A Legal Podcast About Legal Podcasting

Episode Notes

Transcript

The Digital Edge

A Legal Podcast About Legal Podcasting

06/25/2020

[Music]

Intro: Welcome to The Digital Edge with Sharon Nelson and Jim Calloway, your hosts, both legal technologists, authors and lecturers invite industry professionals to discuss a new topic related to lawyers and technology. You are listening to Legal Talk Network.

Sharon D. Nelson: Welcome to the 150th edition of The Digital Edge: Lawyers and Technology. We are glad to have you with us. I am Sharon Nelson, President of Sensei Enterprises, an information technology, cybersecurity, and digital forensics firm in Fairfax, Virginia.

Jim Calloway: And I am Jim Calloway, Director of the Oklahoma Bar Association’s Management Assistance Program. Today our topic is ‘A Legal Podcast About Legal Podcasting’.

Sharon D. Nelson: But first thanks to our sponsor Clio. Check out Clio’s Daily Matters podcast for the latest on legal in the COVID-19 era. Listen to Daily Matters at clio.com/daily or subscribe wherever you get your podcast.

We would like to thank Alert Communications for sponsoring this episode. If any law firm is looking for a call, intake or retainer services available 24/7, 365, just call 866-827-5568.

Jim Calloway: We would also like to thank our sponsor The Blackletter Podcast, a show dedicated to making law exciting and fun with informative interviews and advice from esteemed guests.

Thanks to Scorpion. Scorpion is the legal provider of marketing solutions for the legal industry. With nearly 20 years of experience serving attorneys, Scorpion can help you grow your practice. Learn more at scorpionlegal.com.

Well Sharon, a 150 monthly Digital Edge Podcast, that’s a lot by anybody’s measurement, 12 plus years, so we wanted to do something a little special for number 150 and after we reflected on that we decided that we would reach out to some veteran legal podcasters we know to discuss a range of topics related to podcasts by lawyers and for lawyers.

Sharon D. Nelson: Well, I am thrilled to be at this anniversary podcast, that’s great and we were really pleased that we got this line up of seasoned and celebrity professionals. So we do have an all-star panel today. Many of our listeners are familiar with most or all of these experts.

So I am pleased to first introduce Bob Ambrogi, who is a lawyer and journalist, who has been writing and speaking about legal technology and innovation for more than two decades. He writes the award-winning blog LawSites, is a columnist for Above the Law, hosts the podcast about legal innovation LawNext and hosts the weekly news podcast Legaltech Week.

In 2011 Bob was named to the inaugural Fastcase 50 honoring the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries and leaders. In 2017 he received the Yankee Quill Award for Journalism from the Academy of New England Journalists and was honored by the ABA Journal as a Legal Rebels Trailblazer. Thanks for joining us today Bob.

Bob Ambrogi: Thank you for having me and congratulations on this momentous milestone.

Sharon D. Nelson: Thank you.

Jim Calloway: And next we have Joe Patrice. Since 2013 Joe Patrice has been mocking lawyers for their own good at Above the Law. An NYU School of Law grad with stints at Cleary Gottlieb and Lankler Siffert & Wohl, Joe left the exciting world of white-collar defense to provide a dose of humor to America’s legal news coverage.

In addition to covering lawyers, law firms and the legal academy, Joe follows the legal tech field, watching Luddite attorneys have the daily epiphany that there just might be a better way to do all this.

He hosts the podcast Thinking Like a Lawyer which began in 2015 and is hosted by the Legal Talk Network. Thanks for joining us today Joe.

Joe Patrice: Thanks for having me. This is great.

Sharon D. Nelson: And last, but certainly not least, Tom Mighell, who is currently Vice President of Delivery at Contoural, where he helps companies develop comprehensive programs for managing records and information.

Tom is a frequent speaker and writer on technology. His current book is ‘The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together’. Tom served as the chair of two ABA TECHSHOWS in 2008 and co-chair in 2018, and he served as Chair of the ABA’s Law Practice Division in 2011. And of course he is a podcaster. His podcast The Kennedy-Mighell Report was first broadcasted in 2006.

Thank you for joining us today, Tom.

