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Schillings, the combative British libel law firm, will set up its own PR and communications agency for clients seeking a different way to manage their reputation.
George Pascoe-Watson, chair of the UK PR firm Portland and a former political editor of The Sun newspaper, has been poached to head the new business alongside Victoria O’Byrne, a former communications director for the Prince and Princess of Wales and for Sir Richard Branson at Virgin Group.
Both will become equity partners alongside Schillings in the company, which has not yet been given a name.
Schillings has carved out a reputation in the City for taking on the press in defence of clients facing scrutiny over their private lives or businesses. Many journalists have been on the receiving end of a letter from the law firm, which has represented executives such as Sir Philip Green as well as sports people and celebrities including cyclist Lance Armstrong, Meghan Markle and actor Johnny Depp. It was also one of the advisers to the German payments group Wirecard.
However, the firm has been shifting its focus to become a broader reputation management business in recent years. Corporate investigations, cyber security and military specialists have been added to its expertise in defamation and libel law.
The law firm said on Tuesday night that the new business was being “built in response to an increasingly complex world where licences to operate for individuals and organisations have become dependent on reputation, now made in both the court of law and the court of public opinion”.
It pointed to the need to address “intensified scrutiny, digital and privacy threats, smear campaigns, complex reputation risks and overnight cancel culture — supercharged by the ultra-high pace of the digital age”.
A person involved in the new company said the move signalled “an acknowledgment” that “the world is moving, people’s reputational needs are changing . . . you do need a slightly more sophisticated and comprehensive tool kit”.
They added: “There’s an acknowledgment by Schillings that [legal routes are] not always the right solution. Sometimes that’s what the client wants. But I think we’re moving to a slightly more nuanced approach. We don’t want clients just coming in a crisis, we want clients that are going to stick with us for the longer term.”
The law firm was finding itself passing on business to outside PR firms, they said, “so there is certainly a commercial opportunity”. The agency will seek to grow quickly, they said, with plans to match the size of the legal business with a similarly sized PR and communications agency.
David Imison, chief executive of Schillings, said: “With the pace of technological change, intensified scrutiny, proliferation of falsehoods and the ramification of cultural and generational faultlines, the reputational terrain has never been so complex to navigate.”