Reputation Managers 2020 Archives

Persephone Bridgman Baker

Carter-Ruck senior associate Persephone Bridgman Baker combines her intellectual property practice with work in the firm’s esteemed media litigation team. ‘My clients ultimately want a discreet legal expert who will fight hard for their reputation and guard their privacy as fiercely as they would,’ she tells Spear’s. It’s been a busy year for Bridgman Baker, who secured a ‘major victory’ against the Sun on behalf of MP Richard Burgon, who was awarded £30,000 in the High Court for libel. Social media plays a prominent part in her work, with platforms having ‘major impacts on the lifestyles of those in the spotlight, positive and unfortunately and all too frequently negatively’.

Jonathan Hawker

It’s no secret that Jonathan Hawker is a crisis comms heavyweight who has worked with contentious cases of every nature, from ‘intricate’ white-collar crime (including what he considers to be the largest fraud in continental Europe) to those involving HNWs who ‘fall victim to a crime in a way that you cannot fathom’. Whatever the challenge, Hawker often has innovative solutions to problems, and has confi ded once to Spear’s that he could ‘mitigate pretty much anything’. It is for this, and repeat peer recommendations, that he has been named a top ten adviser in this Index since 2015. Despite the accolades, the enigmatic Hawker still remains the same one-man band since his departure from FTI Consulting in 2014. He says that large PR fi rms who expand on the basis of a ‘top-line growth’ forecast are no longer sustainable, citing the model as one of the factors that led to the demise of Bell Pottinger. The pressure to bring in more work to match the trajectory makes it ‘very easy to take on the wrong client’. Hawker identifi es a few strategies he’s applied to many of his cases. The fi rst is to accept blame ‘quickly’; the second is to ‘broaden it out’; the third is to criticise or blame someone else – ‘if it’s true, of course, you can’t do it’; and the fourth is to delay – ‘buy time while you get all the information’.

Rebecca Toman

‘The fragility of reputation can never be underestimated,’ says recently anointed Carter-Ruck partner Rebecca Toman, who has had an ‘exceptionally busy year’. ‘The digital world enhances so much of our daily lives, yet plays a central role in the destruction of reputations forged over decades,’ she says. ‘More than ever, clients require legal advice that works alongside existing strategies designed to protect the “brand”.’ Toman observes a rise in non-disclosure agreement matters. ‘Drafted well and, most importantly used in appropriate circumstances, they continue to be a necessary and effective way of legitimately enhancing the common law duty of confidence.’

Jessica Welch

Jessica Welch joined Simkins in 2013 as a trainee solicitor, rising to associate in 2015. Despite being just four years into the job, she has worked on cases in the High Court, the Copyright Tribunal and the European Court of Justice. Welch covers defamation, reputation protection, privacy, copyright and licensing, as well as commercial disputes for clients in the media and entertainment industries. A key part of the Simkins team that worked on the landmark Sir Cliff Richard case against the BBC and South Yorkshire Police two years ago, Welch has earned a number of plaudits. ‘She’s doing brilliantly,’ remarks one industry colleague.

Michael Yates

Michael Yates, a specialist across a range of contentious matters, has recently brought in an A-list client from an ‘influential’ Middle Eastern family. Yates is skilled at obtaining injunctive relief, stopping stories and removing content through tact rather than aggression, and has obtained many apologies, damages, takedowns and corrections for high-profile HNWs.A memorable case was the landmark privacy injunction ERY v Associated, which added weight to the premise that a criminal investigation of an individual can be considered to be private information – hence protectable.Yates joined Taylor Wessing two years ago from Lee & Thompson.