Senior Public Relations Manager

New York, NY

Department: Brands and Communications

Reports to: Director of PR

Job Description

A global law firm consistently ranked among the top firms in the world, is currently seeking a Senior Public Relations Manager to join our winning team, located in New York. The success of our firm is largely determined by our commitment to hire and develop the very best and brightest, creating a team that provides our clients with the highest quality of work and service. We are driven by our core values: respect, innovation and collaboration.

As a Senior Public Relations Manager at Firm, you will lead a team of public relations professionals to promote, market and brand Firm’s top practitioners in the space. The Senior Public Relations Manager is a proactive strategic advisor, an engaged mentor and a skilled crisis manager. Focused on a broad array of disputes practices, the Senior Public Relations Manager is a trusted advisor who displays strong presence among internal clients and colleagues, impeccable judgment and intellectual curiosity.

As a key member of the Brand and Communications team, the Senior Public Relations Manager is responsible for developing and implementing various public relations programs and media campaigns to enhance the firm’s name recognition across offices, practice areas and markets. The Senior Public Relations Manager also develops and supervises his/her staff by performing a multitude of responsibilities, including but not limited to mentoring, hiring, assignment, training, evaluation, discipline, termination, and salary and bonus administration while accomplishing these and other critical functions:

• Supervising, mentoring and developing public relations staff.   Organizing, assigning, delegating and coordinating the work of the staff to ensure department objectives are met in a timely and accurate manner. Recruiting and hiring staff and generating a formal performance evaluation for direct line reports.
• Developing stakeholder and media outreach programs designed to build the firm’s name recognition in key practice areas and across a region (e.g., US East Coast) and nationally as a member of the Brand and Communications team.
• Proactively seeking media opportunities for profiling firm, practice groups and individual attorneys across all media formats – print, online, broadcast, blogs, etc. Managing proactive press outreach and reactive media relations within the assigned region.
• Working with the attorneys to prepare them for media interviews and supporting roll out of media training program, as appropriate.
• Coordinating and liaising with local Business Development and Practice Development Managers to ensure an integrated, strategic approach regarding all public relations functions including supporting offices, practices and industries.
• Assisting with and/or implementing other special projects or research assignment initiatives as assigned. Conducting industry research and market intelligence, as appropriate.
• Overseeing and supporting the building and maintenance of press office systems and processes. Supervising staff and helping maintain press office administration such as media databases, coverage reporting, activity tracking, etc.
• Promoting effective work practices, working as a team member, and showing respect for co-workers.

As a Senior Public Relations Manager, you will be expected to apply your organizational and communication skills while displaying a positive, high-energy attitude. The successful Senior Public Relations Manager must have knowledge of core public relations principals including internal communications, seminar/event planning, branding, market research, and competitive intelligence as well as excellent leadership skills (i.e., organizing, planning, problem-solving and decision-making) necessary for effective management. An ideal candidate must display the ability to perceive and analyze problems, and a capacity to make or recommend sound decisions, the ability to undertake large, long-term projects, develop alternative methods to complete them, and implement solutions, and the ability to proofread and ensure accurate articles, presentations, database entries and other work products. The Senior Manager must also display advanced knowledge of PC applications, including the entire suite of MS Office applications (Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint).

A Bachelor’s degree in Public Relations, Communications, Business Administration, or a related field is required. Eight (8) or more years relevant public relations experience at PR agency or in-house is also required.