Podcasts about stanford law

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded its latest Term. And over the past few weeks, the Trump administration has continued to duke it out with its adversaries in the federal courts.To tackle these topics, as well as their intersection—in terms of how well the courts, including but not limited to the Supreme Court, are handling Trump-related cases—I interviewed Professor Pamela Karlan, a longtime faculty member at Stanford Law School. She's perfectly situated to address these subjects, for at least three reasons.First, Professor Karlan is a leading scholar of constitutional law. Second, she's a former SCOTUS clerk and seasoned advocate at One First Street, with ten arguments to her name. Third, she has high-level experience at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), having served (twice) as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ.I've had some wonderful guests to discuss the role of the courts today, including Judges Vince Chhabria (N.D. Cal.) and Ana Reyes (D.D.C.)—but as sitting judges, they couldn't discuss certain subjects, and they had to be somewhat circumspect. Professor Karlan, in contrast, isn't afraid to “go there”—and whether or not you agree with her opinions, I think you'll share my appreciation for her insight and candor.Show Notes:* Pamela S. Karlan bio, Stanford Law School* Pamela S. Karlan bio, Wikipedia* The McCorkle Lecture (Professor Pamela Karlan), UVA Law SchoolPrefer reading to listening? For paid subscribers, a transcript of the entire episode appears below.Sponsored by:NexFirm helps Biglaw attorneys become founding partners. To learn more about how NexFirm can help you launch your firm, call 212-292-1000 or email careerdevelopment at nexfirm dot com.Three quick notes about this transcript. First, it has been cleaned up from the audio in ways that don't alter substance—e.g., by deleting verbal filler or adding a word here or there to clarify meaning. Second, my interviewee has not reviewed this transcript, and any transcription errors are mine. Third, because of length constraints, this newsletter may be truncated in email; to view the entire post, simply click on “View entire message” in your email app.David Lat: Welcome to the Original Jurisdiction podcast. I'm your host, David Lat, author of a Substack newsletter about law and the legal profession also named Original Jurisdiction, which you can read and subscribe to at davidlat dot Substack dot com. You're listening to the seventy-seventh episode of this podcast, recorded on Friday, June 27.Thanks to this podcast's sponsor, NexFirm. NexFirm helps Biglaw attorneys become founding partners. To learn more about how NexFirm can help you launch your firm, call 212-292-1000 or email careerdevelopment at nexfirm dot com. Want to know who the guest will be for the next Original Jurisdiction podcast? Follow NexFirm on LinkedIn for a preview.With the 2024-2025 Supreme Court Term behind us, now is a good time to talk about both constitutional law and the proper role of the judiciary in American society. I expect they will remain significant as subjects because the tug of war between the Trump administration and the federal judiciary continues—and shows no signs of abating.To tackle these topics, I welcomed to the podcast Professor Pamela Karlan, the Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law and Co-Director of the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic at Stanford Law School. Pam is not only a leading legal scholar, but she also has significant experience in practice. She's argued 10 cases before the Supreme Court, which puts her in a very small club, and she has worked in government at high levels, serving as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice during the Obama administration. Without further ado, here's my conversation with Professor Pam Karlan.Professor Karlan, thank you so much for joining me.Pamela Karlan: Thanks for having me.DL: So let's start at the beginning. Tell us about your background and upbringing. I believe we share something in common—you were born in New York City?PK: I was born in New York City. My family had lived in New York since they arrived in the country about a century before.DL: What borough?PK: Originally Manhattan, then Brooklyn, then back to Manhattan. As my mother said, when I moved to Brooklyn when I was clerking, “Brooklyn to Brooklyn, in three generations.”DL: Brooklyn is very, very hip right now.PK: It wasn't hip when we got there.DL: And did you grow up in Manhattan or Brooklyn?PK: When I was little, we lived in Manhattan. Then right before I started elementary school, right after my brother was born, our apartment wasn't big enough anymore. So we moved to Stamford, Connecticut, and I grew up in Connecticut.DL: What led you to go to law school? I see you stayed in the state; you went to Yale. What did you have in mind for your post-law-school career?PK: I went to law school because during the summer between 10th and 11th grade, I read Richard Kluger's book, Simple Justice, which is the story of the litigation that leads up to Brown v. Board of Education. And I decided I wanted to go to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and be a school desegregation lawyer, and that's what led me to go to law school.DL: You obtained a master's degree in history as well as a law degree. Did you also have teaching in mind as well?PK: No, I thought getting the master's degree was my last chance to do something I had loved doing as an undergrad. It didn't occur to me until I was late in my law-school days that I might at some point want to be a law professor. That's different than a lot of folks who go to law school now; they go to law school wanting to be law professors.During Admitted Students' Weekend, some students say to me, “I want to be a law professor—should I come here to law school?” I feel like saying to them, “You