Legal HOTLINE

NCPA has partnered with Stevens Martin Vaughn & Tadych, PLLC, a firm known and respected for its work on media and First Amendment law, to provide our legal hotline. Valued at $350 per hour, this free service can be accessed by calling (919) 833-3833.

You can also email the hotline at hotline@ncpress.com 

The Hotline is monitored by Amanda Martin, Beth Soja and Mike Tadych. 

Find NC Media Law updates on Twitter — @ncmedialaw and on the NCPA website at http://ncpress.com/legal/

Amanda Martin

You can reach Amanda Martin via email — amartin@smvt.com — or follow her on Twitter — @ncmedialaw.

Amanda Martin is a communications lawyer, representing traditional and social media as well as corporate communicators on issues related to the libel and privacy, the internet, intellectual property, and other speech-based concerns. Ms. Martin is general counsel to the N.C. Press Association, an organization of approximately 200 N.C. newspapers. For more than 20 years, she routinely has counseled reporters, editors and news directors about avoiding libel suits, gaining access to closed government meetings and records and resisting subpoenas. With the advent of the internet, Ms. Martin expanded her practice to include counseling and representing non-media individuals and organizations with social media issues.

Ms. Martin is the co-author of the North Carolina section of the Media Law Resource Center’s annual survey on privacy law, co-author of the North Carolina section of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press Open Government Guide, and co-editor of the North Carolina Media Law Handbook, to which she also contributes the chapter on access to public meetings. She is a frequent speaker and panelist at media law forums and workshops and regularly contributes articles to legal, media and other publications.  Ms. Martin has taught as an adjunct instructor of media law at the UNC School of Law, the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication and Campbell Law School.

Beth Soja

Beth Soja has practiced media and First Amendment law in both private firm and nonprofit settings, where she has advised many types of media outlets, businesses and journalists. She has co-authored amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs in courts around the country, including the United States Supreme Court. She has experience with pre-publication review, libel litigation, copyright matters, and freedom of information laws.

She enjoyed teaching “Media Law in the Digital Age” as an adjunct lecturer at Georgetown University during her time in Washington, D.C. Before entering private practice, Beth spent a year as a libel and privacy fellow at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

While in law school at UNC, she served as an articles and notes editor for the First Amendment Law Review and worked as an intern reporter for the Legal Times (now The National Law Journal). She lives in Charlotte with her husband Brian and their three children.

Mike Tadych 

New clients, opposing counsel and many, many others regularly have difficulty with Mike Tadych’s surname.  Shortly after meeting “Mr. Taditch” or “Mr. Tascisch,” however, they quickly come to know this multi-talented lawyer as “Mr. TODDY” — or, in view of his personable nature — simply as “Mike.”

A native of Berea, Ohio, Mike’s ease in dealing with people and broad work history enables him to handle a wide array of legal problems.  Since beginning law practice in 1997, Mike has worked on matters ranging from multifamily construction project disputes and trademark litigation to the representation of a national day-care operator before its state licensing agency and negotiation of the contract for a national public radio personality.  As an example of his versatility Mike, who grew up knowing nothing about farming, used his background in information technology and presentation development to create computerized damages analyses that led to the successful resolution of more than 35 crop insurance lawsuits filed by North Carolina tobacco farmers in the aftermath of Hurricane Fran.  This imaginative work has led to Mike’s handling of crop insurance claims for many other farmers.

In addition to his litigation, First Amendment and professional licensing work, Mike enjoys representing the interests of creative individuals including authors, singers, journalists and artists.  He has served as general counsel to the Watercolor Society of North Carolina, The Justice Theater Project and is a frequent speaker on areas of interest to creative individuals regarding business structure, intellectual property and transference of ownership.

A graduate of Indiana University, where he earned a degree in telecommunications, Mike has experience in television production, aerial video photography, graphic design, desktop publishing, editing corporate newsletters and public relations.  At Case Western University’s law school, Mike served as coordinator of the school’s national moot court team.  Mike’s professional activities include being the current chair of the Communications Committee of the North Carolina Bar Association and a six-year stint as the editor of The Wake Bar Flyer, the newsletter of the award-winning Wake County Bar Association.  Mike is currently president of The Springdale Recreation Club and has served on the Board of Directors for the Wake County Bar Association and chaired its Communications Committee.  Mike is a long standing member and served on the Board of the Downtown Raleigh Rotary Club – North Carolina’s oldest civic club.

Mike and his wife Denise have three children who revel in Wake County’s magnet schools.  He plays tennis and longs to return to playing water polo.