This book is your essential guide to understanding how public relations during lawsuits should be handled with the same seriousness and care as any other aspect of the case. Whether you're a lawyer at an outside law firm, corporate counsel, a publicist, a business executive or a senior communications professional, you need a system for managing communications during litigation, to ensure that you win this critical battle.

A behind-the-scenes analysis of media strategies not taught in law school or journalism classes, this collection of entertaining examples and explanations make for ideal reading for everyone fascinated by celebrity legal problems.

A practical guide to winning the public relations war in business In The Court of Public Opinion is a lively and practical guide for anyone involved in high-stakes litigation. Given the increasingly litigious, media-saturated business environment, companies and high-profile individuals need protection-not just in the courthouses, but in the court of public opinion. Using examples from many of the most famous cases in the past several years, In The Court of Public Opinion contains real-life strategies that CEOs, lawyers, and other executives can use when they find themselves in a high-profile lawsuit. James F. Haggerty, one of the nation's leading attorney/PR pros, offers advice on public relations strategies that will help businesses and individuals save their reputations as well as their livelihood. James F. Haggerty (New York, NY) is an attorney and CEO of the PR Consulting Group in New York. He has been working with legal and litigation issues for more than fifteen years and has been involved in many high-profile legal disputes, including the Ronald Perelman/Patricia Duff divorce and the Screen Actors' Guild strike against the advertising industry. His writing on communications issues has appeared in The New York Times, the National Law Journal, and PR Week.

In recent years, the justices of the Supreme Court have ruled definitively on such issues as abortion, school prayer, and military tribunals in the war on terror. They decided one of American history's most contested presidential elections. Yet for all their power, the justices never face election and hold their offices for life. This combination of influence and apparent unaccountability has led many to complain that there is something illegitimate—even undemocratic—about judicial authority. In The Will of the People, Barry Friedman challenges that claim by showing that the Court has always been subject to a higher power: the American public. Judicial positions have been abolished, the justices' jurisdiction has been stripped, the Court has been packed, and unpopular decisions have been defied. For at least the past sixty years, the justices have made sure that their decisions do not stray too far from public opinion. Friedman's pathbreaking account of the relationship between popular opinion and the Supreme Court—from the Declaration of Independence to the end of the Rehnquist court in 2005—details how the American people came to accept their most controversial institution and shaped the meaning of the Constitution.

Explains when, why, and how citizens try to limit the Supreme Court's independence and power-- and why it matters.

In The Supreme Court and Local Public Opinion, Valerie Hoekstra looks at reactions to Supreme Court decisions in the local communities where the controversies began. She finds considerable media coverage of these cases and a highly informed local populace. While the rulings did not have a significant impact on how citizens felt about the issues in these cases, the rulings did have an important effect on how citizens felt about the Court. The evidence Hoekstra uses comes from a series of two-wave panel studies conducted prior to and following the Supreme Court's decisions. This book provides important insights into how the public learns about Supreme Court decisions and how support for the Court is incrementally gained and lost as it announces its decisions.