haven't done a day of law school yet. You have no idea whether you're good at law. You have no idea whether you'd enjoy doing legal teaching.”It just amazes me that people come to law school now planning to be a law professor, in a way that I don't think very many people did when I was going to law school. In my day, people discovered when they were in law school that they loved it, and they wanted to do more of what they loved doing; I don't think people came to law school for the most part planning to be law professors.DL: The track is so different now—and that's a whole other conversation—but people are getting master's and Ph.D. degrees, and people are doing fellowship after fellowship. It's not like, oh, you practice for three, five, or seven years, and then you become a professor. It seems to be almost like this other track nowadays.PK: When I went on the teaching market, I was distinctive in that I had not only my student law-journal note, but I actually had an article that Ricky Revesz and I had worked on that was coming out. And it was not normal for people to have that back then. Now people go onto the teaching market with six or seven publications—and no practice experience really to speak of, for a lot of them.DL: You mentioned talking to admitted students. You went to YLS, but you've now been teaching for a long time at Stanford Law School. They're very similar in a lot of ways. They're intellectual. They're intimate, especially compared to some of the other top law schools. What would you say if I'm an admitted student choosing between those two institutions? What would cause me to pick one versus the other—besides the superior weather of Palo Alto?PK: Well, some of it is geography; it's not just the weather. Some folks are very East-Coast-centered, and other folks are very West-Coast-centered. That makes a difference.It's a little hard to say what the differences are, because the last time I spent a long time at Yale Law School was in 2012 (I visited there a bunch of times over the years), but I think the faculty here at Stanford is less focused and concentrated on the students who want to be law professors than is the case at Yale. When I was at Yale, the idea was if you were smart, you went and became a law professor. It was almost like a kind of external manifestation of an inner state of grace; it was a sign that you were a smart person, if you wanted to be a law professor. And if you didn't, well, you could be a donor later on. Here at Stanford, the faculty as a whole is less concentrated on producing law professors. We produce a fair number of them, but it's not the be-all and end-all of the law school in some ways. Heather Gerken, who's the dean at Yale, has changed that somewhat, but not entirely. So that's one big difference.One of the most distinctive things about Stanford, because we're on the quarter system, is that our clinics are full-time clinics, taught by full-time faculty members at the law school. And that's distinctive. I think Yale calls more things clinics than we do, and a lot of them are part-time or taught by folks who aren't in the building all the time. So that's a big difference between the schools.They just have very different feels. I would encourage any student who gets into both of them to go and visit both of them, talk to the students, and see where you think you're going to be most comfortably stretched. Either school could be the right school for somebody.DL: I totally agree with you. Sometimes people think there's some kind of platonic answer to, “Where should I go to law school?” And it depends on so many individual circumstances.PK: There really isn't one answer. I think when I was deciding between law schools as a student, I got waitlisted at Stanford and I got into Yale. I had gone to Yale as an undergrad, so I wasn't going to go anywhere else if I got in there. I was from Connecticut and loved living in Connecticut, so that was an easy choice for me. But it's a hard choice for a lot of folks.And I do think that one of the worst things in the world is U.S. News and World Report, even though we're generally a beneficiary of it. It used to be that the R-squared between where somebody went to law school and what a ranking was was minimal. I knew lots of people who decided, in the old days, that they were going to go to Columbia rather than Yale or Harvard, rather than Stanford or Penn, rather than Chicago, because they liked the city better or there was somebody who did something they really wanted to do there.And then the R-squared, once U.S. News came out, of where people went and what the rankings were, became huge. And as you probably know, there were some scandals with law schools that would just waitlist people rather than admit them, to keep their yield up, because they thought the person would go to a higher-ranked law school. There were years and years where a huge part of the Stanford entering class had been waitlisted at Penn. And that's bad for people, because there are people who should go to Penn rather than come here. There are people who should go to NYU rather than going to Harvard. And a lot of those people don't do it because they're so fixated on U.S. News rankings.DL: I totally agree with you. But I suspect that a lot of people think that there are certain opportunities that are going to be open to them only if they go here or only if they go there.Speaking of which, after graduating from YLS, you clerked for Justice Blackmun on the Supreme Court, and statistically it's certainly true that certain schools seem to improve your odds of clerking for the Court. What was that experience like overall? People often describe it as a dream job. We're recording this on the last day of the Supreme Court Term; some hugely consequential historic cases are coming down. As a law clerk, you get a front row seat to all of that, to all of that history being made. Did you love that