Real Cases: A Legal Podcast

Your first few weeks of law school can feel like moving to another country where everyone speaks a slightly different language—and you need to be fluent by midterms. Perhaps that's why Stetson looked to a venerable institution from the UK's legal system to help 1Ls connect with each other, their professors, and the profession: English Inns of Court. In this first episode of a two-parter, we sit down with Stetson Law Professor Timothy Kaye, one of the program's inaugural “benchers”—i.e. faculty mentors—to discuss how Stetson's Inns program got its start, the system's British origins, and how the program cultivates a more thoughtful and immersive approach to the study and practice of law.

Athletes and celebrities may be the ones in the spotlight, but behind every sponsorship deal, headline-making trade, or backstage battle over royalties, there's a lawyer making it all happen. On this episode of Real Cases, we sit down with three Stetson Law alums: music industry attorney and Founding Partner of Keller, Turner, Andrews, & Ghanem, Jason L. Turner; Senior Director and Associate Council for the Charlotte Hornets, Cymoril White; and Vice President of Basketball Strategy for the Utah Jazz, Steven Schwartz. We discuss the ins and outs of copyright termination, new legal questions around data gathering through wearable technology, and the multitude of unusual avenues through which people enter the profession.

They say you should treat law school like a full-time job. But what does that really mean in practice, and how do you get the most out of your first year? In this episode, we sit down with Assistant Professor Erin Okuno, who both teaches at Stetson Law and graduated from the school in 2013, and John Stafford, who's now a second-year student at Stetson. We discuss the most common challenges students face in their first year at law school, ways the environment for new grads has changed in the last decade, and how Stetson's uniquely collaborative environment sets students up for success.  

What's the difference between “waiving” and “modifying,” and how does that affect whether the President of the United States can forgive student loan debt? In this episode, we sit down with Stetson Law Professor Mark Bauer to discuss Biden v. Nebraska, the Supreme Court case that struck down the Biden administration's partial student loan forgiveness efforts. On the way we consider the major questions doctrine, the vagaries of standing, and how sometimes―just sometimes―your work in antitrust law gets made into a Hollywood movie.

What do Babe Ruth, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and a cat named Porkchop all have in common? They've all been distinguished guests on Stetson Law's storied hundred-year-old campus. In this episode we sit down with Brooke M. Smith, a Circulation Librarian and Archivist, and Reference Librarian Sally Ginsberg Waters to discuss the history of that campus, dating back to its original construction as the Hotel Rolyat, an attraction for celebrities during the Roaring Twenties.  

More and more job applications are processed by machine learning before a real person ever reads them. But can these algorithms exhibit prejudice? And, if so, what would it mean to adopt algorithmic affirmative action? In this episode, we sit down with Stetson Professor Jason Bent to discuss the changing landscape of employment and employment discrimination law in the twenty-first century. We discuss the impact of AI, growing concerns about data privacy in employment contexts, and the role new Supreme Court decisions have played in the interpretation of Title VII.  

Are presidents immune from criminal prosecution for actions they take in office? That was just one question – and perhaps not even the most wide-ranging one – under consideration in the decisions released at the end of the Supreme Court's latest term this summer. In this new episode, we sit down with Stetson Law Professor Louis Virelli to discuss how the court's recent slate of decisions is reshaping the balance of powers. From gun rights to presidential immunity to fundamental workings of administrative law, the cases from this latest term are rewriting the textbooks.

How do part-time law students juggle a family, a job, and law school all at once? In this episode, we sit down with two strong advocates for Stetson Law's part-time program, Dominique Alford-Raymond and Grace Moseley. Together we discuss the diversity, the resilience, and the uniquely strong community among members of Stetson's part-time program.   

In an era of sharp and often predictably partisan disagreements within the Supreme Court, it might surprise some that Neil Gorsuch, one of the court's 6 conservative justices, has emerged as one of the fiercest proponents of tribal sovereignty to ever serve on the bench. That fact doesn't surprise Stetson Law Professor Grant Christensen, however. Christensen is a specialist in Federal Indian Law, the unique mixture of federal regulations and tribal sovereignty that governs the lands set aside for Native American communities within the states. In this episode, we discuss the unexpected Supreme Court majorities that can emerge in Indian Law cases that test questions about federalism, recent decisions about the Indian Child Welfare Act and tribal lands in Oklahoma, and how indigenous legal traditions can propose models for reforming corporate governance.  

