John Hellerman
Washington, D.C.
President of award-winning Hellerman Communications (@HellermanComm); PR Agency Exec of Year (@PRNews).
Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by John Hellerman
Turning Insight into Opportunity: Using Earned Media for Business Development
(L-R) Ryan Evans, John Hellerman Theres a moment in most law firms when someone, usually a skeptical partner, asks a fair question: what exactly does communications do? Its a reasonable challenge. Much of what a marketing and communications team produces can feel intangible. A post here. A quote there. A byline that circulates for a few days and disappears. But that framing misses the point. An earned media hit is not an outcome. Its part of a life cycle.
From Activity to Authority: How Smaller Firms Can Out-Position the Giants and Win PR in the AI Search Era
Gartner’s Top Predictions to Inform 2026 Comms Strategies report delivers a wake-up call for professional services firms: The mass adoption of AI and public large language models (LLMs) (such as Grok, ChatGPT, Copilot and Gemini) is fundamentally changing how clients, prospects and talent discover and evaluate expertise. As these AI “answer engines” rapidly replace traditional search, Gartner predicts they will drive a 100% increase in PR and earned media budgets by 2027.
Table of Contents
Big Ideas: ALA President's Letter By Travis Armstrong, CLM, CPA Travis Armstrong reflects on his year as ALA President and the lessons he’s learned on his leadership journey.
5 Pointers For Firm Leaders Communicating Tough Decisions
By John Hellerman · April 24, 2025, 1:59 PM EDT Law firm leaders are often called to make high-stakes decisions quickly, especially in moments of public scrutiny, political pressure or reputational risk.... Want to continue reading?
Everyone Wants Fame
Dennis Merkley, a banking attorney at my firm, Howard & Howard, knew he had valuable insights to share, especially when it came to the ever-changing landscape of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). But like many attorneys at smaller firms, getting his voice into the right rooms—or publications—was a daunting challenge. Competing for attention alongside the nation’s largest law firms, each with expansive PR budgets and entire teams dedicated to media relations, seemed impossible.
How to mitigate risk and damage in a crisis
Bad things happen to good companies, and even worse things happen to bad companies. Although businesses can’t prevent every tragedy or crisis, steps can be taken to mitigate their effects. A crisis presents enormous threats and represents significant risk to a senior living community’s reputation, operations, market share, employee morale and overall financial performance. There is little room for error, and response time must be quick.
Thought Leadership's Critical Role In Law Firm Diversity
Law360 (April 13, 2021, 6:17 PM EDT) -- Nearly every Am Law 100 law firm has a chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer, and that role is vital to creating more racial equity in the legal profession. The chief diversity officer's job is challenging as law firms struggle with retention given the COVID-19 pandemic, motivations to relocate due to the increase in remote work, and slow advancement to a truly diverse and inclusive culture.
Handling Corporate Congressional Probes In The Trump Era | JD Supra
Updated: May 25, 2018: JD Supra is a legal publishing service that connects experts and their content with broader audiences of professionals, journalists and associations.
Sexual Harassment & the Legal Industry
For members of a conservative industry that — literally — wrote the rulebook on sexual harassment, law firms need to be ready for a day of reckoning that seems inescapable. While sexual harassment is not generally categorized as a “crime,” when it moves from suggestive remarks to things such as unwanted touching, the civil offense of sexual harassment can quickly become the crimes of assault, forcible touching, sexual battery or even rape.
<i>Media & Communication:</i> We Wrote This Article to Share with You
Media & Communication: We Wrote This Article to Share with You Develop content with a purpose in mind versus simply creating content for its own sake. Retweets and shares are fine, but they shouldn’t be the end goal of a lawyer’s effort. Instead, creating content should be about enabling the lawyer to feel comfortable and easily engage with clients. We’ve all been there.
<i>Leadership:</i> No Immunity: Sexual Harassment & the Legal Industry
For members of a conservative industry that — literally — wrote the rulebook on sexual harassment, law firms need to be ready for a day of reckoning that seems inescapable (and may have already happened by the time this article is published). For members of a conservative industry that — literally — wrote the rulebook on sexual harassment, law firms need to be ready for a day of reckoning that seems inescapable (and may have already happened by the time this article is published).
When lawyers are "too busy with work" to spend their time marketing, that is usually when they are most worthwhile to market. When lawyers are without work and banging down your door for help, that is when they are the least marketable and most challenging. Years ago, in the late 90s, after I had had about five years under my belt as a “communications consultant,” I finally achieved both the opportunity to manage my own clients and the staff necessary to achieve their goals.
Law Journal Newsletters
The Business of Branding: To Build the Brand, Build Up The Lawyers When attempting to build their brands, the first question that law firm managers and marketers should ask is not "How can we build our brand?" but rather a prior question: "What is the brand that we're trying to build?" 5 free articles across the ALM subscription network every 30 days Your choice of 17 email alerts with Breaking News from any of LJN’s best-selling newsletters Already have an account?
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with John
Contact John, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack