Originally posted Wednesday, October 3, 2018 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
Not long after former radio host Mo Ivory lost her bid to become a Atlanta City Council woman last year, she landed a new job at Georgia State University's law school.
She is now a professor there and runs the Entertainment, Sports and Media Law Initiative. With the rapid growth in film and TV production in Georgia, there is also a need for good legal representation at all levels of the business and this provides a way to build that legal talent locally, Ivory said.
Ivory, a long-time attorney who hosted her own show on talk station WAOK and worked for a time with V-103's morning show when Ryan Cameron hosted, said she ran into the law school dean Wendy F. Hensel at a lawyer education class in March. They talked. Ivory ended up with the job in May. "That's how all my opportunities in my life happen," she said. "Just be prepared for the moment!"
They are hosting a day-long legal conference Saturday, October 13 to teach legal basics for entertainers, athletes and others in the entertainment world. (You can register here.)
Among the participants: Atlanta Falcons president Rich McKay, "The Walking Dead" executive producer Tom Luse, her former radio co-host Frank Ski (who she worked with in D.C.) and rap legend and actor Ludacris.
Ivory said it wasn’t difficult to convince Ludacris to show up. “He’s a very scholarly artist,” she said. “He’s very smart. He attended Georgia State before he became an artist. He was very amenable.”
Topics at the conference will include protecting intellectual property, the legal implications of emerging technologies and setting up your own entertainment business.
Her new job, she said, intersects many of her interests, especially law, entertainment and education. The conference is “a melding of my relationships and connections in the legal and entertainment world.”
She added that she “always felt like radio was an extension of my love of teaching.”
She is now teaching both entertainment law and mass media and communication law and she is helping the school create a certificate concentration in entertainment law.
Ivory is a loyal Democrat and is supporting Stacey Abrams for governor.
“She is my Spelman sister who is perfectly suited for the job,” she said. “I do think there will be an uptick in voting in Georgia for her. I encourage people to find out information, join and volunteer and go with the candidate that works the best for them. For me, that’s Stacey.”
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