experience?PK: I loved the experience. I loved it in part because I worked for a wonderful justice who was just a lovely man, a real mensch. I had three great co-clerks. It was the first time, actually, that any justice had ever hired three women—and so that was distinctive for me, because I had been in classes in law school where there were fewer than three women. I was in one class in law school where I was the only woman. So that was neat.It was a great Term. It was the last year of the Burger Court, and we had just a heap of incredibly interesting cases. It's amazing how many cases I teach in law school that were decided that year—the summary-judgment trilogy, Thornburg v. Gingles, Bowers v. Hardwick. It was just a really great time to be there. And as a liberal, we won a lot of the cases. We didn't win them all, but we won a lot of them.It was incredibly intense. At that point, the Supreme Court still had this odd IT system that required eight hours of diagnostics every night. So the system was up from 8 a.m. to midnight—it stayed online longer if there was a death case—but otherwise it went down at midnight. In the Blackmun chambers, we showed up at 8 a.m. for breakfast with the Justice, and we left at midnight, five days a week. Then on the weekends, we were there from 9 to 9. And they were deciding 150 cases, not 60 cases, a year. So there was a lot more work to do, in that sense. But it was a great year. I've remained friends with my co-clerks, and I've remained friends with clerks from other chambers. It was a wonderful experience.DL: And you've actually written about it. I would refer people to some of the articles that they can look up, on your CV and elsewhere, where you've talked about, say, having breakfast with the Justice.PK: And we had a Passover Seder with the Justice as well, which was a lot of fun.DL: Oh wow, who hosted that? Did he?PK: Actually, the clerks hosted it. Originally he had said, “Oh, why don't we have it at the Court?” But then he came back to us and said, “Well, I think the Chief Justice”—Chief Justice Burger—“might not like that.” But he lent us tables and chairs, which were dropped off at one of the clerk's houses. And it was actually the day of the Gramm-Rudman argument, which was an argument about the budget. So we had to keep running back and forth from the Court to the house of Danny Richman, the clerk who hosted it, who was a Thurgood Marshall clerk. We had to keep running back and forth from the Court to Danny Richman's house, to baste the turkey and make stuff, back and forth. And then we had a real full Seder, and we invited all of the Jewish clerks at the Court and the Justice's messenger, who was Jewish, and the Justice and Mrs. Blackmun, and it was a lot of fun.DL: Wow, that's wonderful. So where did you go after your clerkship?PK: I went to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, where I was an assistant counsel, and I worked on voting-rights and employment-discrimination cases.DL: And that was something that you had thought about for a long time—you mentioned you had read about its work in high school.PK: Yes, and it was a great place to work. We were working on great cases, and at that point we were really pushing the envelope on some of the stuff that we were doing—which was great and inspiring, and my colleagues were wonderful.And unlike a lot of Supreme Court practices now, where there's a kind of “King Bee” usually, and that person gets to argue everything, the Legal Defense Fund was very different. The first argument I did at the Court was in a case that I had worked on the amended complaint for, while at the Legal Defense Fund—and they let me essentially keep working on the case and argue it at the Supreme Court, even though by the time the case got to the Supreme Court, I was teaching at UVA. So they didn't have this policy of stripping away from younger lawyers the ability to argue their cases the whole way through the system.DL: So how many years out from law school were you by the time you had your first argument before the Court? I know that, today at least, there's this two-year bar on arguing before the Court after having clerked there.PK: Six or seven years out—because I think I argued in ‘91.DL: Now, you mentioned that by then you were teaching at UVA. You had a dream job working at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. What led you to go to UVA?PK: There were two things, really, that did it. One was I had also discovered when I was in law school that I loved law school, and I was better at law school than I had been at anything I had done before law school. And the second was I really hated dealing with opposing counsel. I tell my students now, “You should take negotiation. If there's only one class you could take in law school, take negotiation.” Because it's a skill; it's not a habit of mind, but I felt like it was a habit of mind. And I found the discovery process and filing motions to compel and dealing with the other side's intransigence just really unpleasant.What I really loved was writing briefs. I loved writing briefs, and I could keep doing that for the Legal Defense Fund while at UVA, and I've done a bunch of that over the years for LDF and for other organizations. I could keep doing that and I could live in a small town, which I really wanted to do. I love New York, and now I could live in a city—I've spent a couple of years, off and on, living in cities since then, and I like it—but I didn't like it at that point. I really wanted to be out in the country somewhere. And so UVA was the perfect mix. I kept working on cases, writing amicus briefs for LDF and for other organizations. I could teach, which I loved. I could live in a college town, which I really enjoyed. So it was the best blend of things.DL: And I know, from your having actually delivered a lecture at UVA, that it really did seem to have a special place in your heart. UVA Law