Monday, December 21, 2009
Round-up of Legal Podcasts
On Friday, I posted Legal Podcasts for Your Holiday Travel at Legal Blog Watch, a round-up of law-related podcasts you might want to load onto to your favorite MP3 player before heading out on your holiday travel.Check out that list and add one more: any of the weekly podcasts on international dispute negotiation from the International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution.
Labels: podcast
posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 3:56 PM,
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Monday, August 31, 2009
Guest on Law Technology Now Podcast
Thanks to Monica Bay for inviting me to be a guest on her podcast, Law Technology Now. Also on the program is Jim Calloway, author of Law Practice Tips Blog. Among other things, I discuss the Corporate Counsel program I am chairing in New York on Sept. 21, Social Media: Risks & Rewards. (Tip: listen to the show to find out how to get a discount on registration.)Labels: podcast
posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 2:34 PM,
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Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Producing your own Legal Podcast
Good article from Lawyers USA on producing your own podcast. Includes comments from my Lawyer2Lawyer cohost J. Craig Williams.Labels: Lawyer2Lawyer, podcast
posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 8:54 PM,
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Friday, February 20, 2009
The Secret to a Successful Podcast
First read this. Then read this. Now you know the secret to having a successful podcast.Labels: Lawyer2Lawyer, podcast
posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 12:46 PM,
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Monday, January 19, 2009
New IP Law Podcast Series
With its first program having debuted in October, the Intellectual Property Colloquium is a promising series of monthly podcasts devoted to intellectual property law. The current program features an interview with Paul Michel, chief judge of the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, who talks about patent reform. Here is how the program describes itself:The Intellectual Property Colloquium is an online audio program devoted to intellectual property topics. We aspire to be something like an NPR talk show, but focused on copyrights and patents, and aimed primarily at a legal audience. Our programs are neither lectures nor debates. They are instead conversations, with guests drawn from academia, the entertainment community, the judiciary, and various technology industries.Even better, the show offers CLE credit to lawyers in California, New York, Texas, Illinois and Washington, with other states to come. It is produced in partnership with the UCLA School of Law and sponsored by Loeb & Loeb, LECG and Intellectual Property Symposium. Hat tip to Mass Law Blog for pointing it out.
Labels: podcast
posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 4:53 PM,
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Monday, December 22, 2008
Lawyer2Lawyer Named Best Legal Podcast
For the third year running, Dennis Kennedy's Blawggie Awards have named Lawyer2Lawyer as the best legal podcast. This year, we tied for best with Denise Howell's This Week in Law. Lawyer2Lawyer also won the Blawggie in 2007 and 2006. Lawyer2Lawyer was recently selected as a top legal podcast by the editors of the ABA Journal and is currently in a neck and neck competition for first place in the ABA Journal's readers' poll. (Please vote if you haven't already.)
Here is what Dennis Kennedy said about L2L:
Bob Ambrogi's and Craig Williams' Lawyer2Lawyer Podcast is the longest-running weekly legal podcast and has more than 100 episodes. They cover many legal topics, which is both a plus and a minus, since an episode might stray outside your area of interest. But they generally do a great job of finding broad enough topics and getting excellent guests on leading edge topics.
Labels: Lawyer2Lawyer, podcast
posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 4:19 PM,
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Monday, November 24, 2008
10 Essential Podcasts for Lawyers
[The following column originally appeared in print in September 2008. I am republishing it as part of my continuing effort to maintain an archive of my published columns. Important note: I have not updated this since its original publication. While most of the sites remain as described, some may have changed. All information was current as of the date of original publication.]Podcasts come and podcasts go – and others merely lie fallow. Inconsistency is the curse of podcasting, particularly within the legal field, where lawyers have plenty enough demands on their time without trying to squeeze in a regular broadcast.
Launched with the best of intentions, podcasts often have a short half-life. In fact, when I set out to revisit my 2005 column in which I listed 10 essential podcasts for lawyers, I discovered that five of them had disappeared or gone dormant.
Among the podcasts from my earlier list that are no longer active are Evan Schaeffer's Legal Underground Podcast, last updated in January 2007; Evan Brown's Internet Cases Podcast, last updated in February 2007; and the Supreme Court Watch Podcast (later Justice Watch), last updated in October 2007.
But for every podcast that turned off its mikes, others came along to fill the silence. As I surveyed the current crop of podcasts, I concluded that, within the legal field, podcasting remains alive and well. There are so many worthwhile programs that I had trouble winnowing my list to 10. (As you'll see, I cheated on the numbers to include more than 10 programs).
So herein is my latest set of 10 podcasts I recommend as essential for legal professionals.
