The Canadian Legal Podcasting Report
How Lawyers and Legal Professionals are using Podcasts in Canada.
Introduction to the Canadian Legal Podcasting Report
Lawyers and Legal professionals have always been some of our favourite clients here at One Stone Creative. Over the years we’ve worked with a great number of them and produced some very interesting shows that did good work for the firms.
They’ve always been based out of the United States, however. In all of the referrals and inquiries we get, we haven’t seen many Canadian lawyers exploring how podcasting might benefit them.
So why is that?
We know that Canadians are listening to podcasts – 46% of them in fact. (Source: Canadian Podcast Listener 2025) So why are Canadian lawyers so hard to find in the podcasting space?
Back in 2020 we had similar questions about podcasting for business owners in general. There wasn’t great data available about how they were using podcasts as marketing tools.
Having a few motivated team members and access to the internet, we decided to do some research, and started publishing the annual State of Business Podcasting Report.
Since we noticed a real gap in the Canadian legal space, we decided to apply a similar treatment. This report is the result.
Report Methodology
The Canadian Legal Podcasting Report is strictly observational. All of the data you’ll find here is what could be viewed from the outside by anyone.
In April 2026, we consulted a list of top legal podcasts in Canada and lightly curated it to remove duplicate producers, shows that have not released content this year, and shows not produced by lawyers, legal institutions, or commentators.
Because this data is observational, we occasionally made judgment calls about strategy or intent based on our experience in production, and will note when this is the case.
Where relevant, we also evaluate the against the Business Podcast Blueprints framework, our methodology for designing podcasts that create specific business outcomes, and against the findings from our annual State of Business Podcasting Report, which examines the top 100 business podcasts in over more than 70 criteria.
We make no warranties for accuracy or completeness. It is entirely possible that we mere podcast producers may miss or misread something from time to time.
This data is interesting and informative, but not prescriptive. Use it to inform and inspire your strategy, but always make decisions based on your own specific needs and circumstances.
Hosts and Focus
In this section we’re looking at who is creating these podcasts, and who they seem to be targeted towards.
Publisher
We started by looking at who is publishing these podcasts. An Institution (including society’s and associations), a Firm, or Solo (an individual practioner). When the show seemed to be spearheaded by one individual who is a member of a firm, but the firm is not front and center in the branding, we called that Solo.
There was an even split between Solo, and Firm/Institution published shows, which indicates that individual attorneys see value in creating this kind of content.
Host Credentials
Host credentials looks at, essentially, the job title of the host. Several of the shows we looked at have multiple, rotating or regularly changing hosts, and many hosts have multiple titles!
Almost all of the shows had at least one practicing lawyer as a host, and other job titles we saw included directors, mediators, specialists, justices, professors, and journalists. When we looked at the guest lists, the range expanded even more.
From the data, it looks like people at all levels of legal practice have insights they are interested in sharing through podcasting.
Area of Focus
Area of focus is the main topic the podcast addresses. Many shows dicuss many things, so we looked at descriptions and a variety of episodes to determine the most common.
The categories we identified are:
Topical – about the specific area of the law the firm specailizes in, like family, estate, personal injury etc. There was very little overlap!
Profession – these are shows primarily about practicing law, and how to do it well.
Policy – these shows discuss current, past and changing policy in different areas of Canadian law.
Legal Professionals – these shows highlight different lawyers and other legal professionals, typicalyy through interviews.
Commentary – these are shows that comment on and/or analyze news, technology and judgments.
Audience Orientation
This section is all about who the podcasts are geared towards. This speaks to the purpose of the show: what impact is it trying to make for the person or organization creating it, and for the listeners.
Public means we determined a show was designed to be of interest the world at large about the topic of the show.
Legal Community means the show is meant to be for other memebrs of the legal community.
Individuals means that the show addresses specific situations that a person might find themselves in that the publisher could help them with.
Geographic Orientation
Since this is the Canadian Legal Podcasting report, we took a look at the regional focus for the shows.