Tom Mighell: Well, thank you Sharon, it’s great to be here and congratulations to both of you on your sesquicentennial contest.

(00:04:50)

Sharon D. Nelson: How can you even say that word, thank you. Well, let me start with Bob.

Bob, we have seen what feels like a podcast Renaissance with many podcasts, some hosted by celebrities, gaining national attention. Today we are going to focus on podcasts hosted by lawyers or targeted for lawyers. So didn’t you co-host one of the earliest legal podcasts, Lawyer 2 Lawyer, and if you — I know the answer is yes.

Tom Mighell: Get that out of the way.

Bob Ambrogi: Never ask a question that you don’t know the answer to.

Sharon D. Nelson: Can you tell us about those early legal podcasts and share a favorite story.

Bob Ambrogi: So yes, I did as a matter of fact host the earliest legal podcast Lawyer 2 Lawyer. That was actually the first Legal Talk Network podcast and we launched that, our first episode was on August 31 of 2005, just not all that much longer before you guys got started with yours. But that was a really interesting time. We were doing a weekly show for a long time.

I left it a couple of years ago and started my other podcast LawNext that I do now, but not to make little of your 150 shows, but by my estimate I did about 600 episodes of that show before I walked away from it, and Craig is still doing it, Craig Williams who is the partner on it.

But I really think the interesting thing was just in the early days nobody had any idea what a podcast was. The very first show we did, one of our guests was Mike Greco, who had just taken office that year as President of the American Bar Association and I knew Mike because he is a Boston lawyer, but he — I am sure he had no idea what was going on. I think he just thought he was on a radio show of some kind, but he was good and he was gracious and it all worked out well.

Sharon D. Nelson: It certainly did. You have been a podcaster for so very long, what revs you up still about podcasts and have you thought about retiring at any point; the correct answer to that last part is I hope a resounding no?

Bob Ambrogi: Yeah, no, I really love podcasting and I don’t see myself giving it up at any time. I just love the opportunity to sit and have one-on-one conversations with interesting people and it’s always just a lot of fun.

Lately I have been doing, and Joe can attest to this, because he is involved with one of them, but lately we have been doing some where we are doing both video and audio, we are kind of recording it as a live event with a live audience and then also putting it out as a podcast, so that’s kind of a variation on it, but it’s a lot of fun.

Jim Calloway: Joe, I want to discuss the impact of being a podcast host on the host. Do you know any stories you would like to share of somebody who got a great job or an important appointment or met their true love because of their podcasting?

Joe Patrice: You know, I wish I could say that that’s — well, I mean one of these days it’s going to turn around for me and I am going to get that high flying job out of it.

No, that’s not totally true. I mean the podcasting I think has a — there is a personality to it that you can’t quite get just across the page and adding that to our media outreach at Above the Law at least has been a huge benefit. It allows people to have a little bit more of a personal connection with us.

And I think it’s not unfair to say that even though they don’t have a podcast, my partner on Thinking Like a Lawyer for the last several years, Elie Mystal, has now left Above the Law because he got a job being a featured columnist with The Nation, which was a huge step up in the media universe for him and a lot of that had to do with his kind of ubiquitous presence and being in the media more than just his own writing, not that — I don’t want to sound like I am knocking him as a writer, he is a great writer, but having that personal connection is huge.

And I think we have seen that a lot with people who have podcasts in all manner of places. Not me per se, but I know that I am a huge podcast fan and I have certainly heard over the years of podcasts that I follow people who now have books that they got published because a publisher reached out to them and they have moved on to bigger and better jobs. And so it definitely is valuable because it helps you build that connection.

Jim Calloway: Joe, how has podcasting changed over time and do you think podcasts are appealing as ever or are growing in appeal; that’s kind of what I think, but what do you think?

Joe Patrice: Yeah, I think the podcast has definitely changed. I think early on, like a lot of technologies and hey, this ties us back to being a technology focused pocket, like a lot of technologies it began trying to emulate something that existed in the pre-podcasting world. I mean it started out as radio shows but on your iPod.

