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Media Law Training
For Attorneys
ProJourn’s training for attorneys entails our onboarding training, our on-the-job training that operates under our two-in-a-box model, and our ProJourn Incubator.
Onboarding training
When you sign up to volunteer with ProJourn, you will obtain access to a series of onboarding training materials. Our onboarding training includes CLE-accredited programming geared towards attorneys with little to no media law experience. Mindful of our volunteer attorneys’ busy schedules, we provide on-demand videos and additional materials that can perused during free time.
These programs are tailored to grow as attorneys learn more about these practice areas while allowing room for new attorneys to come on board.
ProJourn will also enable law firms and corporate partners to involve non-attorney staff, who are so crucial to this pro bono work.
The two-in-a-box model
The two-in-a-box model is ProJourn’s cornerstone.
We bring together teams of seasoned media and non-media attorneys — either corporate in-house counsel or law firm attorneys — to grow the number of attorneys equipped to help journalists with two of their most critical editorial legal needs: pre-publication review and access to public records.
“Our two-in-a-box model allows lawyers to do more than assist. It’s like learning painting from a master, one who hands the paintbrush back and forth to you as you paint together vs. hoping to learn by watching them from afar, or painting by numbers.”
Sima Sarrafan, assistant general counsel, Microsoft
The purpose of the two-in-a-box model is to teach in real-time, by enabling an attorney with expertise in First Amendment and media law to train a lawyer willing to learn alongside them. This allows the pair to work together as they provide guidance to the journalist client. Our model is predicated on the requirement that the attorney being trained, regardless of prior training or skills, has taken relevant modules of the in-depth training we developed with our partners.
We know that foundational training is necessary but often not sufficient. This approach allows attorneys to build on their training by watching from the best and enables us to optimize enlisting and engaging the most attorneys the most quickly; at a time when there is a dearth of attorneys able to help journalists in need. As ProJourn’s mission seeks to narrow the gap between the demand for attorneys trained to support journalists and the supply of those able to do this work, our model underscores this goal.
We started ProJourn with our two-in-a-box model focused on in-house counsel being trained by law firm attorneys with expertise in First Amendment and media law. Our success in that paradigm led us to extend it to other models where a law firm attorney with such expertise trains a law firm attorney seeking to learn. We strive to apply this model wherever immediate training is needed to increase the bench of available attorneys with the practical skills needed to support journalists. This model gave birth to the ProJourn’s incubator, described below.
ProJourn Incubator
The ProJourn incubator was created to further achieve our mission i.e., increase the number of attorneys, in both English and Spanish, who can assist with pre-publication review by providing these attorneys with a deep-dive introduction to this area of law.
Pre-publication review remains the most common need journalists who come to us have. Pre-publication requires substantial training, in addition to the on-the-job training that our pro bono opportunities provide volunteer attorneys with.
To help address the lack of seasoned media attorneys able to assist clients with pre-publication review, we launched in 2024 a new initiative: the ProJourn Incubator.
“ProJourn’s Incubator educates attorneys about the law, but also how to work with their clients to enable them to tell stories that need to be told.”
Jeff Hermes, Deputy Director, Media Law Resource Center
