Gray Reed strives to be the ultimate partner to our clients in the good times and bad. When an unexpected emergency or crisis arises in Texas and beyond, Gray Reed stands ready to assist in every way possible. Our Crisis Readiness & Response Team combines our experienced legal team with our seasoned strategic communications and government relations experts (GRPR) to spearhead uniquely tailored legal strategies and high-impact crisis communications methods. Gray Reed differentiates itself by not only mobilizing and deploying its full complement of services when a crisis arises, but also training and preparing clients before the worst occurs. Our goals are to reduce risk, preserve stakeholder trust, and minimize negative impacts to our clients’ reputations and brands before, during, and after a crisis.

Our Crisis Readiness & Response Capabilities

Before the Crisis

• We prepare clients and create a culture of preparedness by:
  • Helping clients craft tailored policies and procedures applicable in crisis or emergency situations
  • Training clients on best legal practices for post-incident or accident investigation and root cause analysis
  • Assisting clients in accessing and mitigating potential cyber security threats
  • Nurturing strong relationships with a robust network of media contacts at the local, state and national level
  • Training clients in various aspects of crisis management communication
  • Creating custom crisis management communications plans and response protocols, as well as assist clients with pre-crisis message development
  • Utilizing open communication lines with government leaders to proactively address potential legislative and regulatory challenges impacting clients
  • Helping clients build community and industry trust

During the Crisis

• We rapidly deploy resources to mitigate or eliminate exposure by:
  • Initiating and leading investigations
  • Creating a proactive legal strategy
  • Preparing key witnesses and corporate representatives for interviews or testimony
  • Identifying and retaining outside leading experts to gather and evaluate evidence (e.g., accident reconstruction)
  • Assisting with cyber incident response
  • Conducting media relations and strategic message development
  • Engaging with government officials, if needed
  • Executing targeted content creation strategies
  • Managing situation in real-time
  • Recovering reputations post-crisis

• We respond to government investigations (DOJ, SEC, OSHA, DOL, EEOC, IRS, DOT, etc.).

Select Crisis Readiness & Response Experience

• Led various construction, energy, trucking, and petrochemical clients through incident investigation and reporting processes in order to mitigate litigation exposure and/or governmental fines.
• Assisted clients in various industries by preparing corporate representatives and key witnesses for upcoming testimony and/or government investigations.
• Assisted clients in various industries respond to crises stemming from cyber incidents, including retaining and working with cyber forensics experts. 
• Served large school districts facing media scrutiny over school shootings, school closures, library book issues and more.
• Served municipalities dealing with a wide range of crises, from natural disasters to police officer-involved shootings, ambushes and more.
• Served elected and appointed state-wide officials through multiple political and public-facing situations.
• Led communication efforts for some of the most high-profile mass casualty events in the past decade.
• Directed messaging through some of the most critical lawsuits and court decisions in recent history.
• Worked with our clients after a crisis to create policy and procedure changes that help limit, prevent and mitigate events in the future.