  Phenomenological applications of an effective theory of low-lying excited
states of charm and bottom isoscalar baryons are discussed at leading and
next-to-leading order in the combined heavy quark and large $N_c$ expansion.
The combined expansion is formulated in terms of the counting parameter
$\lambda\sim 1/m_Q, 1/N_c$; the combined expansion is in powers of
$\lambda^{1/2}$. We work up to next-to-leading order. We obtain
model-independent predictions for the excitation energies, the semileptonic
form factors and electromagnetic decay rates. The spin-averaged mass of the
doublet of the first orbitally excited sate of $\Lambda_b$ is predicted to be
approximately $5920 MeV$. It is shown that in the combined limit at leading and
next-to-leading order there is only one independent form factor describing
$\Lambda_b \to \Lambda_c \ell \bar{\nu}$; similarly, $\Lambda_b \to
\Lambda_{c}^{*} \ell \bar{\nu}$ and $\Lambda_b \to \Lambda_{c1} \ell \bar{\nu}$
decays are described by a single independent form factor. These form factors
are calculated at leading and next-to-leading order in the combined expansion.
The electromagnetic decay rates of the first excited states of $\Lambda_c$ and
$\Lambda_b$ are determined at leading and next-to leading order. The ratio of
radiative decay rates $\Gamma(\Lambda_{c}^{*} \to \Lambda_c \gamma) /
\Gamma(\Lambda_{b1} \to \Lambda_b \gamma)$ is predicted to be approximately
0.2, greatly different from the heavy quark effective theory value of unity.
