by For in-house counsel managing litigation that has become public, court filings and courtroom outcomes are only part of the story. Media coverage — when it starts, how it evolves, and what language it references from the filings — shapes how stakeholders understand allegations, and the answer to them, long before a final ruling or jury decision.
Closing that gap between legal process and outcomes and public perception is the core problem litigation public relations exists to solve.
At Montieth & Company, we advise clients on litigation public relations at exactly this intersection, particularly when a complaint risks being seen as evidence of a broader pattern of conduct and managing stakeholder understanding amid intense media coverage becomes critical.
Warning Signs Your Litigation Is Becoming a Media Crisis
For in-house counsel weighing whether legal exposure has crossed into reputational risk, five signals typically precede that shift:
- The complaint uses language like “systemic” or “routine” rather than describing a single incident.
- Media coverage begins referencing prior, unrelated matters or leadership changes as supporting context.
- Advocacy or civil rights organizations publicly align with the plaintiffs.
- Coverage shifts from a policy-compliance framing to a personal, human-interest framing.
- Legal and communications teams have not agreed on a shared position before the story breaks.
Your Audiences Won’t Read a Complaint the Way Lawyers Do
Legal teams evaluate a complaint first and foremost on the legal and factual merit of the specific allegations. Jurisdiction and venue, procedural compliance, and evidentiary standards are also key considerations. Stakeholders read the same complaint differently: for what it implies about the business, its leadership, how successful it has or hasn’t been, and its corporate culture.
This gap between what a complaint alleges and how the public interprets it is where litigation communications does its most important work. Left unaddressed, an allegation specific to a single operational event or incident can be read as a company-wide failure within days of a filing.
Why Legal Framing Fails to Be Persuasive with the Public
Companies facing litigation often focus their response on legal distinctions: jurisdictional boundaries, franchise versus corporate liability, and of course, denial of specific claims. These statements may be legally sound and factually accurate, but they rarely change how the public feels about the underlying story.
As Montieth & Company Global Managing Director Katarina Garner puts it, using technical legal arguments to address a human issue may work in court but, on their own, don’t effectively manage public perceptions and understanding. When legal and communications teams pursue objectives that are not acutely aligned (containment versus transparency), the result is perceived mixed messaging, and audiences notice inconsistencies and gaps quickly.
Case Study: Applying the Warning Signs — How the McDonald’s Class Action Narrative Formed, and the Cost of Delay
Several of the warning signs above were present in the McDonald’s harassment litigation, which unfolded as a series of matters rather than a single class action: a franchise-level suit in late 2019, a second class action against corporate-owned Florida restaurants in April 2020, and more than 50 harassment charges filed with the EEOC over that same roughly three-year span. That sequence shows how legal strategy and public narrative pulled in opposite directions: legal strategy narrowed the company’s exposure case by case — winning dismissal in one matter, disputing liability in another — while public narrative widened those same events into a single, company-wide story.
According to Business Insider, the 2020 suit sought $500 million on behalf of roughly 5,000 women who had worked at more than 100 corporate-run Florida locations since 2016, alleging McDonald’s had a “systemic sexual harassment problem.”
Named plaintiffs Jamelia Fairley and Ashley Reddick, coworkers at a single Florida restaurant, said they faced physical assaults, groping, and sexually charged comments on the job.
The complaint sought to represent a putative class of women across all 100-plus corporate-owned Florida locations, including members not yet identified by name at the time of filing.
News coverage connected the allegations to earlier reporting on workplace misconduct and to the 2019 termination of former CEO Steve Easterbrook, reinforcing a pattern narrative. Within days, allegations specific to one restaurant were being discussed publicly as evidence of company-wide mismanagement.
Media coverage shifted the story from a question about failure to adhere to corporate policy to a human one, centered on plaintiffs’ firsthand personal accounts. Civil rights organizations deployed their voices in support of the plaintiffs, making the narrative harder to contain.
Counsel’s franchise-liability argument — that the corporation wasn’t the workers’ employer and bore no responsibility — did little to shift public sentiment in the 2020 matter, even though the same argument had worked in the earlier one: the claims against the corporation were dismissed because the restaurant was franchised, and the franchisee later settled with the class. The legal outcome went the company’s way, but the public continued to hold McDonald’s responsible in the coverage regardless.
McDonald’s said publicly it was committed to a workplace free from discrimination and pointed to 2019 policy and training updates. The Florida claims remain unresolved allegations: the court’s denial of the motion to dismiss was a procedural ruling that the complaint stated a legally sufficient claim to proceed — not a finding on the merits.
What Effective Litigation Public Relations Requires
For in-house counsel deciding whether, and when, to bring in litigation communications support, it helps to understand what the discipline actually does. Litigation public relations is the discipline of managing how a company’s story is told and understood across news coverage, social media, and stakeholder conversations, while a legal matter is still unfolding. It runs alongside the legal defense: distinct from it in aim and audience, but compatible with it. A credible response during active litigation, regardless of whether the matter centers on individual harm, institutional conduct, or (as is often the case) individual harm that reveals a broader failure of institutional oversight, generally requires three elements:
- Clarity: A position the company can explain in a way that is, on its face, plain, credible, and persuasive.
- Consistency: Alignment between what is said publicly and what the company has said and done before.
- Care: Visible acknowledgment of the people affected, not just of the legal exposure.
Companies that meet all three tend to recover reputational ground faster than those relying on legal argument alone. Leading with denial, or with distance from the people affected, typically does the opposite: it extends the story’s life instead of closing it.
Legal and Communications Strategy Have to Move Together
Litigation rarely stays confined to the courtroom once it becomes public. The organizations that manage these moments well build litigation public relations into their strategy from day one, well before headlines appear. That means legal and communications leadership aligning early on what can be said, when, and to whom, rather than deciding those questions under the pressure of a live news cycle.
Montieth & Company advises clients across sectors on exactly this intersection, building a public position that holds up alongside an active legal defense.
Learn more about how Montieth & Company approaches litigation communications: Litigation PR
Learn more on how Montieth & Company unpacks the McDonald’s class action: McDonald’s Briefing Note