This Week in Legal Blogging

Ep. 063 Yevgen Poltenko on the situation in Ukraine and how people can help the Legal Development Network

Yevgen Poltenko serves as the executive director of the Legal Development Network, an association of community-based non-governmental organizations that promotes people-centered justice in Ukraine. He joins Bob Ambrogi on This Week in Legal Blogging to discuss the organization’s efforts to assist Ukrainians amidst the Russian invasion of their country. You can donate directly to the organization here.

Ep. 062 Dean Michael Hunter Schwartz on the success of McGeorge Law Today

When University of the Pacific - McGeorge School of Law launched McGeorge Law Today in September of 2021, it became the first law school to have a LexBlog Syndication Portal. Pulling together blogs, podcasts and more, this Portal is home to insights from McGeorge faculty, staff and alumni. As we approach the half-year mark of the initiative’s launch, Dean of the law school Michael Hunter Schwartz joins Bob Ambrogi on This Week in Legal Blogging to discuss the project. The pair also discuss the state of legal academia at large and Schwartz’s own blog, What Great Law Schools Do.

Ep. 061 Philip Segal on ethical fact-finding and how he successfully manages two blogs

Philip Segal finds the facts that most lawyers aren’t trained to find and does so with an unwavering commitment to ethics. Along with being the founder of Charles Griffin Intelligence, Segal is the founder of not one, but two blogs: The Ethical Investigator and The Divorce Assest Hunter. He joins Bob Ambrogi on This Week in Legal Blogging to chart his path from journalism to law and eventually law blogging.

Ep. 060 Megan Baroni on the power of an interdisciplinary blog to cater to a niche clientele

Much like the practice group that runs it, Robinson+Cole’s Manufacturing Law Blog covers the key areas of law relevant to manufacturers and does so in expert fashion. As an environmental lawyer, Megan Baroni brings her expertise from this specific area of law to both clients and to the blog posts she writes. She joins Bob Ambrogi on This Week in Legal Blogging and shares how this interdisciplinary approach to blogging has helped her and her colleagues establish themselves as thought-leaders within the manufacturing legal space.

Ep. 059 Long-time ‘appellate nerd’ Ben Shatz on keeping your passion for blogging alive

Ben Shatz, the Co-Chair of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips Appellate Practice Group, has one of the more unique origin stories in legal blogging. His publication, Southern California Appellate News was not an intentional marketing effort on his or his firm’s part, but rather a passing of a torch. The blog was originally founded in June of 2010 by an Orange County Court of Appeals research attorney Nathan Scott. After blogging for a few years, Scott was appointed to the bench in 2013 and selected Shatz to be his successor and carry on the blog. While it still retains its same classic look and charm, Shatz has grown the blog and its audience over what has now been almost a decade. He joins Bob Ambrogi on This Week in Legal Blogging and shares his thoughts on blogging and his efforts to foster a community.

Ep. 058 Jodi Daniels on the role blogging plays in her content marketing strategy

Through a mix of blogging, podcasting, social media and more, Jodi Daniels has propelled her boutique data privacy consultancy to new heights. As the Founder and CEO of Red Clover Advisors, Daniels has employed a unique and highly effective content marketing strategy that allows her to share her deep knowledge of data privacy with prospective clients, earn their trust and build real and meaningful relationships with them. She joins Bob Ambrogi on This Week in Legal Blogging and shares her entrepreneurial story and the advice she has for others.

Ep. 057 The Marshall Project’s Susan Chira on local journalism and the U.S. justice system

The Marshall Project—named in honor of former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall—is a nonprofit news outlet devoted to covering the U.S. criminal justice system. The organization focuses on deep investigative reporting which has earned it two Pulitzer Prizes since it launched in 2014. Susan Chira became the Editor-in-Chief of The Marshall Project after a successful career at The New York Times. She joins Bob Ambrogi on This Week in Legal Blogging to discuss The Marshall Project’s newest initiative in Cleveland, Ohio.

Ep. 056 How sports writing influenced Lindsay Brandon’s career path and the work she is doing with Women in Sports Law

Lindsay Brandon says you can credit both blogging and Seattle sports to starting her on her career path in sports law. As a writer she focused much of her effort on covering the intersection of sports, social justice and the law and is now a practicing associate at the Law Offices of Howard L. Jacobs—a firm that primarily represents Olympic athletes in administrative proceedings. Along with that, she serves on Women in Sports Law’s (WISLaw) Communications Committee. She joins Bob Ambrogi on This Week in Legal Blogging to discuss her career path and the initiatives she and the members of WISLaw are working on.

Ep. 055: Eric Fader on his push to launch Rivkin Rounds and how it has paid off for him and his firm

Eric Fader has been blogging since 2012, but when he joined Rivkin Radler in 2018 he needed to prove to his new firm just how effective law blogs are. He told those at the firm if they started a new blog it would not fail under his watch. That turned out to be an understatement as Fader’s blog, Rivkin Rounds has been a resounding success—so much so that it has now moved off of the firm’s website and onto its own site on the LexBlog platform. He joins Bob Ambrogi on This Week in Legal Blogging to discuss his blog’s journey and how it became the place for “your prescribed dose of health law news.”

Ep. 054: Michael Ryan on the importance of bringing a ‘human touch’ to law blogging

Just over two years ago, Jaspan Schlesinger LLP decided they wanted to expand their media presence by launching blogs. Michael Ryan decided he wanted in. He volunteered to start The New York Trusts & Estates Blog, but knew from the start that he wanted to do things a little differently. Ryan is of counsel to Jaspan Schlesinger and chairs the firm’s trusts and estates and estate litigation practice groups. He joins Bob Ambrogi on This Week in Legal Blogging to explain why he infuses his blog posts with stories about jazz legends like Charlie Parker and playwrights such as Shakespeare and why this element of ’human touch’ serves to set his blog posts apart.