IAmA corporate lobbyist in the UK. AMAA

How many different clients would you lobby for per year?

I'll give a more general answer just to give some background. As a company, clients sign either short project based contracts with us, which tend to last anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, or a retainer, which generally last either 6 months or a year. Depending on how senior you are in the company, you work for anywhere between 3 and 8 clients at any one time. You tend to work for the same clients for quite a while, so in the past 12 months my clients have changed around a bit but not a huge amount. Building trust and relationships with the client is important so it's not useful to chop and chance a lot.

can you mention any of the types of businesses you recently lobbied for? (what area were they in).

I can't say anything that could identify my, my company or my clients - I can talk about some of the issues or circumstances that make clients want a lobbyist if that is interesting? There's quite a diverse set of reasons for needing our services.

What is the process of lobbying like? Do you first research the current law etc?

It entirely depends on what the issue is, who the client is and what the context is. At the most general level, all lobbying is is making representation to politicians on an issue. So it can be anything from writing a letter, going to meet them, sending them information or anything else. Generally, we're trying to make a particular argument on a particular issue, so the first step for us is to work with the client to work out exactly what that argument is and what supporting evidence we have. Then we generally work out who we want to approach with that argument, then we do it.

Do you first research the current law etc?

To an extent, but it's not generally specific laws that we deal with as much as policies. For the industries I work in I have to know Government policy inside out - and now the election is approaching, the other parties' policies too.

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