The results were somewhat surprising. 20% were global in focus, not addressing the Canadian legal landscape specifically. Another 20% had a strong provincial focus, and the rest deal with Canada as a whole.
This was surprising because the potential benefits from a marketing perspective for strongly localized legal podcast are massive, but as of yet, there are not a lot of players in that space – at least that we were able to determine so far.
Strategy and Goals
In this section we’re looking at what the pdocasts seem to be trying to acheive.
Business Podcast Blueprint
The Business Podcast Blueprints are 5 high-level archetypes that describe the main purpose of a podcast. Very quickly, they are:
- Audience Engagement – Shows designed connect with, nurture and educate an existing audience.
- Relationship Building – Shows desgined to build relationships on a one to one basis.
- Thought Leadership – Shows designed to establish the publisher as an authority.
- Conversion – Shows designed to help change the listener from one type of relationship to another.
- Content – Shows designed to create content to be used and repurposed outside of the show.
To make our determination about which of the Blueprints each show was following, we looked at things like the format, presentation, calls to action, branding and presentaiton. Based on what we saw, we asked: if we’d produced this show, which Blueprint would have led to these decisions? And that is the Blueprint we assigned it. To be very clear – this is an outside, retroactive analysis. We were not in the room planning these shows, and we could be wrong about their ultimate purpose.
That said – here is what we saw:
Audience Engagement
55%
Thought Leadership
35%
Relationship Building
10%
Audience Engagement was, by a significant amount, the most common Blueprint we say. This tracks back to the audience orientation quite well – shows that serve to educate the general public and those designed to nurture and educate potential clients are both Audience Engagement goals. This also tracks with what we see in the State of Business Podcasting Report, last year we saw 48% of the shows using that Blueprint.
Thought Leadership was the next most popular, and as a strategy for a law firm, it makes sense to enhance the prestige of the host or hosts. Relationship Building was also on the list, where it seemed like the main purpose of the show was the opportunity for the host to conenct with guests. There were none that seemed to be focused on Conversion or strictly content.
It’s important to note that the Blueprint is not the only benefit that an organization gets when they podcast – there are many – this is just our method of establishing the key strategic focus of a show.
Main Call to Action
The Call to Action is what the host asks the listeners to do at the end of an episode.
We look at this because it’s another hint as to the strategic purpose of the show.
The biggest takeaway from looking at these results is that, largely, Canadian legal podcasters are in this to teach, inform, and help without directly asking for too much.
Only 20% of the shows specifically asked listeners to book a consultation (or some equivalent), but 50% asked for some other kind of connection, either through the podcast players, by sharing the episode, or connecting through a website or social media. Downright friendly.
Not that there is anything wrong with making a consultation or discovery call available! In fact, for most firms -we’d recommend it.
A full 30% of shows made no specific call to action at all.
Sponsorship
When we look at sponsorship in podcasts, we’re looking at a few different kinds: traditional sponsorship where specific brands are mentioned by the hosts, advertising, where there are dynamically inserted ads at different points in the podcast, and ‘Presentation’ where the show is presented by an organization or company.
In the shows we examined, none had advertising or traditional sponsorship, and three had ‘presented by’ language – all referring to the organisation who owns the podcast.
Apple Category
Apple category is not something we would normally look at in a podcasting report, other than using it to help find the podcasts that we wanted to evaluate.
For legal podcasts, however, it’s a little different, becasue there is no legal podcasting category on Apple.
This means that the category the publisher ended up choosing is a hint towards the purpose of the show.
We don’t know exactly why these shows chose the categories they did, but business is often selected when the clients of the firm or audience of the organization is other business owners. Education makes sense when the goal is Audience engagement. How-To is an interesting one – it indicates that the show is designed to teach people how to do specific things, which can be a powerful marketing angle for a podcast.
Show Age
Looking at the age of podcasts, or how long they have been in production, is quite interesting.
As we’ve made clear, we don’t know the internal strategic decisions that went into starting a show.
But if it has been going on for years and years, we can be reasonably sure that whatever it is – it’s working.