1. Legal Talk Network. Here is my first opportunity to cheat – and a self-serving one at that – because LTN hosts not one podcast, but several. They include Law Technology Now, the monthly program hosted by Monica Bay, editor-in-chief of Law Technology News, and Ringler Radio, a show that explores a variety of issues related to personal-injury and tort litigation.
LTN also produces Lawyer2Lawyer, the weekly legal-affairs podcast that I co-host with California lawyer and blogger J. Craig Williams. Now in our fourth year of broadcasting, we feature guests from all over the world and all corners of the legal profession to discuss current issues in the news.
2. Podcasts at Hamline University School of Law. Now my second cheat. What started several years ago as a single podcast called Conversations in Law – a series on law, leadership and legal education – has expanded into an array of podcasts covering law and leadership, health law, public law, Native American law, dispute resolution and intellectual property. Within the Conversations series, programs range from a discussion of feminist jurisprudence to Kenneth Feinberg recalling the many personal stories he heard as administrator of the 9/11 victim compensation fund.
3. ABA podcasts. The ABA provides my third opportunity to cheat, given that its Web domain is host to a variety of podcasts. One that I particularly recommend is the ABA Litigation Podcast, a series highlighting "tips and tactics for the practicing trial lawyer." Another is the ABA CLE Podcast, a series of free CLE programs on various practical and legal issues. Finally, there is the ABA Book Briefs Podcast, which features ABA authors discussing their books and current issues related to their books.
The ABA's Web site is also home to The Digital Edge: Lawyers and Technology, a monthly podcast from two well-regarded practice-management professionals, Sharon D. Nelson, president of Sensei Enterprises, a Fairfax, Va., computer forensics and legal technology company, and Jim Calloway, author of Jim Calloway's Law Practice Tips Blog and director of the Oklahoma Bar Association's Management Assistance Program. The podcast is produced as part of the Law Technology Today e-zine of the ABA's Law Practice Management Section.
4. University of Chicago Law School podcast. This series of podcasts, produced as part of the law school's Faculty Blog, features recordings of lectures and other programs at the school. In one recent episode, legal scholar Adam Samaha discusses the Second Amendment and the Supreme Court's decision in District of Columbia v. Heller. In another, law professors Cass Sunstein and Richard Epstein debate whether conservative voters should support Barack Obama.
5. Law and Disorder. This is produced as both an independent radio program and podcast. With four left-leaning lawyers as its hosts, the show examines issues surrounding civil liberties, privacy and politics. The show is professionally produced and features a range of guests and topics. Recent topics included arrests of protesters during the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., trials at Guantanamo and new FBI guidelines for investigating terrorism.
6. Out-Law. The U.K. law firm Pinsent Masons produces this weekly 10-minute podcast on topics relating to Internet and intellectual property law. The podcast is part of the firm's award-winning Out-Law.com Web site which provides a variety of guides, articles and news stories about the law. Recent episodes of the podcast examined whether database law is bad for business and whether patents and copyrights make innovation impossible.
7. This Week in Law. Don't let the name mislead you into thinking this is a weekly program – a new episode is posted every month or so. Host Denise Howell, a California lawyer and longtime blogger, tackles cutting-edge issues at the intersection of law and technology. Think of it as the McLaughlin Group for cyberlaw. Each show includes a panel of guests – some regulars and some not – who weigh in on such topics as cyber-bullying, cloud computing, blogger liability and domain-name law.
8. Hearsay Culture. This is another show produced both as a podcast and for radio – Stanford University's KZSU-FM. Recorded in cooperation with Stanford's Center for Internet and Society, the show is hosted by Dave Levine, an assistant professor at Charlotte School of Law. Each 50-55 minute program covers issues of law and technology, but not, as the show's Web site says, "from a purely law or geek perspective."
9. International Dispute Negotiation. From the International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution, this series of podcasts – more than 40 episodes as of this writing – focuses on timely and practical topics in dispute resolution, with an emphasis on cross-border commercial conflicts. Among the topics the program has covered are mediating with hard negotiators, detecting lies and concealing emotions, and dealing with arbitrator bias.
10. New Jersey Law Blog. The law firm Stark & Stark offers weekly legal updates in podcast form as part of its blog about New Jersey law. Podcasts feature lawyers from various practices in the firm discussing recent developments in New Jersey and federal law. Although these podcasts are directed more at consumers than other lawyers, I include them here in part because they demonstrate how effectively a law firm can use podcasting as part of its overall marketing and positioning strategy.
