jhaggerty@prcg.com 212.683.8100

• INTRODUCTION

  James F. Haggerty, President and CEO of PRCG | Haggerty LLC, is an attorney, author and communications professional with more than thirty years of experience counseling and executing communications programs for corporate, nonprofit and individual clients. With areas of expertise ranging from real estate and construction, to financial and wealth management, to healthcare and environment/sustainability matters, to sports & media, Jim is frequently called upon as a trusted advisor in all manner of sensitive domestic and international issues.

  Jim and his firm have worked for nearly three decades with leading corporations, financial and professional service firms, banks, wealth management advisors, private equity firms, hedge funds, law firms and similar businesses. In sports-related fields, he works for individuals and brands in a range of strategic communications work, including with matters related to NCAA investigations, Name, Image and Likeness (NIL), and other issues. He has also been a advisor to clients on environmental and sustainability issues, working with some of the leading environmental groups in the United States, as well as with public interest lawyers and companies in the recycling and renewable energy fields.

  In the area of high-profile litigation, crisis matters and sensitive reputation management, Jim is considered one of the nation’s foremost experts. He has been repeatedly named by Chambers & Partners, the prestigious international directory, as one of the top communications professionals in the United States, a “powerhouse” who “thinks on a different level,” bringing a “double barrel of legal and media experience” to his work. PR News also named Jim to its list of “50 Game Changers” for his work as a “trailblazer” in litigation communications, and the firm has been lauded for providing “sophisticated” “round-the-clock” global services to clients in crisis and litigation matters.

  In 2023 Jim was named by Business Insider as one of “18 top public-relations experts CEOs scramble to hire in a crisis.”

  In 2022, Jim was elected President of the Reputation Advisors International, a worldwide association of senior communications professionals in 16 cities across the globe.

• EXPERIENCE

  James F. Haggerty is a go-to counselor to clients facing challenging and complex communications issues.

  In a long and varied career, Jim has toured Navajo country as part of the landmark Indian Trust lawsuits against the United States government, worked on Holocaust restitution claims involving the property on which Hitler’s bunker was built, and managed communications for Consumer Reports magazine in landmark First Amendment lawsuits brought by the Suzuki Corporation (over the infamous Suzuki Samurai rollover) and The Sharper Image Corporation (over the equally infamous Ionic Breeze air cleaner). He has also worked with a minority-owned bank unfairly targeted with mortgage fraud allegations by the New York District Attorney, and on environmental cases on behalf of plaintiffs poisoned by the spread of toxic chemicals.

  Jim began his career working on economic development issues: first in the City of Binghamton, New York, where he was part of the team working to bring a Double A baseball stadium to the city. He then work for New York City’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC) in the Koch and Dinkins administrations, where his projects included the MetroTech Center in downtown Brooklyn and the industrial redevelopment of the historic Brooklyn Army Terminal. He was also a Special Assistant to U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

  As an attorney, Jim represented more than 3,000 victims of the Haitian cholera disaster in a lawsuit against the United Nations that eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court (cert. denied, 2019). He is currently an Adjunct Professor of Law at Stetson University College of Law in St. Petersburg, Florida.

• BOOKS & AWARDS

  Jim is the author of several books on the interplay of legal, crisis communications matters and public perception. His landmark 2003 book, In the Court of Public Opinion: Winning Strategies for Litigation Communications was released in an update third edition in 2022 by Hart + Harvest Press. First published in 2003, In The Court of Public Opinion is considered the leading book in the field. It has been called “the perfect handbook for this age of show trials” by Financial Times and has been featured in prominent business and trade media around the world.  Jim’s second book, Chief Crisis Officer: Structure and Leadership for Effective Communications Response was first published in 2017 and has just been released in a new paperback edition (Hart + Harvest Press, 2023). Chief Crisis Officer has been positively featured in the Harvard Business Review, Fortune, and Entrepreneur magazine, among others. As a writer, Jim was also a columnist for American Lawyer’s Corporate Counselmagazine from 2011 – 2015, where he was twice named a finalist for the prestigious Neal Award for Business Journalism — the only full-time public relations professional ever to be so honored.

  Jim holds a B.A. from Binghamton University and attended the Fordham University and Stetson University law schools (JD). He is admitted to practice law in New York and Florida, and before various federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court. He spent a decade as a Trustee of NY/NJ Baykeeper, an environmental organization.