As time has gone on I think people have learned to play with that format a lot more. You see different genres of podcast, but also different formats. Ideas like Serial, which was everything to everybody a few years ago, like that’s the kind of programming that I don’t think you saw in the early days of podcasting, but the realization that you could utilize it as something of a long form to tell a story over time was the sort of natural evolution of this medium.

(00:10:12)

And I definitely think it’s grown in appeal as people are finding different ways to entertain themselves with these different genres and I also think there is not a lot to do right now, right? So you are sitting at home, this is a thing to do to kill some time.

Sharon D. Nelson: I love that answer.

Joe Patrice: I mean what else are you going to do, although I will be honest, I thought podcasting might suffer a dip through this because I worried like — I don’t know about all the rest of you, I listen to podcasts a lot while I commute and that is a thing that the moving from my bedroom to my living room is no longer a long enough commute to get through an episode, but the statistics that I have seen so far suggest that’s not true, that people are really listening more.

Bob Ambrogi: They did dip briefly like when this was first starting, like the end of March, a little bit in early April they dipped a bit, but then it just picked up and I think more people are listening than ever.

Sharon D. Nelson: Well, at least they can listen while they exercise, if they do exercise.

Joe Patrice: Oh, exercise.

Sharon D. Nelson: Yeah, highly overrated, I know. But they are going out and walking, things like that, so I think there is some podcast listening going on.

Tom, let me ask you, you and Dennis Kennedy have hosted The Kennedy-Mighell Report which has been on forever too, which I think everybody must know, but it says on my script that it’s a legal technology podcast but I think everybody knows that. So many people are kind of nervous about starting their own podcast, they have a lot of idea that there is no way they could undertake such a thing, would you have any advice or tips for listeners considering starting a podcast of their own?

Tom Mighell: I think this question kind of flows nicely from Joe’s last answer because I don’t know how many of you have seen this video from an Australian Group and the video is called ‘A Message To Australians During COVID-19’ and I am going to paraphrase a little bit of it. It says we know things are hard right now, but now more than ever it’s time to think about how your choices affect others. So please, please, please don’t start a podcast, just don’t do that. You might feel like it’s a productive use of your time right now, you probably already got a USB mic and a spare room ready to go and your friend Dave has got some interesting opinions, but we are here to tell you, he doesn’t.

And so that’s my first advice, don’t start a podcast just because everybody else is or because you have got some spare time or because you read an article or heard another podcast saying it’s a good way to promote your practice or your business.

It’s the same reason why you don’t want to just go and start a blog, make sure that one, you have got a specific topic or a niche that you want to cover. Two, you know there is an audience out there who is interested in what you have to say, that’s really important these days because there are so many podcasts. And three, that you have got the stamina to go the distance. It’s one thing to try it out two or three times and decide it’s not for you, it’s another to get an audience that comes to rely on you and then you suddenly abandon them after a year or half a year or whatever it is.

Second piece of advice, invest in good quality equipment, a good microphone, good software, know how to use all of it. There is not much worse these days than a podcast that sounds like the host is talking into a speakerphone and there are a lot of those out there.

And then third, I think if you are doing this on your own, we are all very fortunate to have producers or people who make us sound good and work very hard on editing and producing a podcast, but if you are doing this on your own, you either need to learn how to edit and produce it or hire somebody with the knowledge to help you.

Sites like Upwork, you can find people with audio experience that you can hire on a per podcast basis at pretty reasonable prices, so that might be an option for you as well.

But I think that those are three main things that I would think about if starting a podcast is on the cards for you.

Sharon D. Nelson: Well, that’s all great advice. One of the things I wondered is it seems to me almost every venture has some sort of secret sauce. What do you regard as the secret sauce of podcasting?

Tom Mighell: So I don’t know that this is secret, but to me it’s an important sauce. So I will say that to me one of the most important things about podcasting is preparation but making it look like you haven’t prepared. Don’t just wing it. It’s painful to hear people who obviously just turn the microphone on and start talking. Some people are good at it, not everybody is. Don’t assume that you are good at doing that.

Plan out what you want to say, whether it’s a full-blown script, whether it’s an outline of your talking points, that way you won’t mess up, you won’t forget anything, you are not going to stumble around trying to figure out what to say. You have a ground. You have an anchor.

