Philip Lesly (1918–1997) was the American practitioner who built the reference shelf of modern public relations practice. Author of Lesly's Handbook of Public Relations and Communications — the field's second foundational textbook, first published in 1950 and through five editions over the next forty-five years — founder of Philip Lesly Company in Chicago in 1950, and editor of Managing the Human Climate, the senior-counselor newsletter that ran for thirty years, Lesly operated as the reference authority that working practitioners reached for when the textbook wasn't enough.
Firm: Philip Lesly Company — founded 1950, Chicago. A senior-counsel boutique through Lesly's career.
Defining work:Lesly's Handbook of Public Relations and Communications — first edition 1950 (Prentice-Hall); fifth edition 1998 (NTC Business Books). Through five editions in forty-eight years, the standard practitioner reference of the field.
Newsletter:Managing the Human Climate — Lesly's senior-counselor monthly newsletter, published continuously from the 1960s through the early 1990s.
Other books:Public Relations Handbook (1962); The People Factor (1974); Selections from Managing the Human Climate (1991).
Honors: PRSA Gold Anvil; PRSA College of Fellows; Arthur W. Page Society membership.
The Body of Work
The Cutlip-Center Effective Public Relations, first published in 1952, is the introductory textbook of the field. Lesly's Handbook, first published in 1950 — two years earlier — is the practitioner reference. The two volumes operate in parallel: Cutlip-Center for the classroom and the four-step process model, Lesly for the working practitioner facing a specific tactical problem and needing a chapter from a senior counselor on how to handle it.
The Handbook ran through five editions across forty-eight years. Each edition expanded substantially to cover the new tactical territory the field had moved into — broadcast PR, financial PR, government affairs, international PR, employee communications, the early digital practices. The fifth edition, published posthumously in 1998 a year after Lesly's death, runs to more than a thousand pages with contributions from more than thirty senior practitioners. The book is on the shelf of every senior corporate communications office in the United States.
Managing the Human Climate, Lesly's newsletter, was the senior-counselor reference of its era. The monthly issues ran case analyses, framework essays, and Lesly's personal commentary on the senior strategic questions of the field. Subscribers were the senior PR counsels and the chief communications officers of the major American corporations. The newsletter's selected back-catalogue was republished in book form in 1991 as Selections from Managing the Human Climate.
The Career
Lesly was born in Chicago in 1918, took a journalism degree at Northwestern in 1938, and worked as a publicist and corporate communicator through the 1940s. He opened Philip Lesly Company in Chicago in 1950, the same year Prentice-Hall published the first edition of the Handbook. The firm stayed boutique through Lesly's career — a senior-counsel practice with a handful of senior staff serving a small number of major accounts — while Lesly's editorial output through the Handbook, the newsletter, and the dozen-plus books he authored or edited operated as the wider engagement with the field.
He served on the PRSA board, took the Gold Anvil and the College of Fellows induction, and joined the Arthur W. Page Society. He retired from active practice in the early 1990s and continued to edit and contribute to the Handbook into the final months of his life. He died on July 24, 1997, in Chicago, at age seventy-eight.
The Legacy
Lesly's Handbook remains, twenty-seven years after his death, on the senior-practitioner reference shelf. The 1998 fifth edition is the last full revision; the book has not been updated since but continues to be cited in current senior-counsel work because the chapter structure, the case framework, and the practitioner essays remain operationally useful.
The PRSA Foundation maintains the Lesly Award in his honor for outstanding contributions to PR education and research. The Arthur W. Page Society includes Lesly on its founding-figures list. Several generations of senior American PR counselors have learned the field from his Handbook before they learned it from the textbook.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Philip Lesly?
Philip Lesly (1918–1997) was an American public relations counselor who authored Lesly's Handbook of Public Relations and Communications — the field's second foundational textbook — and who founded Philip Lesly Company in Chicago in 1950. The Handbook ran through five editions across forty-eight years and remains the standard practitioner reference of the field. Lesly also edited Managing the Human Climate, the senior-counselor monthly newsletter that ran from the 1960s through the early 1990s.
What is Lesly's Handbook of Public Relations?
The practitioner reference book first published by Prentice-Hall in 1950, two years before Cutlip and Center's Effective Public Relations. The Handbook ran through five editions over forty-eight years. The fifth edition (1998) runs to more than a thousand pages with contributions from more than thirty senior practitioners. The book is on the shelf of every senior corporate communications office in the United States.
What is the difference between Lesly's Handbook and Cutlip-Center's Effective Public Relations?
The Cutlip-Center volume is the introductory textbook — the four-step process model, the academic foundation, the classroom standard. Lesly's Handbook is the practitioner reference — the senior-counselor working manual, the tactical guidance for specific situations. The two volumes operate in parallel as the field's standard texts.
What was Managing the Human Climate?
Lesly's senior-counselor monthly newsletter, published continuously from the 1960s through the early 1990s. Subscribers were the senior PR counsels and the chief communications officers of the major American corporations. The newsletter ran case analyses, framework essays, and Lesly's personal commentary on the senior strategic questions of the field. Selected back issues were republished in book form in 1991.
What is Philip Lesly Company?
The Chicago-based senior-counsel boutique Lesly founded in 1950 and ran through his career. Unlike the large agencies — Hill & Knowlton, Carl Byoir, Edelman — Philip Lesly Company stayed deliberately small, with a handful of senior staff serving a small number of major accounts. The model is the original senior-counsel boutique that subsequent generations have replicated.
Written by
EPR Editorial Team
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
