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Jim Baller has been helping local governments to build community owned networks for as long as they have been building them. He is the President of and Senior Principal of the Baller Herbst Law Group in Washington, DC. Jim joins us for Episode #57 of the Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary] podcast to discuss some of the history of community owned networks.\n\nJim has a wealth of experience and helped in many of the most notable legal battles, including Bristol Virginia Utilities and Lafayette.\n\nWe start by noting some of the motivations of municipal electric utilities and how they were originally formed starting in the late 19th century. But we spend the bulk of our time in this show focusing on legal fights in the 90's and early 2000's over whether states could preempt local authority to build networks.\n\nIn our next interview with Jim, we'll pick up where we left off. If you have any specific thoughts or questions we should cover when we come back to this historical topic, leave them in the comments below or email us.\n\nYou can learn more about Jim Baller on his website at Baller.com.\n\nRead the transcript from this episode here.\n\nWe want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. Also, feel free to suggest other guests, topics, or questions you want us to address.\n\nThis show is 30 minutes long and can be played below on this page or subscribe via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. Search for us in iTunes and leave a positive comment!\n\nListen to previous episodes here. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here.\n\nFind more episodes in our podcast index.\n\nThanks to Break the Bans for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.