The hard part of that however is making it sound like you are not using a script, making it sound like you are not reading from prepared materials because ultimately you want your podcast to sound like you are having a conversation and like you are just talking to the audience and make it sound as natural as possible.

So I think that’s kind of the real secret to having a good podcast is being prepared to talk about what you need to talk about, but doing so in a way that sounds like you are just saying it right off the tip of your tongue.

(00:15:04)

Joe Patrice: I would say about that that it — from my perspective, I always treated it a lot like depositions, like you know what you want, you have some things prepared as far as questions that you know are stock questions, but then you also recognize that they are going to say something that’s going to change how you go about it, and being flexible, being knowledgeable enough to be flexible.

Tom Mighell: And to go down a different path, yeah.

Joe Patrice: Yeah.

Sharon D. Nelson: That’s a perfect description.

Jim Calloway: That is great and before we move on to our next segment let’s take a quick commercial break.

[Music]

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Sharon D. Nelson: Welcome back to The Digital Edge on the Legal Talk Network. Today our subject is ‘A Legal Podcast About Legal Podcasting’. Our guests are veteran podcasters Bob Ambrogi, Joe Patrice and Tom Mighell.

Jim Calloway: Bob, as a career journalist you have heard many interesting stories from lawyers and the legal technology community for a long time. So in the interest of some objective treatment of this subject, because we are all kind of pro-podcast here, have you heard any podcasting horror stories that you could share for us?

Bob Ambrogi: Well, I am not sure what you mean by horror story, but I had one recently that I considered to be a horror story.

Joe Patrice: You are talking about the show I was on again?

Bob Ambrogi: Yeah, don’t ever have Joe Patrice on your podcast or at least do it well before happy hour, that’s all I can tell you.

No, it was not that one actually, it was one in which I had Justice Deno Himonas, is a Utah Supreme Court Justice, who has been a leader in bringing about regulatory reform efforts in Utah and this was back in October when the Supreme Court of Utah had just kind of ordered these reforms and I had him and John Lund, who is the President of the Utah Bar. And at that point Justice Himonas was in the courthouse, had a lot of difficulty kind of getting the recording session going; what was supposed to be roughly a half an hour recording ended up taking about almost two hours I think, because he had to get a tech person in to get the recording working and this and that and it was quite a thing, but then we ended up having just a great, great conversation.

And that night my son, who helps me with the production on my podcast, he was in the middle of moving his apartment and so as a result of that he had not properly backed up the recording; he had it on his computer, but he didn’t have a backup of it, and he was in the middle of moving in San Francisco and his car got broken into and his computer got stolen and with it went the recording of Justice Himonas and John Lund.

So we kind of hunted around to see if there was some between my own local recording and some other stuff we could reconstruct it, but we decided we couldn’t. So I very sheepishly went back to Justice Himonas and said, never in my 15 years have I ever done this before and I have certainly never done it to a Supreme Court Justice, but I am wondering if I could get you to re-record that episode.

And he was totally gracious about it. We hopped back on and got the show and that was a very embarrassing horror story.

Sharon D. Nelson: Yes, it was.

Bob Ambrogi: We will never not have a backup again though.

Jim Calloway: Well, I am sure it was a fun father-son conversation too Bob.

Bob, as we all know the topics and guests are always a challenge, how do you come up with the best topics and guests, both of which are absolutely critical to the podcasting enterprise?

(00:19:45)

Bob Ambrogi: Well Jim, if I told you that I would have to kill you.

No, I tried it — for the current show I do now, LawNext, I am really just trying to tie it to stories in the news in some ways, people who are perhaps making the news, I mean, I really focus on innovation and technology and law. So I’m watching the news anyway for my blog and I’m always thinking about who would make a good interview about something?

And I mean, just today I interviewed Rebecca Sandefur who’s a sociologist who studies Access to Justice, but the hook for me was that last week there was an announcement about the end of the Limited Licensed Legal Technicians program in Washington State and Rebecca had written and studied that program, so I thought, well, she’d be a great person to get on and talk about it. So it’s really just that.