Florida isn't just on the front line for climate change in America – it's also a testing ground for new legal questions about how to deal with its consequences. In the latest episode of Real Cases, we speak with Assistant Professor Jaclyn Lopez, Director of the Jacobs Public Interest Law Clinic for Democracy and the Environment. We discuss public access to environmental justice, new legal problems raised by increased flooding, and the role the Jacobs Law Clinic is playing in fighting to extend federal Endangered Species Act protection to the ghost orchid, a rare and famous flower unique to the region.  

How did free African Americans before the Civil War regard the Constitution, freedom, and citizenship in a republic that excluded them from political participation? In the latest episode of Real Cases, we sit down with Stetson Professor James Fox to discuss the fuzzy boundaries between history and legal scholarship, different varieties of originalism on today's Supreme Court, and how greater racial diversity in the academy advances new ways of understanding the past.

What's life like for young legal professionals in Tampa Bay? On this month's episode of Real Cases, we talk to three Stetson Law alums with prominent positions at law firms in the greater Tampa Bay community: Ciara Willis J.D. 16, a Partner at Bush Ross, P.A. who practices community association law, Matthew Ceriale J.D. ‘19, an Associate Attorney at Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, L.L.P. who practices civil litigation, and Danielle Weaver-Rogers J.D. ‘13, Senior Corporate Counsel for Labor and Employment at Qualfon Data Service Group, L.L.C., who works in employment law. They talk about life in Tampa Bay, how they got into their current line of work, and how their experiences at Stetson led to the jobs they have today.  

By scrubbing the internet for information that it recombines into new texts and images, generative AI has launched a host of new questions about intellectual property law and liability. For instance, who's responsible if an AI infringes upon your intellectual property? The company that made it? The company that used it? The AI itself? We discuss these questions and more in the latest episode of Real Cases with Professor Darryl C. Wilson, Stetson Law's Associate Dean for Strategy & Operations.   

What nation has jurisdiction if an astronaut commits a crime in space? Who owns the right to mine asteroids? How do countries co-manage the physical infrastructure of the internet – on earth and in orbit? On this month's episode of Real Cases, Stetson Law Professor Roy Balleste discusses the complex web of maritime precedents and international agreements that govern space exploration. He explains why the final frontier holds a host of new ethical, technological, and legal questions that law scholars have only just begun to contemplate.  

Are AI tools like ChatGPT reshaping the landscape of law and legal education? Or are they just another form of information technology that lawyers and students can harness with a properly critical approach? In this episode, Stetson professors Catherine Cameron and Kelly Feeley discuss the limits of AI tools and online databases, the persistent importance of legal interpretation and analysis, and the unexpected ways new technologies can replicate structural biases.  

In this episode, Professors Judith Scully and Kristen Adams join us to discuss Stetson Law's Social Justice Advocacy concentration. They discuss how law students can build their portfolios, how students can learn to advocate for themselves, and how lawyers around the country work for what they believe in without sacrificing their own well-being.  

In this episode, we're joined by Professor Joseph Morrissey and Stetson alum Nathan Bruemmer to discuss the role of advocacy and organizing in law school and beyond, the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association's Lavender Law Career Fair, and what schools like Stetson are doing to make queer students and their allies feel welcome in the legal profession.  

In this episode, we're joined by Lamine Gueye and Sara Fultz, two rising 3L students at Stetson who originally hail from New York and Virginia. They share their thoughts about the Tampa Bay area, what drew them to Stetson, and what it's like going to law school after spending some years working after college.  

Over one out of four adults in the U.S. has some type of disability. In this episode we're joined by Kathryn Pelham, Stetson Law's Associate Director of Accessibility Resources & ADA Coordinator, to discuss how Stetson and other law schools are accommodating a growing number of students with conditions that impact their access to education. She discusses her philosophy behind equitable accommodations in law school curricula, the challenges of reaching for universal accessibility, and the importance of advocating for yourself.

