How Lawyers Can Podcast Without Running Afoul of Professional Rules
Legal podcasting is one of the most valuable professional content opportunities, and it comes with
one specific challenge that other professions don't face: the professional conduct rules that govern
legal advice.
The good news is that educational legal content — explaining how a legal process works, what
factors are relevant to a category of decision, what the general legal landscape looks like around an issue — is
clearly permissible and highly valued by audiences. The question is how to provide
genuinely useful information without crossing into individual legal advice, and the line is clearer in
practice than it seems.
Educational Content: How To Do it Well: "Here's how commercial lease negotiations typically work
and what clauses are worth focusing on" is educational. "Here's what you should do in your specific
lease situation" is legal advice. The distinction is between explaining general principles and process
versus advising on a specific individual situation.
Lawyers who explain their area of practice clearly and accessibly — how litigation timelines work,
what factors affect settlement decisions, how estate planning documents interact, what triggers a
shareholder dispute — provide enormous value to audiences who have no other source of clear,
trustworthy information on these topics.
The Client Development Math: A lawyer who hosts twenty episodes on commercial real estate
transactions, each explaining a different aspect of the process clearly, is the most knowledgeable-
seeming professional in that space for every listener who finds the podcast. When those listeners
need legal help with a commercial real estate transaction, the podcast host is the obvious first call.
Disclaimer and Consent Practices: Every legal podcast episode should include a clear disclaimer
that the content is educational, not legal advice, and that listeners with specific situations should
consult a lawyer. This is standard practice and doesn't meaningfully undermine the educational
value. It simply frames the content correctly.
