Sharing non-confidential discovery material with a reporter ahead of a filing is a real, legitimate tool. It's also the tool most likely to be misused, so I hold it to a stricter standard than almost anything else in this practice.
The rule is simple to state and strict to follow: nothing goes to a reporter that isn't already outside any protective order, and nothing goes without counsel's explicit sign-off on both the material and the timing. This isn't a workaround for confidentiality — it only ever applies to what's already public or already producible without restriction.
The legal risk in a strategic disclosure is rarely the material itself — it's the sequencing. Sharing something true and non-confidential the day before a hearing can look calculated in a way that undermines the case's credibility, even when nothing improper happened. I coordinate timing with trial counsel specifically to avoid the appearance problem, not just the substantive one. Used carefully, this tool builds coverage ahead of a filing. Used carelessly, it becomes the story instead of the case.