I will say that when I was involved with the Legal Talk Network for all those years, I had a lot of help particularly from Kate Nutting who was our producer for almost the entirety of all the years we did that show and Kate was great at suggesting guests and suggesting topics and helping to line up the guests, so that was a real team effort there.

Sharon D. Nelson: Well, you’ve certainly done a great job, that’s for sure. So what — however you manage it, you manage it well indeed.

Joe, I’m thinking that being a legal editor at Above the Law might have given you a leg up on the rest of us in terms of ideas. What’s the interplay between your job at Above the Law and your podcast?

Joe Patrice: That I do two full-time jobs without getting paid enough, is what the interplay is.

No, it is interesting. So we have multiple podcast outlets really, I mean, Thinking Like a Lawyer is just one of the ones that we do through Above the Law, and it’s great, because we have all sorts of ideas, not only are there guests coming to us, because we have a pretty big footprint in the legal world and we have columnists like Bob who are — give us cachet with lots of big players who want to be on the show, but we also because we’re your daily repository of lawyer got caught with his pants down stories, we have a lot of things to just talk about in the news.

It’s a nice way for us because only one person can write a story, so when you get one of those really nice juicy embarrass — lawyer embarrasses themselves stories, somebody else wrote it and you kind of want to take your crack at making a few jokes about it. You get to be opportunity on the podcast.

And so we try to mix in a nice and maybe not always perfect balance of the — I’m going to talk to an executive from LexisNexis about their latest offering and then play it off into now we’re going to talk about disciplinary committee, the hearing that’s really funny. So from episode to episode it’s kind of an adventure what you’re going to get, but that’s how we utilize our platform to get our guests and topics for the show.

Sharon D. Nelson: Well, I like those misadventure stories, those are fun.

Joe Patrice: I mean, that’s the bread and butter, right?

Sharon D. Nelson: Exactly, exactly, that’s why they all know Above the Law.

So Joe, I’ve got a two-part question here.

Joe Patrice: Yeah.

Sharon D. Nelson: Does the podcasting format give you a chance to say whatever you want about anything that interests you and is it a lot more fun than being a practicing attorney?

Joe Patrice: Well, it definitely gives us the ability to say whatever we want, which is my Legal Talk Network colleagues will note that, yes, it gives him the ability to talk about what he wants, which is why it’s the only legal podcast with the explicit tag.

But beyond that, yeah, know it’s a huge freedom, not that Above the Law, in fairness above the law gives me a good deal of freedom too. So I don’t know as though podcast, it gave me unique freedom as much as the Above the Law branding did, but it is definitely a lot more fun than being a practicing attorney.

I did that for over a decade and while I certainly enjoyed the law in its ways, I mean, I did a lot of criminal defense work for white-collar clients and my people tended not to be people who were going to go to jail, but they were nonetheless people that you were always nervous about and deep down I cared just a little too much and so I was always nervous about the — I would often represent say like a secretary of an executive who was a witness in something and I was always nervous that like this poor person who has no idea what they were mixed up in, could go to jail, and I was like, ah, that’s terrible. But now I can just make fun of people all the time. It’s so liberating.

Sharon D. Nelson: You went from secondary trauma to enjoying the comedy of life, uh?

Joe Patrice: Oh absolutely, yeah. Well, trauma is always the best entrée to being funny, right? So that’s what all those movies and operas and everything are about. So, yeah, that’s what I have done.

Jim Calloway: Well, moving back to Tom Mighell. Tom, you and Dennis have been podcasting together for a very long time. So let’s talk about the upsides to having a partner, and we don’t need us probably won’t listen, so are there any downsides to having a partner?

Tom Mighell: So what’s funny is, Dennis sent me a link to your blog, Jim, from April 16th of 2006 where you were announcing the first edition of The Kennedy-Mighell Report which was broadcasted on ABA TECHSHOW, so that’s how I knew it was 2006, because you reported on it first.

(00:25:09)

I think that the biggest upside of having a partner is having somebody to talk to. I mean, especially if you don’t have guests on your podcast. I think it’s hard to do a podcast where it’s just you talking, where it’s just you saying things no matter what the topic is, no matter how funny or smart or insightful you happen to be. If you don’t have anybody to react to what you’re saying nobody to bounce your thoughts out of, I think that’s — that would mentally be so exhausting for me.

