On the 38th floor of the Empire State Building sits the headquarters of an agency that undertook a dramatic transformation of its business model. Taylor is a premier strategic PR firm in the lifestyle, sports, and entertainment sectors with about $19 million in revenues, 100 employees, and prestigious clients, such as Procter & Gamble, MasterCard, Allstate, and Coca-Cola.

A recently published Harvard Law School case study, which I co-authored with Professor Ashish Nanda, tells of Taylor's rise ...