When law firm leaders face complex decisions around growth, reputation, recruiting and high-stakes legal matters, they call Deb. No matter how thorny the challenge, Deb’s measured and deeply informed strategic advising helps them steer the ship and achieve their communication goals.
For more than 20 years, Deb Pickett has blended business, legal and media acumen with outstanding communication skills to partner with attorneys, issue advocates, political candidates and executives to get their messages out to key constituencies. She founded Page 2 Communications in 2011 to lead a team of experienced journalists, editors, marketers and campaign professionals who serve as advisors to the next generation of law firm leadership.
Deb’s work as a communications strategist and consigliere to managing partners and chief marketing officers is informed by her long experience as a journalist and more than a decade of work managing PR and media for law firms. Clients value her clear and level-headed approach to crisis management, her creative problem-solving skills and her focus on message discipline. As an advisor, she is noted for asking the sharp, incisive questions that help hone high-level strategies into operational plans. Managing partners look to her to help articulate their visions and execute the work needed to bring those visions into reality. She is particularly adept in counseling marketing leaders on how to allocate resources in alignment with their firms’ overall goals.
A lifelong writer, Deb spent the early part of her professional life as a management consultant, leading teams implementing technological and organizational change efforts, while also pursuing a freelance writing career. After several years in consulting, Debra was recruited by a former client to serve as the operations director of a technology start-up. Chronicling the ups and downs of her dot-com life in a nationally recognized series of articles, Debra made the switch to full-time work as a journalist in October 2000.
Less than two years after joining the staff of the Chicago Sun-Times, Deb was writing weekly columns for the paper’s coveted Page 2 column (former home of the legendary Mike Royko).
Her work included award-winning coverage of legal and public policy issues, including the re-investigation of decades-old civil rights-era cases. Deb’s journalism career also included launching the Sun Times’ first blog and contributing to television news coverage at CNN, WBBM and WTTW.