By Rachel Moseson Dikovics and Alessandra M. Moore. Click for Lowenstein Sandler’s Women’s Initiative Podcast: Real Talk.
Download a PDF of the full transcript here.
In this episode of Real Talk, hosts Rachel Moseson Dikovics and Alessandra M. Moore sit down with Karen Kessler, powerhouse CEO of Kessler PR Group, to explore her remarkable journey from a young professional penning cold networking letters to a trusted advisor leading one of the nation’s premier crisis communications firms.
Karen shares how she built her firm from the ground up, discusses the nuances of managing public perception at the intersection of law and media, and offers advice ranging from the art of strategic networking to maintain perspective when balancing work and personal lives.
Rachel Dikovics: Welcome to the Lowenstein Sandler podcast series, the Women’s Initiative Network: Real Talk. I’m Rachel Dikovicks, counsel in Lowenstein’s White Collar Defense Practice Group and a member of the Women’s Initiative Network at Lowenstein Sandler. Before we begin, please take a moment to subscribe to our podcast series at lowenstein.com/podcast or find us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, or SoundCloud. Now let’s take a listen.
Welcome to another episode of the Women’s Initiative Network: Real Talk. I’m one of your hosts, Rachel Dikovicks, counsel in Lowenstein Sandler’s White Collar Defense Practice Group.
Alessandra Moore: And I’m Alessandra Moore, an associate in the White Collar Defense Group. Today we are joined by a very special guest as part of our career highlight series for 2025. For many people in the legal world, Ms. Karen Kessler needs no introduction. She’s a famed PR manager and a fixer and is called upon by some of the most influential leaders in all kinds of industries in times of crisis. Karen, welcome to the podcast.
Karen Kessler: I am so delighted that you asked me, and I look forward to the conversation.
Alessandra Moore: So, Karen, to begin, what the heck do you do? What is your job?
Karen Kessler: Not what you do, how about that? Our firm is a crisis communications firm or some people call reputation management firm. We get involved and interface between the lawyers and the media. Sometimes we get hired first and get asked what law firm should I hire? Sometimes the law firms call us and say, “We need help with a case that’s going to end up in the press.” And sometimes it’s some combination of the two, we get hired, the law firm gets hired and we end up being law firm adjacent during this. But it’s a very tight partnership when it works well between the law firm and a firm like ours, because we need to be responsive to the litigation strategy and be aware that anything we do is creating a record. So, we are very cautious, and we love working with lawyers.
Alessandra Moore: If I want to hire your firm, when do you typically want to engage with a law firm or a case? As early as possible, or should we get through a motion to dismiss? When is the best time to call you guys?
Karen Kessler: We have been called and gotten phone calls like, “The FBI is standing outside my office right now. I think we need your help.” I think that’s a little late. We have gotten calls to say the subpoenas just arrived. That’s probably a good time. We’ve gotten called to say they just got indicted. That could be a little late. It all depends on the case. It depends on how media-worthy it is.
Our job is also to work on all forms of communications. So that could be to your own employees, that could be to your vendors, that could be to your suppliers, whatever industry you’re in. I mean, you don’t really want to see the FBI walking through the halls and not have a plan of how to attack that and how to communicate, right? And the goal is to keep whatever the company is working and busy and not disrupt what they’re doing while there’s still this kind of activity going on. So, we always like to be brought in as early as possible, even if it’s “we might settle, we might not settle, we don’t know, or we might need you, we might not need you.” Better to tell us all about it and have us understand what’s involved, so we can jump when the moment comes.
Alessandra Moore: How do people know that this is a case where I need a PR firm to be involved? What kinds of issues are you dealing with day to day?
Karen Kessler: The more salacious, the more you need us because the press is going to respond to clicks. And so, if it’s something sexual, I’d say yes. So, there were years, probably less so now, but that we did for a long time, when we almost wanted to answer our phones and say, sexual harassment arrest, can we help you? Because there was one me too case after another. So everything related to that, but it’s lots of things we are doing right now. We got a call last night about something we refer to in the office as executive transition. That means they’re getting rid of their CEO and the board knows that they’re going to need help doing this in a way that is not disruptive to the company and to their business. And they don’t really want to be in the press, but they know they probably will; they’re a public company. So how do we handle that?
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