Or the host really likes podcasting.
The benefits of podcasting increase over time – more relationships, more content, more community, so the longer a show is in production, the more valuable it can become as an asset.
Format and Production
In this section we’re looking at how the shows are constructed and produced.
Show Format
What format a podcast should be is one of the very first decisions you make when planning a podcast, and that choice should be dictated by what you want to acheive. You’re not going to build much authority if you’re spending all of your airtime highlighting your guests, and you’re not going to build many relationships with a solo show.
Interview shows are the most popular format for Canadian legal podcasts, making up 50% of the total. We see this for business podcsats as well, 49% were simple interview shows in our most recent report. Interview shows provide a good mix of benefits, networking and relationship building, content, and if they are structured well, can also help create authority and share IP. (Usually through intros and outros, or by alternating interviews with solo content.)
Interestingly, co-hosted shows are more popular for legal shows here than for business shows – 30% are co-hosted compared to only 13% in the business landscape. Co-Hosted shows work particularly well for firms with multiple partners or associates who need to build relationships with the community.
Solo shows, which are best for establishing topical authority, and for nurturing leads/sales enablement made up the final 20% of shows.
Editing Style
Editing style refers to the type of post production that is done after a show is recorded and before it is released.
We use three categories: Minimal, Hygiene and Editorial.
Minimally edited shows sound like they have been left largely un-treated – there may be some background noise or echo, and it is delivered pretty much ‘out of the box’ from the recording session.
Shows with hygiene editing have been produced to improve sound, balance voices, remove errors and maybe even move content around structurally.
Editorial shows use additional elements of sound design (outside of the beginning and ending) and may use media from different sources to comprise a single episode.
Something to keep in mind is that really good editors are going to make a highly produced show that took a huge amount of time and effort to create sound like it was recorded off the cuff by brilliant people and fed directly into your ears. We cannot know for sure what editing styles and strategy were used – we’re going by what it sounded like, and this is our interpretation. 🙂
Episode Length
Lawyers have a bit of a reputation for enjoying the sound of their own voices, and of course, being able to speak well at length is a job requirement for many.
So you might be surprised to learn that compared to business podcasts, legal podcasts are shorter on average.
The average length of a show we looked at for this report was 32 minutes long. By contrast the average length of a business podcast is around 44 minutes.
Podcasts should be as long as they need to be to get the job of each episode done, and we usually see that solo episodes are shorter, and interviews or co-host conversations are longer.
Opening Style
How a podcast starts is pretty important. You have about 30 seconds on the to convince someone they should keep listening.
The styles of opening we looked at were:
Produced Intro – this is a standard opening with music and voice over (by the host or someone else) that is the same for every episode. Sometimes this includes organization information or a disclaimer. THis is the strongest branding play.
Live with Music – in this style of opening the host is creating new welcome content for each episode, and there is music layed under thier voice – this is a nice way to keep things fresh while still sounding polished.
Just Music – in this opening there is no speaking opening or introducing the show – the host begins the content as the music ends.
Just Starts – some podcasts just jump right into the content without any delay! These shows started with the main content of the episode and very little or no opening material. This isn’t normally best practice, but it can work out just fine if you know your audience very well – and they know you!
Closing Style
We also looked at how shows end, using the same critera.
At the end of a podcast, the elements are the same as at the beginning, but the purpose of them is different. Here is usually when you can make your biggest ask of your listeners, supporting you on social media, booking a call, or anything else we saw in the main CTA section.
Produced outros, with a standard voice over and music were the most popular. This is a polished and professional choice – it really makes a poacst sound like a podcast. Live with music can be a good option when you have different things you’re looking for people to do, or different things you want to promote.
Just music is a simple option, and if your goal is to educate above anything else, you might not need anything more.
Content and Presentation
In this section we’re looking at the elements that surround a podcast,and how they are
presented on company and organization websites.
Episode Title Style
Titles are what sell your episode to the listener.
