Our Show

Life of the Law’s team of investigative journalists, audio producers, editors, and scholars work as partners in cities around the country to produce bi-weekly feature episodes —  investigative reports, in-studio discussions about all things law, and live storytelling.

You can listen to one or binge-listen to more than 100 episodes of Life of the Law on Panoply, iTunes, Stitcher, and on public radio stations throughout the country. If you want to hear Life of the Law stories on your local public radio station, give the station manager a call or send an email. Stations can purchase the rights to air all episodes of Life of the Law on PRX (Public Radio Exchange).

Subscribe to our podcast and our newsletter, write a review on iTunes and send your comments, ideas for stories, and pitches directly to us at connect@lifeofthelaw.org. If you’re interested in a summer internship or volunteering with out team, send an email to tony@lifeofthelaw.org.

Investigative Reports

Life of the Law’s producers, editors and scholars work in partnership to investigate and publish documentary audio stories about people and their relationship to law.  Life of the Law’s investigative reports have received the 2016 National Edward R. Murrow Award for best documentary,  2016 Green Eyeshades Award for best reporting on the South, and our report Shaken is a finalist for the 2017 Peter Lisagor Award.

New Voices

We also work with emerging journalists throughout the country to develop, co-produce and publish their compelling work about the human stories behind the law — Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, UC Berkeley Journalism School, Pitzer College, Northwestern University’s Medill Justice Project, the San Quentin Prison Report inside San Quentin State Prison and Vanderbilt Law School.

You can find all of our New Voices feature episodes on our website on the dropdown “Listen.” Let us know if you have a story you think would be just right for our New Voices series. Send an email with a link to your audio story to tony@lifeofthelaw.org

In-Studio

Our Bay-Area team members meet up in the studios of KQED in San Francisco to talk about our recent investigative report, the law in the new, and to share an update on our behind the scenes investigations. Our In-Studio team: Tony Gannon, documentary filmmaker and LOTL Senior Producer; Brittny Bottorff, attorney and Chair of LOTL Advisory Board; Osagie Obasogie, scholar and LOTL Advisory Board member.

We’d love to hear from you. Send a review, comment, question, suggestion to us at connect@lifeofthelaw.org.

Live Law

Some stories about the law and how it plays a role in our lives are simply best shared with a live audience. Our producers team up with students, scholars, lawyers, and folks in cities and small towns around the country to co-produce Live Law storytelling events. We announce our upcoming shows in our newsletter, on our Facebook and Twitter pages, and on our Events page.  We’ve been in New York, San Francisco, Albuquerque, Nashville, Baltimore, New Orleans, Seattle, Des Moines, Minneapolis, Brooklyn, and  Washington DC. and most recently, inside San Quentin State Prison. Want to co-produce a Live Law at your university, community center, annual meeting, local coffee shop, conference? connect@lifeofthelaw.org

Pitch a Story

We accept story pitches that explore the law with a curious, critical eye. If you have a compelling audio-rich story, put a pitch together and send it to our team. It doesn’t need to be long – two short graphs are enough — but it must have a strong, central character, first stage reporting (sources, research, national impact, newsworthiness) and must identify scenes that will propel the story and compel us to listen. Before you send your pitch be sure to listen to few of our published reports, so you know what we do. Be sure to include a couple of links to your published work in your first email. Send email to pitches@lifeofthelaw.org.

We also accept original print stories/articles/op-eds. Send us your essay, review, first person story to pitches@lifeofthelaw.org.

Volunteer or Intern with Life of the Law 

Have a few hours in the week you’d like to spend working with our team or possibly pondering a summer internship? We invite you to join our team of editors, producers, reporters in a behind-the-scenes, hands-on experience. Write a brief bio and a note describing what you would most want to do as a team member and send it to  tony@lifeofthelaw.org.

Support Life of the Law with a tax-deductible donation

Life of the Law is a non-profit project of the Tides Center and we’ve received grant support from the Law and Society Association, the Open Society Foundations, the Proteus Fund, the Ford Foundation and the National Science Foundation. We rely on donations and support from our listeners to cover the costs of producing our investigative reports, In-Studio Conversations and LIVE LAW storytelling events. You can make a donation online or write a check, which you can then mail to our national office: Life of the Law, 2001 Fillmore Street, San Francisco, CA 94121

If you would like to become a sustaining benefactor of Life of the Law, or if you are familiar with a foundation that shares a mission with Life of the Law and may want to fund Life of the Law‘s important work, contact Tony Gannon, Life of the Law’s Executive Producer tony@lifeofthelaw.org.

Sponsor an Episode

Life of the Law is published on the Panoply Network of Podcasts from Slate, “connecting sophisticated listeners with top publishers and thinkers.” We offer sponsors of our episodes on-air/host read promotion for your company. Our marketing team members at Panoply are available to help set that up.