With this list as a start, load up your MP3 player (or listen on your computer) and start to explore the world of legal podcasting.
posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 9:54 AM,
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Sunday, October 19, 2008
Nominees Named for PodCast Awards
The final slate of nominees was announced today for the PodCast Awards. I am disappointed to report that Lawyer2Lawyer did not make the cut. At the same time, I am happy to report that one law-related podcast did make the final list, in the education category, Life of Law Student. Voting on the nominees opens Oct. 23 and closes Nov. 6.Labels: podcast
posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 8:34 PM,
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Sunday, October 12, 2008
10 Top Legal Podcasts
Law.com has my column, Ten Legal Podcasts to Keep You Informed, which updates my 2005 column, 10 Essential Podcasts for Lawyers.Labels: podcast
posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 8:18 PM,
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Monday, June 16, 2008
Justice Talking to Go Silent
One of the best law-related podcasts will record its last program June 30. After nine years on the air, Justice Talking, the NPR radio program about law and American life, which is also available as a weekly podcast, has run out of funding. In a post on the program's companion site, Talking Justice, acting executive producer Ingrid Lakey explained that the show and Web site cost almost $1 million annually to produce. "We tried over a three year period to locate the needed funding but had to sunset the program when we failed," she wrote. "If someone found a funder willing to provide a multi-year commitment to the funding needed to produce Justice Talking and our sister website, Justice Learning, we would certainly revisit the decision."On June 23, the show will feature host Margot Adler looking back over some of its more memorable moments. For now, archived shows will remain available through the Web site.
I am not sure when Justice Talking began to be distributed as a podcast, but that may leave our Lawyer2Lawyer podcast, which posted its first episode on Aug. 31, 2005, as the longest consistently running legal podcast.
Labels: Lawyer2Lawyer, podcast
posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 8:06 PM,
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Friday, June 06, 2008
Biz Journal: Lawyers Look to Podcasts for Marketing
The Boston Business Journal today features this piece, Lawyers Looking to Podcasts as Potent Marketing Tool, that highlights our podcast, Lawyer2Lawyer, and the company that produces it, the Legal Talk Network. The reporter who wrote the story, Lisa van der Pool, is interviewed this morning on New England Cable News about lawyer podcasting. The interview is below.
Labels: Lawyer2Lawyer, podcast
posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 3:44 PM,
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Thursday, January 03, 2008
School of Podcasting
[The following column originally appeared in print in October 2006. I am republishing it as part of my continuing effort to maintain an archive of my published columns. Important note: I have not updated this since its original publication. While most of the sites remain as described, some may have changed. All information was current as of the date of original publication.]Have you ever considered a career in the lucrative and rewarding field of legal podcasting? Are you a lawyer who sometimes wears headphones with your pinstripes? Do you ever wish you could send your colleagues your deepest thoughts in digital format? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then the Ambrogi School of Legal Podcasting could be for you.
Many famous legal podcasters are graduates of our school. We can't identify them because, being lawyers, they'd probably sue us. But trust us, several of our graduates are earning six-figure incomes!* (*Although not from podcasting.)
Interested? Send no money now. Instead, take this free, no-obligation course, "Launching Your Career in Legal Podcasting." Ready? Let's get going.
Essential Equipment
To start, you'll need a computer. Not just any computer will do – you'll need one that plays and records sound. If you don't have a computer that meets this requirement, then, let's face it, you're probably a cheapskate who won't ever pay our tuition.
Still with us? OK, you'll also need devices to get the sound into and out of your computer. We call them "microphone" and "headphones." Note that we did not say "speakers." Using headphones prevents feedback and echoes that distort the recording.
Any computer microphone and headset combination will work – the same headsets you use for computer gaming or Internet telephony. In general, USB headsets deliver better sound than those that plug into your computer's microphone and speaker jacks.
For more professional sound, consider a package such as Podcast Factory from M-Audio. For $180, you get a high-quality microphone with desktop stand, a USB audio-interface device with gain and level controls and stereo inputs, and a suite of recording and mixing software.
Hardware all set up? Because so many of our students are incapable of plugging in a microphone, we recommend this five-minute sound test at AudioHelp. It ensures that your microphone and speakers function properly.
Sound Software
OK. With the mike on your desk and headphones on, you look like a pro already. But you're not ready to start yet. Now you need the software that will record your voice to your computer and allow you to edit it.
For this, you want Audacity, a free, open-source program for recording and editing sound. Don't let the price fool you. Audacity has sophisticated editing features that let you trim out unwanted gaps or glitches, weave in music or other sounds, and add special effects such as equalization and reverb. For Apple users, another option is GarageBand.
One feature Audacity lacks is the very one you most want it to have – the ability to record in MP3 format. For this, there is a simple fix, called the LAME MP3 Encoder. You can read all about LAME at http://lame.sourceforge.net. But to quickly add it to Audacity, search "lame" from the Audacity site and you'll find the instructions. Once you've added LAME, you will be able to export Audacity recordings into MP3 format.
For an even more polished sound, you may want additional production software for adding in sound effects, audio tracks, loops and other tricks. The Podcast Factory mentioned above comes with one called Ableton Live Lite 4.