And they need to get to the point quickly – there are lots of podcast episodes for people to listen to, and so you want to make a good case in a few words for why someone should press play. There are myriad episode title conventions, so we looked at the specific elements of titles:
Hooks – an exciting, attention getting statement, like: “Critical new ruling changes the game.” The cynical would call them clickbaity. The marketers would, grudgingly, call them effective.
Description – a straightforward description of the content, like: “This happened and impacted a group of people.” Without anything too colourful.
WWH – what, why, how – titles formatted as how-to, asking a question, and framing the title as the answer to a questionn. For example: “how to prepare for your hearing without losing sleep.”
Guest Names – often, podcsts with guests will include their name (and typically somethign else like a hook or description) in the title.
Episode Numbers – It seems to be a bit of a trend for Canadian legal podcasts to include episode numbers at the beginning of their titles. Half of the shows we looked at did, with some even included the whole podcast name in each title.
Unless a show has a truly impressive number of episodes, we tend to prefer to see more descriptive content that will help a listener decide if they are interested. On mobile devices especially, space for titles is at a real premium, and half of it is taken up with the episode number, people won’t be abe to decide whether or not they want to listen.
Like with Resources Included above, this is a count of the total number of times each element appeared in the shows, but most (75%) use more than one, in a regular combination, for example: GUEST on DESCRIPTION, or EPISODE # + HOOK.
Show Notes Style
Show notes are the written material that accompany a podcast episode, and they can vary widely in the type of content shared. Some podcasts keep things pretty close to the bone in terms of written material – if the priority is on using the audio/visual content, or the real value in the show is in the relationships, that can be a good strategic decision.
Generally, more written content is better for two important reasons: discoverability and accessability.
Right now text is still the main way things get found on the internet. People search (either by voice or text) and the robots that run the internet find results based largely on text. If you don’t have written material, your podcast content won’t likely be in the results.
From an accessability standpoint, providing content in more formats helps more people access it more easily, both for needs and preferences.
Resources Included
For resources included we are looking at what is attached to each episode speicifcally, not what is on the rest of the website.
Many shows have multiple resources, and some have none. The counts represent the total instances of each resource type.
All told, resources were a little thin on the ground for the shows we looked at in this report. This can be a reasonable decision, however, if the promotional work is about other platforms – sharing the Apple Podcasts or Spotify links rather than a website one. This can leave value on the table – when people are on your website to check resources, it’s much easier for them to click a “get in touch” button than having to remember they wanted to check something out when they got home from the gym.
Episodes on Individual Pages
From an SEO perspective – which means from a search and discoverability perspective – the chance to have well-structured, informative, authority building content going up on individual website pages or posts that can each be optimized an interlinked on a regular schedule is pretty fantastic.
But it can also be a *lot* of work.
Whether or not the juice is worth the squeeze comes down to your own firm’s goals. If improving your search results is on the list, thenconsider having your episodes on individual pages – those benefits will really stack over time.
Podcast Schema
Now, this is getting a little technical, but in the age of AI searching, it seemed important to include.
Schema is a type of code on the back end of a website that is readable by search engines and AI platforms. It acts like a barcode for your website content, explaining what it is, who created it and, to an extent, who it’s for and what people can do with it.
When you search for a website and Google shows you a list of pages or has an image right there in the search results, that is usually becasue of schema.
Generally, schema is created by SEO plugins, or built right into the bones of a website. Podcast specific schema, however, is generally not included, even in premium versions of these tools. A glaring oversight, in our humble opinion.
None of the shows we looked at inlcuded podcast specific schema, and only 55% had other types.
Sharing and Discoverability
In this section we’re looking at how the podcasts appear outside of the website.
Release Cadence
Podcasting can take a pretty significant investment of time – and so balancing the value you’re getting out of it, like new relationships, search results, better leads and more authority in your area of practice against just how long it’s all going to take is important.
This often comes out in the release cadence, or how often new episodes are released.
In the State of Business Podcasting Rpeort, the vast, vast majority of podcasts release weekly or more – for many business owners, that is the best balance between inputs and outcomes.