I think having a partner is a good thing to do, having a co-host or host allows for that interactivity when it makes sense, that conversational style when you’re able to do it, I just think it makes for a better mix.

Another upside is obviously that you can divide and conquer on responsibilities. Dennis and I collaborated on the script, he drafts the first pass, I fill it and refine; I know, Jim and Sharon that probably isn’t a lot different for you, but we’re bouncing ideas off each other all the time and I think that helps to make for better content.

If we talk about downsides, I would say that the downside is you don’t always get to do what you want if you have a partner. Sometimes your co-host is hesitant to have guests on the show when you really want to talk to some guests. Sometimes you want to talk about topics that your co-host isn’t interested in, I’m not going to say that applies to any podcast in particular or podcast co-host in particular, but I will say like any relationship it’s a give-and-take and it’s just part of what the relationship is like. So I would say that the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages.

Jim Calloway: Well, Tom, what are the elements that make your podcast so successful and are they things that you can tell other podcasting people of interest in hosting to emulate?

Tom Mighell: When I saw this question, I really was like how — because I think that success is a matter of interpretation and I don’t necessarily think that our podcast is so successful, but here are ways in which I think that if somebody was to say it was, here are two things that I think that make it that way.

First, we choose topics that we genuinely enjoy talking about. It’s not going to necessarily be some things that our audience wants to hear and maybe that may contribute to — you’re not may not be as successful but we really do find things that we enjoy talking about we could talk about for a long time, which we wind up doing more often than not, and we enjoy learning those aspects of the topic that we might not learn so well.

So doing the research and finding out more about the stuff we’re going to talk about is enjoyable to us, that’s a benefit.

Secondly, I think we both have this — I would call it a bizarre tendency to agree on almost everything. There are times where I’d like to have more give-and-take, where I’d like for there to be, well, I’m not sure I agree with you, Dennis, but it’s weird, we agree on almost everything, and frankly I think that makes the podcast a little bit stronger, because we’re presenting kind of a united front on what we want to talk about, where there are multiple opinions we share those, but if we really have a position on something, I think that having both of us agree, and I think that makes our topics a little bit more impactful.

Bob Ambrogi: It’s funny, Tom, that you say that, because when I started Lawyer 2 Lawyer with Craig Williams way back when, we envisioned that we would always be on opposite sides of every issue, because Craig is kind of a strident Republican and I am not anything near that, and he was West Coast and I was East Coast, we were supposed to somehow be opposites on the same show and we found the same thing. We tended to agree all the time, and fortunately, we’d have guests who didn’t agree, so that would make it a little livelier.

Tom Mighell: It feels weird, but in the end I’m satisfied.

Jim Calloway: Before we move on to our next segment let’s take a quick commercial break.

[Music]

Sharon D. Nelson: The legal industry is undergoing a fundamental transformation and the Daily Matters podcast is here to give you a competitive edge. In Daily Matters Clio CEO Jack Newton interviews prominent legal experts to explore the new normal for law firms and how you can succeed in a work-from-home world. To listen visit clio.com/daily or subscribe to Daily Matters wherever you get your podcasts.

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Sharon D. Nelson: Welcome back to the Digital Edge on the Legal Talk Network. Today our subject is, “A Legal Podcast About Legal Podcasting”.

Our guests are Bob Ambrogi, Joe Patrice, and Tom Mighell.

Bob, those of us on this podcast, excepting me who has a little tiny legal practice, are not in the private practice of law.

(00:29:58)

Now my company, Sensei Enterprises, actually does get a fair amount of business from our podcasts, from papers we write, and from the presentations we give and we track that of course very carefully, but what is your sense about any marketing benefits of podcasting for lawyers, if a lawyer chooses to do a podcast and does it well, does that really result in new clients?

Bob Ambrogi: That’s a difficult question and I don’t really know the answer to it. I mean, I find it hard to believe that a podcast is going to be a significant source of new clients for a lawyer. Obviously, there are a lot of different kinds of podcasts out there and I think lawyers who are doing podcasts about their particular area of law focused on their area of law and focused on a specific audience are going to bring in some business, if somebody were to ask me what’s the best use of my time in bringing in business, is at podcasting or is it say blogging and speaking that sort of thing? I would probably put podcasting at the bottom of that list.

