KARV Hosts Crisis & litigation communicators alliance annual conference

This past week our team hosted the Crisis & Litigation Communicators Alliance Annual Conference, here in NYC. We brought in insightful speakers, including Jack Devine of The Arkin Group LLC and Daniel Filor of Greenberg Traurig, LLP who shared their insights on international relations, and crisis and legal communications.

It was wonderful to be able to sit around the table with experts from around the world and have an extensive conversation about geopolitical relations, the happenings around the world, and how we can better help achieve our clients’ goals, utilizing our expertise.

Read more, as published in O’Dwyers, here.

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Crisis communicators from across three continents exchanged ideas and highlighted the best practices that succeed in the evolving political geopolitical landscape at the Crisis and Litigation Communicators Alliance conference in New York that wrapped up today.

CLCA is an international alliance of specialist PR firms who are experts in crisis and litigation communications counsel in their respective markets. Andrew Frank, founder & president of the New York-based crisis firm KARV, hosted the conference at the Manhattan office of the law firm Greenberg Traurig LLP. He said the meeting provided a great opportunity to keep updated about trends in the worlds of crisis and legal communications, and to learn from each other’s work.

Jack Devine, founder/chairman of The Arkin Group and a three-decade veteran of the CIA, addressed the group as a keynote speaker. He spoke about how fear is the ingredient that keeps autocratic rulers like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in power. “Autocratic governments are in a much greater risk of destabilizing when the fear factor is removed,” he said.

Devine predicted a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. “It’s absolutely amazing that the Ukrainians stayed in the battle as long as they have, and the Russians have paid a huge price in blood and treasure to get to what is now virtually a stalemate,” he said. “This creates the right conditions for at least an armistice and eventual ceasefire agreement.”

Greenberg Traurig shareholders walked the attendees through the intricacies of the US legal system, such as the difference between government and private practice, and shared their experiences in both sectors.

Outgoing CLCA chair Martin Jenewein, senior partner at Vienna’s SMJ Partners, said the conference is both a tradition and strategic thought exercise. “Each of our representatives is at the top of our field, with a highly specialized knowledge of their own country’s system of media relations and crisis and litigation communications,” he said. “The benefits we jointly receive from this expertise is invaluable, enabling us to collaborate on best strategies, anticipate emerging risks, and discuss responses to the world’s most complex challenges.”

Nicolai Frederik Bonnén Rossen, managing partner at Copenhagen’s Rossen & Co., is CLCA’s incoming chair. He looks forward to building on the work that was done at the conference. "With disputes increasingly debated or decided outside of the courts of law and fueled by public opinion, litigation communications has become a growing necessity,’ he said. “All parties within a dispute should ideally be provided this opportunity, and I am eager to help realize this objective in conjunction with my colleagues across the globe.”