Lexington attorney Gina M. Ghioldi knew that when she scored Sherman Hemsley of “The Jeffersons” for an interview, she was movin’ on up to bigger things.
See, she didn’t just want to feature Hemsley on her year-old radio show, “The Brass Ring.” So Ghioldi joined forces with Barbara Brilliant, who was hosting a local cable access show in Newton, and the pair co-produced “Brilliant People.” Coupled with an interview of Pat Morita of “Karate Kid” fame, the Hemsley episode earned the media mavericks first prize for best talk show from the Northeast Region of the Alliance for Community Media.
“I couldn’t love it more,” the attorney says of her second career in media. “It really spins my wheels.” A Suffolk University Law School graduate, Ghioldi says her interest in the media dates back to her Waltham High School days, where she had her own show on closed circuit television. “I thought I was Natalie Jacobson,” the attorney laughs. “She was my idol.”
Putting her media interests on the back burner for a bit, Ghioldi took her law degree and started her own general civil practice. However, she soon discovered that “a woman cannot live on divorce law alone.” In November 2002, the attorney started her talk radio show, “The Brass Ring,” which airs every Saturday at noon on WBNW 1120 AM in Boston and WPLM 1390 AM in Plymouth. Devoted to “ordinary people who go out and do extraordinary things,” the show has featured local entrepreneurs, authors, spiritual leaders, sports figures, artists and even a few lawyers.
For the “doldrums of winter,” Ghioldi is heading off to St. Lucia, where she’ll be doing a show about the island and its people. But she’s also in the process of producing one- to two-minute informational legal segments that she plans to shop around to local and national media markets. Likening herself to a Susan Wornick for the legal consumer, Ghioldi says her segments will give the legal “lowdown” on subjects ranging from identity theft to divorce to the risks associated with downloading music from the Internet. “I think it’s a good way of merging a career in law with a career in media,” notes Ghioldi. “Sometimes it takes 20 years to get around to doing what you were meant to be doing.”
So if Ghioldi’s media career takes off, does that mean she’ll be closing up shop? Nope, says the lawyer, adding that she’s never felt restricted to have just one vocation. “I’m meant to do both,” the talk show host insists. “My calling in life was to be an attorney and to help people through difficult situations … But I know that I also have to be true to myself, and media has always excited me.”
Ghioldi and Brilliant are in fact gearing up for new show ideas to submit to a national competition, and the attorney notes that suggestions for interview subjects are always welcome. So if any of you “Brilliant” attorneys out there think you’ve got the stuff, e-mail Ghioldi at gghioldi@ghioldilaw.com, or visit her website at www.thebrassring.net. And who knows, perhaps that voice some of you have been hearing on the radio every week will soon become a familiar face on television.
Because of her experience as the host/producer of The Brass Ring radio show, and her award-winning cable TV show, Attorney Ghioldi was recently asked to be a guest panelist at The National Publicity Summit in New York City. Along with top-tier journalists, Gina participated in round- table discussions concerning story coverage, and choosing topics and guests of interest. Also attending the summit were producers from MSNBC, Fox News, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Court TV, ABC Radio, The View and Oprah.