This spring, Fordham Law’s Corporate Law Center launched Bite-Sized Business Law, a new podcast that promises to “tackle big issues in small doses” through interviews with corporate attorneys, industry experts, public figures, and business law scholars.
The podcast, hosted by Amy Martella, executive director of the Corporate Law Center, has already released nine episodes, on topics including crypto bankruptcies, SPACs, and the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.
To celebrate the launch, the Center hosted a live recording of the podcast on March 22, with guests Adrian Chopin, co-founder and managing director of Bench Walk Advisors, and Stephen Younger, former New York State Bar president and senior counsel at Nixon Peabody. Martella, along with Professor and Corporate Law Center Faculty Director Richard Squire, led the guests through a discussion on the controversial topic of third-party, non-lawyer ownership of law firms.
The podcast is just one part of Martella’s “new vision” for the Center. “I joined the Corporate Law Center in the fall, and I really want to move it forward,” she said. After a discussion with Professor Squire, the two decided to use tools like social media and podcasts to reach an even larger audience.
Martella feels confident that the podcast will serve as a vehicle for the Center’s work and help educate the public on current trends in business law. “I hope students will like it, and I hope that alumni will listen, as well as lawyers and practitioners, business leaders—anyone, even if you’re not in the business world,” she said. “These topics are all over the headlines these days. So, if you’ve ever opened a newspaper and asked yourself, ‘What’s a SPAC?,’ you can tune in and learn all about it.”
Martella also sees the podcast as a way to extend Fordham Law’s impact in the field. Noting the Law School’s “wonderful reputation in business and corporate law,” she believes new forms of technology and media like podcasting can make sharing knowledge easier and more accessible.
“If you can’t make it to see one of our fabulous guest lectures because you live in Utah, you can tune into the podcast and hear some pretty impressive people speaking about issues that are important to you,” said Martella. “You don’t have to be an expert or a business leader to care about what’s happening in corporate America and you shouldn’t have to be a lawyer or a law student to understand and benefit from the topics that we’re going to be discussing.”