Who Is That Masked Client?

by Jane Akre

We didn't think much about it at first. A young man sat in the back of the courtroom during our five-week trial, taking careful, thorough notes. Finally Steve approached him and asked who he was, fully expecting the young man to say he was from a local law school or college. Instead he fessed up, identifying himself as Ian Davis, an intern representing the Public Strategies PR firm, based in Austin, Texas. The most famous member of Public Strategies is President Clinton's former press secretary, Mike McCurry, who heads its lobbying arm in Washington, D.C. (Other Public Strategies clients include Anheuser-Busch, ARCO, Bristol-Myers Squibb, the Edison Electric Institute, Lockheed Martin, Reuters and Southwest Airlines.)

Davis said he didn't know which client he was taking notes for. He didn't know what aspect of the trial he was supposed to focus on. He didn't know how long he would be there. In fact the intern said he was just working a summer job with the group. That's why you can imagine how surprised I was when, the other day, I called the Austin office of Public Strategies to find out if Monsanto was a client, and Ian Davis answered the phone. He is still just an intern, he said, and he still didn't know who his client was.