Part of the problem right now with podcasting is that there are — as it was alluded to earlier, is just so many of them out there right now and so if you want to reach an audience and reach a wide audience I am not sure if podcasting is the best way to go about that. Some lawyers do in fact reach quite significant audiences with their podcast, but it’s a struggle to do that. I think start with something like blogging and speaking then use podcasting to help maybe round that out, I mean the advantage is, it lets people hear you and hear your voice and hear your understanding of your topic and unless people consume you, if that’s the right word in places when they otherwise couldn’t when they are driving in their car or out walking or whatever, so there are those kinds of advantages to it. But I don’t think I have ever actually talked to a lawyer who said, yes, I got a client through a podcast.

Sharon D. Nelson: Well, that’s fascinating. I would put it at the bottom but we have talked to people who say they heard of us and then came to us because of podcast, but I would put it on the bottom too.

Bob Ambrogi: Yeah.

Jim Calloway: Well, Joe, we have seen many changes in the evolution of podcasting and in recent months lots of recorded Zoom video chats were posted as podcast, so now that you can easily record a video or audio podcast still relevant important?

Joe Patrice: Well, I mean, I think definitely because who wants to look at all of us who haven’t had haircuts, but I do think that they are still important. I actually weirdly the — and I started seeing this right before the quarantine came down. There were some podcasts that I listened to that started putting up video but they weren’t putting up video where they were like acting like television, it was just video of them hunkered over their microphones and recording a podcast. And for some reason people enjoy watching folks actively not trying to be a visual medium. I don’t know why, but hey.

So I think that certainly appeals to some people and I like the visual stuff, I mean, the work that we are doing, Bob and I and some others are doing on that weekly show, The Legaltech Week show is, it’s fun and it’s nice to see each other and there’s a community there. But I think more people, especially the way that podcasts are consumed while you are commuting, while you are driving, don’t lend themselves so much to the video. So I think that video is another thing and another dimension that people can consume, but I don’t think it makes the audio version any less relevant because of the way in which it’s generally taken in by folks.

Sharon D. Nelson: Tom, even though our listeners are listening somehow, do you have any special tools or tips about the consuming of podcasts how they should do it?

Tom Mighell: I do, and you are right, I think everybody is listening to this somehow, but I find that not many people are using some of the more interesting tools that I think are out there. There’s a bunch of standard ways like Apple Podcast app or a Google Podcast app for those of you who are on iOS or Android. A lot of people who are on iOS are using Overcast. My personal favorite is Pocket Casts because it’s available basically everywhere. I think there are so many different apps that you can download to consume podcasts.

If you are a Spotify user, Spotify has recently made some pretty big moves in podcasting purchasing some of the bigger podcasters out there, and if you have got a Spotify account you can listen to all the podcasts you want for the cost of your subscription. There are some new interesting services that are out there. They are looking to monetize and do different things with podcasting. One is called Luminary that’s a paywall for podcasts, you pay a monthly subscription fee and I think that the benefit of Luminary is you don’t have to listen to ads, I mean, you get to listen to podcasts, but I am not totally sold on that model. There’s a brand-new service that just rolled out, I think probably in the last week or two it’s called Podhero where you pay a subscription price and a percentage of that subscription goes to the creators of the podcast.

(00:35:04)

So it’s a little bit like Patreon but you are paying this one service to distribute your subscription price to other people. My quick rules for finding a good podcast app, make sure that it’s cross-platform so you can listen on any device you want, whether you have got an iPhone or an Android phone or a tablet you want to listen to or Android or Windows, whatever it is that you happen to listen to.

I think another good feature to have is one that syncs across all devices, so that you can stop listening on your phone and pick up on your laptop or other device right where you left off. And then I think that the ability to create your own filters and playlists is important rather than just have a list of the most recent podcasts in your feed, and some of those tools I mentioned have the capabilities, I think that it can be so much more powerful and you can have it a much more enjoyable time of listening to them if you kind of take advantage of some of those features.

