Wayne Pollock
An attorney with a public relations background who has lived and
breathed high-profile, high-stakes investigations and litigation.
As seen in/on:
A Traditional Online Attorney Bio
Wayne founded Copo Strategies in 2016 after spending over a decade achieving favorable legal and public relations results for his clients.
Prior to starting Copo, Wayne was a litigator at Dechert LLP, one of the largest and most prominent law firms in the world, with more than 900 attorneys worldwide, and more than $1 billion in annual revenues. In his more than six years at the firm, he obtained favorable outcomes for clients by analyzing and presenting complex legal and factual issues. While at the firm, Wayne worked on high-stakes, high-profile matters that were often reported on by local, national, and international media outlets. For example, he was on the Dechert team that represented the ten former independent directors of Lehman Brothers in the wave of investigations and litigation triggered by Lehman's September 2008 collapse. He was also on the team that represented Takata, a leading automotive parts manufacturer, in litigation and regulatory investigations related to the company's recall of tens of millions of potentially defective airbags. And, Wayne was on the team that represented the Marshall family in litigation against Vickie Lynn Marshall (a.k.a. Anna Nicole Smith).
Before law school, Wayne practiced public relations at The Star Group, a one-time Advertising Age "Top 100" marketing communications firm. In his four years at the firm, he developed and executed public relations and marketing initiatives on behalf of regional, national, and international clients. While at Star, Wayne cultivated relationships with journalists and secured dozens of placements for clients in national and regional media outlets including USA Today and The Wall Street Journal, regional television network affiliates, and national trade media outlets.
Publications, Media Appearances, and Speaking Engagements
Please click here for a list of Wayne's publications, media appearances, and speaking engagements.
Education
Wayne graduated in 2009 from Georgetown University Law Center, where he was Senior Special Projects Editor for The Georgetown Law Journal.
Wayne graduated magna cum laude in 2002 from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, where he majored in public relations.
Court Admissions
Wayne is admitted to practice law in all state courts in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He is also admitted to practice in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
Personal
Wayne resides in Center City Philadelphia. If you keep an eye out, you might find him running on one of Philadelphia's numerous running trails, desperately trying to keep Father Time away from his knees.
Hi there,
That's me in that stylish black and white photo—Wayne Pollock.
I'm the founder and managing attorney of Copo Strategies.
Below you will find my online bio in the typical format you would expect to find an attorney's online bio.
But before you get there, I wanted to briefly tell you why I launched Copo Strategies—and why I took the path less traveled to get here, including leaving the large, prominent, and very profitable law firm I worked at for over half a decade.
I went to law school after working at the public relations firm I had been at since graduating college because I loved (and still love) the intersection between the law and public relations. I loved (and still love) the relationship between the court of law and the Court of Public Opinion.
After attending law school at Georgetown, I went to work as a litigation associate at one of the largest law firms in the world. While I was there, I noticed something that was invisible to most of my colleagues, adversaries, and the other attorneys I encountered professionally and socially.
I often saw other attorneys and law firms miss opportunities to help their clients resolve their cases favorably because they did not understand the value of ethically, strategically, and proactively using public relations and publicity in their practices. They also did not understand how to actually use public relations and publicity in their practices.
Some of those missed opportunities were opportunities to help a client play offense and turn up the heat on an adversary.
Other missed opportunities were opportunities to help a client play defense and defend itself against factual and legal allegations that threatened to damage the client's ability to get a fair trial, the client's reputation, and its business interests.
In missing these opportunities, those attorneys also missed opportunities to help build their own practices and their law firms' practices. (Prominent attorneys are prominent because they are, well, prominent. They understand the value of telling their stories and their clients' stories publicly and being visible to the media, prospective clients, and referral sources.)
I was particularly bothered by this phenomenon because of my prior career in public relations.
Funny thing is, this phenomenon seemed to be happening A LOT. So I did some research.
"Surely," I thought, "there are plenty of attorneys who have public relations or marketing backgrounds and who weave that knowledge into their legal counsel and practices. Right?"
Turns out that there are a few attorneys like that across the country, but not many.
So I took a slightly different angle with my research. "Surely," I again thought, "there are plenty of attorneys focused on telling their clients' stories publicly and to the media who understood both the ethics AND defamation implications of speaking publicly about their clients' cases and who wove that knowledge into their legal counsel and practices. Right?"
Maybe there are. But I couldn't find any who claim to do so (and still can't).
So I decided to do what any sane person would do: I said "adios" to my prestigious position as a litigation associate at a prominent international law firm and launched my own hybrid legal services and communications firm.
Copo Strategies is a unique professional services firm that provides a unique brand of counsel to attorneys and their clients—counsel that incorporates legal strategy, media strategy, ethics compliance, and defamation avoidance. And, our counsel is covered by attorney-client privilege.
(There are many talented public relations people out there. Few, if any, understand the ethics and defamation implications of their counsel to clients—including those who are former practicing attorneys. And, as I hope these folks would surely admit, their quests to obtain attorney-client privilege protections for the counsel they provide to law firms and those firms' clients is, charitably, an uphill battle.)
I do what I do, and this firm does what it does, because I believe attorneys and their clients deserve to tell their stories outside of court.
I believe that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and that the public should know about legal wrongdoing that is happening underneath our noses.
I also believe that people and organizations that are accused of legal wrongdoing should defend themselves publicly, and should not be defined by other people's allegations.
No matter who attorneys and their clients tell their stories to—the media, prospective clients, referral sources, or some other audience—these stories must be told ethically, strategically, and proactively in order to have the most impact and to not create problems for the attorneys and clients telling the stories.
It is my firm belief that Copo Strategies can tell these stories in ways that no other law firm or communications firm can on its own. And we are always perfecting our craft.
After taking a look at the results we obtain for clients and the expertise we show in our publications, media appearances, and speaking engagements, I hope you will agree.
I've just told you my story. I hope to have the opportunity to tell your story or your client's story sometime soon.
Sincerely,
Wayne Pollock