But beware: Before you add music to your podcast, pay attention to licensing and ownership issues. For a safe selection of music for your podcast, visit the PodSafe Music Network.
The secret ingredient that distinguishes a podcast from other Web audio recordings is an RSS feed. This allows your multitudes of fans to subscribe and automatically download new episodes. For the tech-savvy among you who wish to create this feed by hand, a how-to is at AudioFeeds.org. But the simpler route is with software that automates the creation of the RSS feed, such as Podifier or FeedForAll.
Online Podcasting Tools
Now that I've told you about all the software you need, I'll reveal to you that you don't need any of it. Several Web services let you record, store and distribute your podcast online, requiring no special software on your computer. One is Podomatic, a free service that lets you record and syndicate podcasts via your Web browser. Another free service is Odeo Studio, which lets you record audio over the Web or upload files you've recorded on your computer.
Like any broadcast, a podcast is more interesting with a guest. Using voice over Internet, you can interview or have a conversation with someone and record it as a podcast. A popular Internet phone service is Skype. But the Skype software does not allow call recording, so podcasters turn to third-party options that enable Skype recording, such as Pamela and Hot Recorder.
An alternative Internet phone service, Gizmo, directly allows voice recording. Gabcast, lets you record and distribute podcasts using your landline or cellular phone.
There you have it, everything you need to get started. Just add your voice and you're on your way to a successful career in legal podcasting.
posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 8:30 AM,
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Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Monica Bay Launches Legal Tech Podcast
Monica Bay, longtime editor-in-chief of the magazine Law Technology News, launched her own podcast this week, Law Technology Now. (It also has its own site at LawTechnologyNow.com.) Each month, Bay will interview a key expert from the legal technology community about top issues confronting the legal profession. In the first program, she speaks with David Whelan, manager of legal information for the Law Society of Upper Canada, about using RSS to get ahead in your legal practice.The podcast is a joint production of LTN, Law.com and the Legal Talk Network, which also produces my legal-affairs podcast, Lawyer2Lawyer. And, in the full disclosure department, I should note that I have been a columnist for Law Technology News for as long as Bay as been its editor -- roughly a decade.
Labels: podcast
posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 8:51 PM,
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Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Roundtable: Podcasting for Lawyers
The ABA's Law Practice Today features a roundtable discussion of podcasting, Legal Talk Radio on Demand: Podcasting for Lawyers. I am honored to be part of this great panel that also includes podcasters Dennis Kennedy, Sharon Nelson, Jim Calloway, Evan Brown, Denise Howell and Tom Mighell. Special thanks to Dennis for inviting me to participate.
Labels: podcast
posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 4:17 PM,
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Monday, July 02, 2007
Practice Management Pros Launch Podcast
Two well-known practice-management professionals have launched what they plan to be a monthly podcast. Called "The Digital Edge: Lawyers and Technology," it is produced as part of the Law Technology Today e-zine of the ABA's Law Practice Management Section. The first 30-minute episode is up, on the topic Electronic Marketing: Harnessing the Web's Whizbang.Hosting the podcast are Sharon D. Nelson and Jim Calloway. Sharon is president of Sensei Enterprises, a Fairfax, Va., computer forensics and legal technology company, and co-author of two ABA books, The Electronic Evidence and Discovery Handbook: Forms, Checklists and Guidelines
Jim has more about the podcast on his blog.
posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 10:14 PM,
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Thursday, December 14, 2006
BlawgSearch adds multimedia searching
BlawgSearch.com, the new search engine for legal blogs I reported about here last month, has moved from "alpha" to "beta," says its developer Tim Stanley of Justia.com, with the addition of RSS feeds for searches, media icons for audio/video posts and a flash player for audio. Also, several hundred more blogs have been added to the index, with more being added regularly. Better yet, Stanley has launched a companion search tool, Blawgs.fm, for searching for multimedia files such as podcasts on legal blogs. It searches the same blogs that are indexed by BlawgSearch.com, but returns only those that have video or audio media files. It includes a podcast directory and a flash player for listening to the audio files.
posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 8:07 AM,
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Thursday, August 24, 2006
7th Circuit add RSS feeds, podcasts
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals now offers an RSS feed for its opinions and a podcast feed for its oral arguments. Find them both at the court's RSS page. According to The Third Branch, the federal courts newsletter, it is the first federal appeals court to offer RSS feeds.Circuit Executive Collins Fitzpatrick tells The Third Branch:
"I think having the briefs and arguments up on the Web makes for a much better-educated bar. They can listen to arguments, and see what happens. They can be better prepared."Hat tip to Bonnie Shucha at WisBlawg for the pointer.
Labels: podcast
posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 4:31 PM,
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