About Discount Legal

Alan Korn is a San Francisco Bay Area lawyer who specializes in community radio. In 2007 he and communications attorney Michael Couzens (1946 - 2023) saw the filing window coming for new, noncommercial educational channels. Many prospective applicants were new to broadcasting and, especially, to the vagaries of trying to run the rapids of an FCC regulated application and licensing process. Both attorneys had worked extensively with telecommunications consulting engineers, and both the engineers and the Discount Legal team recognized that a successful application needs both kinds of resources — engineering and legal.

Discount Legal helps you with your FCC application. Problem was, on the legal side the reputation of the legal profession preceded us, not always just glowing tributes, and folks were having trouble making budgets or assessing what an LPFM project would cost just based on hourly rate quotes. We decided the best thing was to offer to prepare an application and place it on file for a low fixed price. We would promote that service using the catch phrase Discount Legal.

The approach was extremely successful, and with little or no outreach, clients found us. In a crash program for the 2007 window, we ended up filing 92 FCC applications, with many more applications filed during the 2010 window for applicants in the non-reserved band (92.1 MHz to 107.0 MHz) and in the 2013 window for Low Power FM. The fixed price averaged out over the easy cases and the difficult cases, and paid for the legal work and overhead. No one got rich, but best of all quite a few applicants got construction permits, went on the air, and are providing important local community services today.

Based on this experience, Discount Legal participated in the FCC’s rulemaking process leading up to the new Low Power FM filing window, and we are now reprising our services to assist applicants for the current Low Power FM window. See how we work with clients.

Here are some of the folks we helped last time around:

KDRT Davis, CA

WGXC Acra, NY

KYRS Spokane, WA

KPCN Woodburn, OR

Alan Korn

Alan Korn is an attorney based in Berkeley, California with a law practice emphasizing media, communications, first amendment, music, film, art, photography, Internet, entertainment and intellectual property issues. Alan's practice includes both transactional work and litigation. He has also represented dozens of Low Power (licensed and unlicensed) and full-power NCE FM stations since the early 1990s. Alan was one of the earliest legal advocates for creation of an authorized Low Power FM service, and participated in the rulemaking process that developed rules for the FCC’s current low power FM service.

Alan also lectures extensively on copyright law, and he is featured in the documentary film Sonic Outlaws by Craig Baldwin (1995) addressing fair use issues arising at the intersection of copyright law, free speech and artistic expression.

Email Alan.

Michael Couzens

Michael Couzens (1946-2023) was a community radio and television advocate based in Oakland, CA, with more than 30 years experience practicing before the Federal Communications Commission. He was admitted to the bar in California and in Washington, D.C. As an attorney-advisor on the staff of the Federal Communications Commission he developed the rules for low power television, and represented existing and future community stations throughout the United States, including planning and creation of non-profit entities, advising on FCC requirements and addressing applications, licensing, and compliance issues. He teamed with Alan Korn beginning in the 2007 filing window, and in subsequent filing windows to submit a wave of applications for new noncommercial educational FM stations, 50 of which are now on the air.