cases at Once
Lawyers build their cases around facts, evidence, and legal arguments. Stakeholders interpret those facts through narratives, and those narratives drive trust, reputation, and how an organization and the people responsible for its conduct are judged outside the courtroom. This work runs alongside the legal case rather than inside it, keeping the human stakes visible while filings, evidence, and procedural developments obscure them. An estimated 95% of U.S. legal actions settle before trial, so for many companies the court of public opinion is the only place a case is ever decided.
The Workstreams That Run Parallel to Litigation
From day one, a communications workstream runs parallel to the litigation. It typically covers:
- Planning how stakeholders and reporters will read the initial court filings.
- Preparing executives for media interviews before a document leaks.
- Drafting the internal memo for employees who will read about their own company in the newspaper.
- Clearing public statements with counsel before they go out under a spokesperson’s name.
Together, these workstreams carry out reputation management while the legal battle unfolds.
Litigation communications work rarely happens in a courtroom. It happens in conference rooms, in off or on the record briefing calls with a reporter on deadline, in a statement rewritten for the fourth time because outside counsel flagged a word that could be read as an admission. All of it shapes what the public, the jury pool, the regulators, and the next reporter working the story believe about a company and its leadership while the case is still pending.
Who Is Watching an Active Case
A courtroom has one audience: a judge, or twelve jurors. A live case has many more:
- Employees want to know whether their jobs are secure.
- Customers weigh whether they can still trust the company.
- Investors price legal exposure and liability into the valuation alongside reputational risk.
- Regulators and law enforcement ask whether the alleged conduct is a one-off or part of a pattern worth investigating.
- Reporters turn filings and witness testimony into headlines that will outlast the litigation itself.
- Community members want reassurance that their health and safety are being taken seriously, and that the “license to operate” granted to a company has been used for its purpose.
For in-house counsel, that means litigation is fought in two arenas at once.
What Litigation Communications Does, and Where It Stops
Litigation communications exist to manage that second arena without compromising the first. Their role is to enable organizations to communicate clearly, persuasively and responsibly with stakeholders while legal proceedings continue, and to make sure that when the litigation ends, the company’s credibility hasn’t been spent in the meantime.
That work stays within the limits the legal process sets. The legal teams argue the merits; communications make sure the company’s own perspective comes through clearly as the case moves through the courts.
In our work with a well-known investment company facing a qui tam lawsuit, whistleblower testimony over a wireless spectrum auction drew in both the FCC and the DOJ, and concern ran high among employees and clients. Montieth & Company set up an internal working group and put internal and external communications plans in place to answer their questions. That engagement stabilized core relationships while the matter was resolved, and media coverage reflected the facts and arguments in the case.
Hollywood focuses on the lawyers because that’s where the drama lives. Off screen, litigation communications often determine how the story is understood long before a verdict is reached, and long after the case is over. The courtroom may determine the legal outcome. Communication often shapes what people remember.
Montieth & Company works alongside in-house and outside counsel to keep public narrative aligned with legal strategy while a case is active, from first filing through verdict and beyond.
Learn more about how Montieth & Company approaches litigation communications: Litigation PR.