Secrets of L.A.'s Highest Grossing PR Firm

Harvey Englander breaks out the champagne

​The L.A. Business Journal is out with its annual list of L.A.'s top-grossing PR firms (which is not online for some reason). Topping the list is Edelman, a Chicago-based firm with a 120-person office in L.A. and $13.8 million in L.A. revenues last year.

Number two is Englander, Knabe & Allen, the public affairs firm best known recently for getting dead people to endorse Councilman Bernard Parks.

As Harvey Englander notes in a press release, EK&A's 2010 fee income of $6.4 million makes them the "largest Los Angeles-based independent public relations agency."

So how do they do it?

Partly by taking both sides of a political campaign. During the Parks' re-election campaign, EK&A worked for the L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce, which spent $57,000 supporting Parks.

At the same time, EK&A worked for the L.A. Police Protective League, which spent $200,000 supporting Parks' opponent, Forescee Hogan-Rowles.

Can they do that? Law firms wouldn't allow that sort of thing, but this is the anything-goes world of public relations. So apparently, if both sides are OK with it, it's OK.

As the LABJ notes, Englander's other clients include Legalzoom.com, Motorola, Westfield and Waste Management.

"Our team is committed to providing the highest level of customer service to our clients and that is reflected in our growth," Englander said in the release.

And if they don't, they're outta here!

Update: Eric Rose, who handles the PPL account for EK&A, says there was a firewall between himself and the consultants who handled the Chamber account. Rose also says he didn't do political work for the League, though he does do media.