Laura Hills

We had a visitor to our office this week, Laura Hills from top immigration law boutique Gherson.  Laura has a fascinating role, combining her work in the firm's 11-strong translation team (she is a fluent Russian speaker) with marketing activity.  This size of the translation team is pretty unique for an immigration firm, but founder Roger Gherson believes it is essential to the responsiveness of their work for clients, compared to outsourcing this aspect.

We invited Laura to spend a day at Kysen to see how a specialist legal PR team approaches its work.   Among the many things she discussed with us were the practicalities of running SEO programmes for her firm's Chinese and Russian version websites and how best to develop social media campaigns for overseas audiences generally.   Interesting challenges!

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So what did we think of the news this week that Quality Solicitors are teaming up with WH Smith to provide 500 'open access legal points', with legal desks in store manned by QS representatives? Innovative for sure.  But who will ultimately control this brand?  And do we think QS has chosen the right brand on which to piggyback?  On the one hand WH Smith has an excellent reputation and is considered by British shoppers as something of a 'national treasure'; on the other hand, book and CD retailers have their own challenges responding to the threat posed by internet downloads and changing buying patterns.  Who'd have thought that they would start turning to legal services to plug the gap!

Share your thoughts in the comment box below..

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Other news that caught our eye this week was the story on Friday of News International's surprise 'unreserved apology' to victims of phone-hacking by News of the World.  The corporation has set up a compensation scheme for 'justifiable claims' but also now faces possible criminal prosecution. Its bid for BSkyB is now also under threat.

Celebs and politician victims of the scandal include Sienna Miller, John Prescott (who called News International's conduct 'mass criminality'), Tessa Jowell - and disgraced football presented Andy Gray, sacked by Sky Sports last year for sexist comments about the offside rule, for whom some are suggesting this could be payback time.


To catch up on the story, see ITV's news video here.



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And being British, we have to mention the weather...

How fantastic has it been! 

Loved this tweet from @lawyercatrin on Friday afternoon - under the hashtag #bestpressdayever. 

Look forward to reading Monday's edition.

RollOnMonday!