Legal PR Pioneer Jay Jaffe Dies at Age 68
Jay Jaffe, who pioneered the business of law firm marketing after the U.S. Supreme Court gave a green light to such advertising in a landmark 1977 decision, died last week. He was 68 years old.
A Chicago native, Jaffe worked as a journalist before establishing Jaffe PR in the wake of Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, the Blog of Legal Times reports.
“If you look at law firm advertising, he really introduced it to the profession,” said Richard Levick of Levick Strategic Communications, who has known Jaffe for some 20 years. “Jay’s brilliance was seeing the opportunity of the market and he recognized early on what was most important for law firms to do at the time. He took people who tend to be extremely slow in adapting and got them to see the importance of change.”
Jaffe died Wednesday in Denver of complications after surgery PR Week reports. His 69th birthday would have been Friday.