In the Canadian legal podcasting world, it’s different. This is baffling, because lawyers are famously overburdened with free time and extra bandwidth. 😉
All things being equal, weekly is often the best release cadence, but things aren’t equal and the reality of operating a busy law practice, or having to fit a podcast around other, often more pressing obligations, means that it’s either release less frequently, or don’t podcast.
At the end of the day, the very best release frequency is one that you can sustain over time, and once or twice a month is far better than no podacst at all.
Video Podcasting
Over the past few years, the prevalence of vieo podcasting has steadily increased. At One Stone Creative, we’ve seen more shows starting with, or switching to being on video. We are still staunch believers, however, in the value of audio-only shows.
It seems like Canadian lawyers agree, with only 25% of the shows being produced in video.
We also looked at how many shows had their episodes on YouTube, either as a video or as audio-only. All of the video podcasts had full episodes on YouTube, and an additional 10% were uploading the audio version. This is a best practice – YouTube has it’s own alogorithms for sharing content and a powerful search function – you can even directly add a show via your RSS feed. If you are reading this and have a podcast that isn’t currently on YouTube – that might be some low-hanging fruit to pluck in order to get more listeners.
Short Form Video
As has been happening with video, short form video content is getting more and morepopular, and many podcasters use podcast content to populate Tiktok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram reels.
For this report, we looked at whether or not the shows using video for thier podcasts were also using YouTube Shorts, and found that 60% of them are.
Active Social Media
It used to be that a fabulous podcast and a toonie would get you a Perrier. With the price of things these days, that’s probably not still the case, but it is still true that if you want anyone to listen to your podcast you have to, by one means or another, tell them about it.
You might do that through your email list, through organic search, or paid traffic. You might also use social media. We looked at which social media platforms the publishing organizations were active on. We did not do a deep dive into how often they were specifically sharing podcast content, but are using general activity as an heuristic for the social platforms being prioritised. Most are active on more than one, with the average number being 3.
10% of the shows we looked at did not seem to have active social media accounts.
Largest Social Media
We also looked at the largest platform by number of followers for those using social media. This gives us a sense of where there is the most engagement and the most audience for the type of content they are sharing.
Notes: Some publishing organisations use YouTube for content other than thier podcast, and those that do not appear to be active on social media have been excluded from these results.
What This Means for Your Firm
Now we have an idea of what is actually happening in the legal podcasting space in canada – and of where the opportunities are. We’ve taken this a step further and created a guide that outlines exacly how podcasting for lawyers can work – please check it out!
Podcasts are amazing for educating communities and future clients, for building relationships with other professionals, and for establishing topical authority. But they aren’t a good fit for every practitioner or organization at every stage.
Here are some things you might want to consider at this juncture:
Is podcasting actually effective for law firms in Canada?
Short answer: yes. When your goals are aligned with what podcasts do well, such asauthority building, relationship development, referrals, sales enablement, SEO, and client education.
Do you need a large existing audience to start a podcast?
No. For law firms, it’s more about the right listener than hitting large numbers. Most of the benefits law firms see from podcasting aren’t dependant on audience size.
How much time does it take to run a podcast for a law firm?
It depends on your approach. Podcasting can be pretty time-intensive if it’s managed wholly or partially in-house, but with support the workload can be significanty reduced.
What makes a legal podcast successful?
Clarity of purpose, consistency of execution and alignment with the firms brand and positioning. Success in podcasting can look very different for different firms, but can include metrics like new discovery calls, sales cycle length, and improved search visibility.
Can podcasting actually generate clients for a law firm?
Yes, but usually indirectly, rather than a straight “hear an episode, book a call” pipeline. More often, podcasts support reerral relationships, increase trust and visibility, and help potential client self-select before reaching out.
Sound like something to explore further?
You can book a complimentary podcast consultation to audit your current podcast or discuss what a new one might look like in your context.
If you know a firm or a colleague who has been exploring podcasting, or who you think should be exploring podcasting, please share this report with them, or make an introduction – we’d love to connect with them!