Lawyer 2 Lawyer

Do authorities have a right to shut down cell phone service in the wake of flash-mob protests? Case in point: Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), after a confrontation in San Francisco’s Civic Center station, sparking protests. Claiming public safety and fear of more protests, BART recently closed various San Francisco stations and disabled wireless reception, enraging passengers. Attorneys and co-hosts Bob Ambrogi and J. Craig Williams welcome Attorney Marvin Ammori, Visiting Scholar at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet & Society and Gene Policinski, Executive Director of the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, to take a look at this new challenge to public safety and balancing First Amendment rights.

Coming off the heels of an NFL Lockout, the NBA officially locked out its players on July 1, 2011, when players and owners failed to agree on a new contract. Then, the NBA filed two claims against the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) before union players could file an anti-trust lawsuit against them. Attorneys and co-hosts Bob Ambrogi and J. Craig Williams welcome Professor Daniel E. Lazaroff, Director of the Loyola Sports Law Institute and Professor Gabriel A. Feldman, Director of the Tulane Sports Law Program, to discuss the legal and business issues surrounding the lockout. They take a look at the impact of the lockout on players, employees and fans and the fate of the 2011-2012 season.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission better known as the EEOC held a hearing last month to examine arrest and conviction records as a hiring barrier. The question today is whether employers’ hiring practices today can be considered discriminatory. Attorney and co-host Bob Ambrogi welcomes Attorney Charles H. Kaplan, a partner in Sedgwick LLP’s New York office, Attorney Maurice Emsellem, Policy Co-Director of the National Employment Law Project and Attorney Ray P. McClain, Director of the Employment Discrimination Project from the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, to explore the debate over background checks and applicants. They look at the process of conducting criminal background checks on applicants, the responsibility of employers when hiring and how the hiring process can impact those with criminal histories.

2011 has been a year filled with devastating disasters from a record number of deadly tornadoes in the U.S., including Alabama, Missouri, and Massachusetts to the earthquake and tsunami that ravaged Fukushima, Japan. Hear attorneys and co-hosts Bob Ambrogi and J. Craig Williams on Lawyer2Lawyer talk with Attorney Randy J. Aliment, Chair-Elect of the American Bar Association's Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section (TIPS) and Attorney Dennis D. Palmer from the law firm Polsinelli Shughart out of Kansas City, Missouri, about the legal issues that victims can face, disaster preparedness and how lawyers deploy to help those affected.

Media giant, Rupert Murdoch and his now defunct British tabloid, News of the World, are under fire over reports that journalists allegedly hacked into individuals’ phones and allegedly took part in police bribery in a quest to get inside information. Hear Mike Koehler, Assistant Professor of Business Law at Butler University and Jane E. Kirtley, the Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota, talk with Lawyer2Lawyer co-host, Bob Ambrogi, about the legal issues including charges, privacy rights, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the scandal’s impact on journalism and the fate of the Murdoch news empire.

Where do lawyers stand on the issues of advertising and ethics, especially when online technology is in the picture? Hear Andrew Perlman, the Chief Reporter for the American Bar Association’s Commission on Ethics 20/20 and Nathan Darling, the 2010 President of the Legal Marketing Association (LMA), talk with Lawyer2Lawyer co-host, J. Craig Williams to spotlight the ABA's Commission on Ethics 20/20’s preliminary issue paper about restrictions on lawyers’ use of technology for marketing and advertising, reaction to the proposed rule changes and what this all means in reality.

When the North Carolina General Assembly passed the Racial Justice Act in 2009, it guaranteed that no individual would be put to death because of racial bias within the state’s justice system. Since then, there’s been a battle in the North Carolina legislature to repeal it. What’s behind this debate? Some say clogged courts and unfounded claims by death row inmates. Attorneys and co-hosts Bob Ambrogi and J. Craig Williams, along with Cassandra Stubbs, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Capital Punishment Project and James E. Coleman Jr., the John S. Bradway Professor of Law at Duke University Law School and Co-director of Duke's Wrongful Convictions Clinic, take a look inside the issues. They explore the great debate, the repeal and what this means for inmates on death row.

One of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted and infamous Boston gangster, James "Whitey" Bulger, is captured. Now the epic legal case begins. Attorney and co-host J. Craig Williams is joined by guests, F. Lee Bailey, famed defense attorney and best-selling author, Dan Rea, long-time TV and radio journalist and lawyer from Boston and David E. Frank, Managing Editor from Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, to get inside this incredible story and unfolding legal case. They discuss the prosecution’s case against 81-year old Whitey Bulger and his long-time girlfriend, Catherine Greig, who eluded capture for more than 16 years, as well as the type of defense we should expect to see and the ultimate fate of the notorious crime boss.

With tuition costs for traditional law schools rising and law students struggling to pay off debt, online legal education can be an alternative for some. Attorneys and co-hosts Bob Ambrogi and J. Craig Williams welcome Ellen Murphy, the Program Director for Concord Law School’s Small Business Practice LLM and Attorney Ross E. Mitchell, a graduate of Concord Law School of Kaplan University, to get an inside look at an online legal education. They talk about the online process, interaction, accreditation and what the future holds for online legal education.

Former presidential candidate John Edwards was recently indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiracy, allegedly accepting campaign contributions to cover-up the extramarital affair with his former aide, Rielle Hunter. Did John Edwards violate federal election law? Or is this a campaign ethics violation? Attorneys and co-host J. Craig Williams welcome Peter J. Henning, Professor at Wayne State University Law School and Professor Richard L. Hasen, a nationally-recognized expert in election law and campaign finance regulation from the University of California, Irvine School of Law, to discuss the charges and how the prosecution and defense will handle this controversial legal case.