Bob Ambrogi: There’s an app that I use sometimes that has a unique feature I think I have seen on any other one, which is an ability to add bookmarks as you are listening to a podcast, so you are like 10 minutes into it and somebody says something and you want to make sure to go back and note that later you are out on a walk or something, you just click a button and it adds a bookmark there. It’s called RadioPublic as the app.

Tom Mighell: See the holy grail there would be to be able to take that clip and post it to your blog or to social media or to something just sort of that little clip of whatever was important and I am waiting for the service they can do that?

Bob Ambrogi: Well there is one that it’s a paid service I maybe can only do it for your own podcasts, maybe not other people’s podcast. Well, you have played around a little bit on Law Next, you can make a little social media of Twitter or Facebook clip like a 30-second clip out of your podcast.

Jim Calloway: Well, gentlemen, this has been a fascinating set of interviews and we knew this would go a little longer than our normal Digital Edge podcast. So, let’s end up with the lightning round. Here’s one question for each of you to answer briefly. What’s a must listen podcast people need to check out right now and why, Bob?

Bob Ambrogi: Well, I was going to be self-serving, I mentioned The Legaltech Week one which we have just started with Joe Patrice and Molly McDonough and a whole bunch of other people doing a weekly roundup of the week’s news, but I won’t mention that one. Instead I am going to mention —

Tom Mighell: Very nicely done, nicely done.

Bob Ambrogi: Instead I am going to mention, Daily Matters, this Clio podcast that sense the sort of the pandemic thing. It existed before the pandemic, but Jack Newton, the CEO of Clio has been doing a daily podcast where he’s had on just a who’s who are fascinating guests every day and it’s really fun to listen to.

Jim Calloway: Joe?

Joe Patrice: Well, I will also not be self-serving and say Thinking Like a Lawyer or The Jabot or the ATL Covid Cast or any of the things that we do because that would be wrong too, and so what I what I will say is I am actually sad because one of my — actually my favorite podcast has been a victim of COVID-19 as it turns out like they got laid off from the company they were at, so it’s not around anymore. So that throws a loop for me. So I guess I will have to drop down to my second favorite thing, which is, I was completely outside of any of the business side stuff. Revolutions is a podcast that I have been listening to, it’s a history podcast, the guy is really good and has been for years. So if people don’t already listen to that I will hype it, because I think it’s a uniquely well done show.

Jim Calloway: And Tom?

Tom Mighell: All right, since you guys have mentioned The Kennedy Mighell Report several times I will not mention it again. Instead what I will do is, my recommendation is a podcast called Rabbit Hole. It’s an eight-episode series from a ‘New York Times’ reporter and it covers the idea that YouTube altering its algorithm to get people to watch what they think that they want to watch next has led to some pretty frightening things in our culture, and it is scary to see where people go and the stuff that’s out there on YouTube.

I think everybody needs to be aware that this stuff is going on and they do a very good job of reporting on it whether you alt-right, alt-left, 00:39:07, PewDiePie or any of those things it’s a very sobering look at how YouTube works and how people are consumed by it.

Sharon D. Nelson: Fascinating. Well, thank you for joining us today, Bob, Joe and Tom, you are all good friends and we enjoy your podcast. They are all marvelous and the reason you guys got picked is because we really pick the people we admired most to our podcasting.

So, we know of course that you are very busy, but we appreciate the fact that you turned out to be court jesters as well, so that was a nice part of the experience. But we do thank all three of you for your time and for some of the invaluable advice that you have tendered to our listeners today. Thank you very much.

Bob Ambrogi: Thanks for having me.

Joe Patrice: Thanks a lot, yeah.

Tom Mighell: Thank you!

Sharon D. Nelson: And that does it for this edition of The Digital Edge Lawyers and Technology; and remember, you can subscribe to all of the editions of this podcast at legaltalknetwork.com or on Apple Podcasts.

(00:40:03)

And if you enjoyed our podcast, please rate us in Apple Podcasts.

Jim Calloway: Thanks for joining us. Goodbye Ms. Sharon.

Sharon D. Nelson: Happy Trails, Cowboy.

[Music]

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