The Supreme Court's new ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard reverses an over 40-year-old precedent for how university admissions committees can cultivate racial diversity in their incoming classes. In this episode we're joined by Professor Peter Lake, an internationally recognized expert on higher education law and policy. He discusses the history of race-conscious college admissions, the consequences of judicial mistrust for higher ed administration, and why he thinks the court's latest ruling is “litigation bait” for many more lawsuits to come.  

In this episode, Stetson Law Professor Louis Virelli III, a leading expert on the constitutional questions underlying Supreme Court recusal, discusses the importance of legal career development — as a student and after. After making a hard pivot from engineering to the law, Virelli knew he wanted to teach and followed a career path to take him there.

In this episode, Stetson Law Professor Christine Cerniglia and recent grad Denia Angelino discuss judicial externships, the legal profession's standards for ethical behavior outside the courtroom, and how the passions Denia pursued in her independent study led her to her current career working in employment discrimination law.

In this episode, Stetson Law Professor Kristen Adams and her students Jase Maden and Taylor Simonds discuss the intersections between literature, performance, and legal scholarship they explored in Adams' course, “The Law as Reflected through Poetry.”

In this episode, Stetson professors Catherine Cameron and Ashley Krenelka Chase discuss cases every 1L student should know, what to do when your clients over-share, and how to separate the essential facts from the merely weird ones when the law and the real world collide.

In this episode, Stetson Student Wellness Society members Katie Johnson, Kayla Albritton, and Christopher Manon talk about finding the right work/life balance, how to avoid burnout, and the crucial difference between being “The Best” and being the best version of yourself.

In this episode, Stetson Law students Francesca Little and Logan Jackson – plus recent Stetson grad Edson Abadia, Jr. – open their case files on their diverse leadership roles. Plus: how Stetson has created an inclusive space for Latinx, Black, and queer students.

In this episode, Darren Kettles (Director for Admissions) and Karla Davis-Jamison (Assistant Dean for Enrollment Management) of Stetson University College of Law open their case files on breaking down enrollment barriers, building a school community, and reaching a diverse applicant pool. Plus: dispelling some myths about college applications.

In this episode, Professor Stacey-Rae Simcox of Stetson University College of Law opens her case file on civil war pardons, backlogs at the VA, and what the GI bill promises. Plus: how Stetson Law students are already changing veterans' lives.

A student approaches her law professor and says “I'm interested in Space Law.” With very little case law on the books, the professor begins pulling statutes to create a scenario that puts this student in the pilot's seat of a legal situation that doesn't even exist…yet. In this episode we talk about the limits of attorney-client privilege, practicing law during a global pandemic, and why students should get out of the classroom. Join us as we open the case file.

Episode #6 features an interview with Stetson's own Professor Peter Lake as he opens his case file on students' evolving identities, shifts in SCOTUS ideology, and controversies faced by the Department of Education.

Judge Judy has made more than 6,000 judicial decisions in her 25 years on TV. But does she have any legal weight? You might be surprised at the answer. In this episode, we talk about transgender athletes, the complexities of NFT ownership, and being the only Black law student in the room.

In this episode, Vicky and Khalil Madani (class of ‘14) open their case files on mock trial competitions, prison phone recordings, and on-campus gardening. Plus: what happens when a Stetson graduate walks into a courtroom.

In this episode, Professor Roberta K. Flowers, elder law expert at Stetson University College of Law, opens her case file on scams targeting elders, the importance of legal autonomy, and a new kind of accessible courtroom. Plus: Does the age of consent have an expiration date?

In this episode, Professor Elizabeth Boals, advocacy law expert at Stetson University College of Law, opens her case file on email evidence, expert witness testimony, and what really goes on in the courtroom. Plus: what do you do when your client is guilty?

Just outside Palm Springs, California, lives the endangered Delhi Sands flower-loving fly. When plans for a cement factory get underway, environmental lawyers push back. The judge's reaction? “A lot of people don't like flies.” Join us as we open this case file.