Speaker Details

Jim Baller, president of the Baller Stokes & Lide, PC, based in Washington, DC, represents public and private clients in a broad range of communications matters nationally and in more than 35 states.  He was the founder and president of the US Broadband Coalition, a large and diverse consortium of organizations that helped to build a national consensus on the need for a comprehensive national broadband strategy and on the framework that the Federal Communications Commission later used in its National Broadband Plan. He is now also the president of the 500+ member Coalition for Local Internet Choice, which fights to preserve, protect and, if necessary, restore local choice in broadband infrastructure decisionmaking. . 

The FTTH Council often recognized Jim as "the nation's most experienced and knowledgeable attorney on public broadband matters."  The National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors named him its Member of the Year in 2001 and its first “Community Broadband Visionary of the Year” in 2007, for "almost single-handedly putting the need for a national broadband strategy to the forefront of public consciousness."  In 2009, Ars Technica included Jim on its list of the 25 “Top Names in Tech Policy” and FiberToday honored him as its “Person of the Year.”  In 2012, the FTTH Council presented him its Chairman’s Award ““for his relentless promotion and pursuit of community broadband and of faster networks for everyone.  His efforts have paved the way for the deployment of all-fiber networks across the country.” In 2014, he received SEATOA's Broadband Advocacy of the Year award for having twice helped to defeat proposed barriers to community broadband in Georgia.  In every year since 2016, Jim has been included in the Washington DC Super Lawyers List and in American Registry's List of America's Most Honored Professionals - Top 1%.  In 2018, Marquis Who's Who honored Jim with ts Lifetime Achievement Award.

He is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Cornell Law School.