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British firms entering the German market find public relations there
a little different. Claudia Schieblon reports on the relevant German press.
Over the last five years the major British and many American firms have linked up with an
established German firm - either with a full merger like Linklaters, Freshfields, Latham &
Watkins or by a cooperation like Slaughter & May or Cameron McKenna. Other firms, like Shearman &
Sterling or Jones Day Reavis & Pogue, have opened their own practice in Germany. As there is
no single center in Germany (in the way that London is in the UK) they settled in which ever
city was most important for their business - Frankfurt for banking and finance, Berlin for
real estate, Munich for new media, Hamburg for media and Cologne or Dusseldorf for industry.
Each of them is an attractive center of commercial and daily life. But along with establishing a
successful legal business in Germany you also need good relations with the press. And German
commercial and legal press has their own particular structure and rules.
COMMERCIAL DAILY PRESS
Germany has a wide range of newspapers and magazines. When focusing on the more important national
commercial daily press there are four publications: The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ),
the Süddeutsche (SZ), the Handelsblatt and, for the last 18 months, the Financial Times
Deutschland (FTD). The FAZ has the widest reach with 408,641* copies sold per day. It's
an institution like The Times in the UK and you will find a copy in all major companies
in Germany. Twice a week they have a page about tax and law where you can find legal news
and articles which are occasionally written by lawyers. The FAZ also writes about the
legal market itself. "We are interested in any major news from the firms as background
information for our work." Dr Elke Bohl, commercial journalist of the FAZ, explains.
"But for the articles we need relevant information like actual deals and figures from
the firms themselves."
With 436,051* copies sold a day, the SZ is as widespread as the FAZ. Despite it's name
(translated as South Germany Newspaper) can be found all over Germany and it's political
focus is said to be more liberal. Then there is the Handelsblatt, a corporate orientated
newspaper. They changed their concept and design over the last few years. This worked -
now they sell 155,660* copies a day. Once a week they have a special page about tax and
law and regularly they report about news from the legal market.
Over the last one and half years, the FTD Germany has established itself in the local news market.
Despite their focus on relevant information from finance markets and stocks, they also regularly
report the news from the legal market. Now they sell 74,432* copies a day.
All these German publications cover a broad range of topics - politics, finance and commercial
news, culture and sport. Five years ago you hardly found a law firms' name within their pages.
Now law firms have changed their role from being a company's silent adviser and so you now find
them named in articles about mergers or flotations.
COMMERCIAL WEEKLY PRESS
When focusing on the commercial weekly press it is easy to find the major ones - Manager Magazin,
Wirtschaftswoche, Impulse and DM. They are interested in the legal market and have published
reports about the major law firm mergers, career opportunities for young lawyers in law firms
as well as the most popular firms for IPOs. Last year Manager Magazine carried the front page
headline 'The Future of the Law Firms' and included several articles about the mergers, de-mergers
and career opportunities in law firms. These publications are also read in commercial firms and
so the major law firms are eager to be named and quoted whenever there is a relevant article.
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SECTOR PUBLICATIONS
Another important focus for PR work of professional service firms are the special sector publications.
There are lots of them and every other month another magazine launches or shuts down. You will
find publications for nearly any business sector or profession you might think of. Publications
on subjects from web-business to shipping or leasing. Here you need to find the right one for
you target group. In general, editorial and advertising in these publications is strictly separated.
And you won't find many opportunities for co-publishing. For most of the possibilities here you need
to match the editorial interests.
LEGAL PRESS
Then there is the legal press. There are a great deal of legal publications, where you can promote
yourself to colleagues in other firms or in-house. The concept is very different from the British
publications. Most of them do not carry any pictures or photos and are packed with legal information.
Anything else would be seen as a 'gossip magazine'. The question is who is reading all these
publications in this age of digital information where it is easy to keep up-to-date with all
the information you need?
LEGAL MARKETING PRESS
There is a rising number of magazines about the legal market covering the management of law firms.
It's less than two years since the first one started, but now there is already more than a handful
of monthly magazines. A very new publication is Anwalt, which was first published in November 2000.
Anwalt is a supplement to the magazine NJW, which is distributed to nearly 60,000 lawyers in Germany
and published by the traditional publishing company Beck in Munich. "It's concept is to cover any
topic of interest in management, marketing, IT and news for lawyers," says Sabine Zemla from the
editorial team.
Then there is the publication Anwaltsreport with 12,000 copies printed. It used to look like a
publishing company's newsletter, but since it's relaunch at the beginning of this year the content
and the look is much more like a magazine. It covers a wide range of news from the market and has
a major focus on the legal use of the internet. It's publishing company, the Otto-Schmid-Verlag,
is also owner of a lawyers' website.
From Luchterhand Verlag, another publishing house, comes the publication Kanzlei. It's a management
journal for lawyers, and reports on the legal news as well as topics of interest to lawyers. Since
it's launch in January 2000 it has found a niche among it's readers and the print run is now
15,000 copies a month.
From the Juve publishing house comes Juve Rechtsmarkt with indepth articles on the major firms as
well as focus reports on German regions. The Handelsblatt publishing company also produces the
magazine Vermögen & Steuern whose readership is tax consultants, lawyers and accountants. And,
with the same target group, there is Consultant, published from the Max-Schimmel-Verlag.
PRESS RELEASES
PR work is becoming much more professional than it used to be although local bar rules and
traditions still hinder mention of actual clients and turnover or other figures. Now the
major German law firms have their in-house marketers or their external professionals, and
regularly send out press information about any relevant news from the firm. Three years ago
it was a miracle for publications to get a press release from a law firm. Nowadays firms have
to work harder to get attention.
* all circulation figures are for the second quarter 2001.
SOME USEFUL WEBSITES
www.handelsblatt.com
www.sueddeutsche.de
www.faz.com
www.ftd.de
www.wiwo.de
www.dm-online.de
www.kanzleien-handbuch.de
www.juve.de
www.anwaltsreport.de
www.anwalt.beck.de
Claudia Schieblon
Leitung PMN
Marketing für Anwaltskanzleien
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