Our standard
Not every matter can be fixed. Not every matter should be taken.
A specific commitment to decline work costs revenue, which is exactly what makes one worth writing down. What this firm will not do is listed here so you can hold us to it, including the matters where our advice is to do nothing at all.
Fabricated reviews, purchased links, manufactured profiles, guaranteed removals, and retainers taken for matters nobody could fix are all still purchasable. Fake and deceptive reviews and testimonials are prohibited by the FTC's Rule on Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, 16 CFR Part 465, effective October 21, 2024. We also decline to publish client testimonials at all, both to protect confidentiality and to avoid turning private engagements into permanent marketing assets. Much of the rest remains legal. There is no license to revoke and no board to complain to.
The practical consequence for you is that in an unlicensed field, credentials are difficult to evaluate, private case studies are rarely independently verifiable, and testimonials reveal less than they appear to. So there is a real question about how anyone is supposed to choose.
Our answer is to publish the constraint. What follows is what this firm declines to do, in specific terms rather than as a values statement. We set these rules out publicly for the first time in August 2026, as an undertaking to the people we work with and to anyone considering it. If we fall short of any of it, this page is the record.
What we decline
Ten things this firm will not do.
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Reduce the visibility of accurate reporting of ongoing harm
Where material documents conduct that is continuing and causing damage to identifiable people, we will not work to reduce its visibility. This is the one we are asked about most.
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Fabricate anything
No invented reviews, no manufactured testimonials, no fake profiles, no synthetic commentary, no purchased followers. Not for clients, and not on this site.
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Manipulate systems deceptively
No private blog networks, purchased links, spun content, bot-driven search volume, or prompt injection against AI systems. These work briefly, they are detectable, and the penalty lands on the client.
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Impersonate anyone
Not a journalist, not a platform, not a client, not a member of the public. Correspondence from this firm is from this firm.
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Guarantee outcomes we do not control
Removal depends on publishers, platforms, and courts. AI answers depend on model developers. Anyone guaranteeing those is describing something that does not exist.
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Bill for activity that cannot produce a result
Where our assessment is that the work would not justify the fee, we say so and decline. Position can almost always be improved; that is not the same as the improvement being worth what it would cost you.
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Publish a client's identity
We do not identify engagements publicly, in marketing material, in a pitch, or to a journalist. A private reference introduction requires current permission for that specific conversation. This has been the firm's practice since 2023; before that, RMG named a reference client in proposals with that client's agreement.
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Work against a party we already represent
Conflicts are checked before engagement and the earlier client keeps the relationship.
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Solicit an organization over coverage we have not read
We do not approach an organization on the basis of adverse coverage without having read and understood it. We do not characterize another party's journalism as misleading or unfair without grounds. And we do not solicit where the underlying event involves harm to a child or another person in that organization's care.
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Continue on a false basis
If a client's account of the facts turns out to be materially false, the engagement ends and we do not continue on the revised basis. This is stated in the engagement terms rather than left to be discovered.
Selection
What has to be true for us to help.
Three tests, applied in the first conversation rather than after a retainer has been signed. They are applied to your situation rather than to a category, so if you are unsure whether yours fits, describe it and we will tell you. Every one of these is different in the particulars.
Is the record actually wrong?
Inaccurate, disproportionate, or genuinely resolved. If material is accurate, current, proportionate, and fairly reported, we are not the right call, and we will say so.
Is there a mechanism?
A realistic route to a different outcome. Where we cannot identify one, taking the matter would mean billing for activity, which we do not do.
Would this conceal ongoing harm?
If the answer is yes, we decline regardless of the fee, the referral source, or how the request is framed. This test is not weighed against the others. An open proceeding is not by itself disqualifying. A person facing an unresolved matter is entitled to a defense and to a public record that is not reduced to a single allegation. The test is whether conduct is continuing and causing damage to identifiable people, and whether the work would reduce the visibility of that.
Questions we are asked
- How do you decide whether to take a matter?
- Three tests, in order. Is the material inaccurate, disproportionate, or genuinely resolved? Is there a mechanism that can realistically change the outcome? And would the work involve concealing ongoing harm to anyone? A matter has to pass all three.
- Do you work with people who have done something wrong?
- Yes, frequently. Someone who made a genuine mistake, faced the consequences, and has since been reduced to that single episode has a legitimate claim on proportion. That is different from concealing conduct that is still happening, and the distinction is where the assessment does its work.
- Who holds you to this?
- In the first instance, you do. It is published here specifically so it can be quoted back to us. Beyond that, this page is dated and revised in public, so what we committed to is checkable against what we do.
- What does this cost?
- There is no standard price, because there is no standard matter. Scope follows the assessment, and we do not quote before it. How that is arrived at is set out in full on the How We Work page.
If this is the standard you were looking for.
Tell us what is happening. If we are not the right firm for it, that is what the first conversation is for.
The first conversation and the preliminary review that follows it are free, and nothing is owed afterwards.
Whether your situation calls for a lawyer is one of the most common questions we are asked, and it is usually settled in the first conversation. Where counsel should be involved we will say so and work at their direction, and where it is not a legal matter we will tell you that too. Either way, the question is ours to answer rather than yours to work out first. How we hold information