School—they really do have a wonderful environment there (as does Stanford), and Charlottesville is a very charming place.PK: Yes, especially when I was there. UVA has a real gift for developing its junior faculty. It was a place where the senior faculty were constantly reading our work, constantly talking to us. Everyone was in the building, which makes a huge difference.The second case I had go to the Supreme Court actually came out of a class where a student asked a question, and I ended up representing the student, and we took the case all the way to the Supreme Court. But I wasn't admitted in the Western District of Virginia, and that's where we had to file a case. And so I turned to my next-door neighbor, George Rutherglen, and said to George, “Would you be the lead counsel in this?” And he said, “Sure.” And we ended up representing a bunch of UVA students, challenging the way the Republican Party did its nomination process. And we ended up, by the student's third year in law school, at the Supreme Court.So UVA was a great place. I had amazing colleagues. The legendary Bill Stuntz was then there; Mike Klarman was there. Dan Ortiz, who's still there, was there. So was John Harrison. It was a fantastic group of people to have as your colleagues.DL: Was it difficult for you, then, to leave UVA and move to Stanford?PK: Oh yes. When I went in to tell Bob Scott, who was then the dean, that I was leaving, I just burst into tears. I think the reason I left UVA was I was at a point in my career where I'd done a bunch of visits at other schools, and I thought that I could either leave then or I would be making a decision to stay there for the rest of my career. And I just felt like I wanted to make a change. And in retrospect, I would've been just as happy if I'd stayed at UVA. In my professional life, I would've been just as happy. I don't know in my personal life, because I wouldn't have met my partner, I don't think, if I'd been at UVA. But it's a marvelous place; everything about it is just absolutely superb.DL: Are you the managing partner of a boutique or midsize firm? If so, you know that your most important job is attracting and retaining top talent. It's not easy, especially if your benefits don't match up well with those of Biglaw firms or if your HR process feels “small time.” NexFirm has created an onboarding and benefits experience that rivals an Am Law 100 firm, so you can compete for the best talent at a price your firm can afford. Want to learn more? Contact NexFirm at 212-292-1002 or email betterbenefits at nexfirm dot com.So I do want to give you a chance to say nice things about your current place. I assume you have no regrets about moving to Stanford Law, even if you would've been just as happy at UVA?PK: I'm incredibly happy here. I've got great colleagues. I've got great students. The ability to do the clinic the way we do it, which is as a full-time clinic, wouldn't be true anywhere else in the country, and that makes a huge difference to that part of my work. I've gotten to teach around the curriculum. I've taught four of the six first-year courses, which is a great opportunityAnd as you said earlier, the weather is unbelievable. People downplay that, because especially for people who are Northeastern Ivy League types, there's a certain Calvinism about that, which is that you have to suffer in order to be truly working hard. People out here sometimes think we don't work hard because we are not visibly suffering. But it's actually the opposite, in a way. I'm looking out my window right now, and it's a gorgeous day. And if I were in the east and it were 75 degrees and sunny, I would find it hard to work because I'd think it's usually going to be hot and humid, or if it's in the winter, it's going to be cold and rainy. I love Yale, but the eight years I spent there, my nose ran the entire time I was there. And here I look out and I think, “It's beautiful, but you know what? It's going to be beautiful tomorrow. So I should sit here and finish grading my exams, or I should sit here and edit this article, or I should sit here and work on the Restatement—because it's going to be just as beautiful tomorrow.” And the ability to walk outside, to clear your head, makes a huge difference. People don't understand just how huge a difference that is, but it's huge.DL: That's so true. If you had me pick a color to associate with my time at YLS, I would say gray. It just felt like everything was always gray, the sky was always gray—not blue or sunny or what have you.But I know you've spent some time outside of Northern California, because you have done some stints at the Justice Department. Tell us about that, the times you went there—why did you go there? What type of work were you doing? And how did it relate to or complement your scholarly work?PK: At the beginning of the Obama administration, I had applied for a job in the Civil Rights Division as a deputy assistant attorney general (DAAG), and I didn't get it. And I thought, “Well, that's passed me by.” And a couple of years later, when they were looking for a new principal deputy solicitor general, in the summer of 2013, the civil-rights groups pushed me for that job. I got an interview with Eric Holder, and it was on June 11th, 2013, which just fortuitously happens to be the 50th anniversary of the day that Vivian Malone desegregated the University of Alabama—and Vivian Malone is the older sister of Sharon Malone, who is married to Eric Holder.So I went in for the interview and I said, “This must be an especially special day for you because of the 50th anniversary.” And we talked about that a little bit, and then we talked about other things. And I came out of the interview, and a couple of weeks later, Don Verrilli, who was the solicitor general, called me up and said, “Look, you're not going to get a job as the principal deputy”—which ultimately went to Ian Gershengorn, a phenomenal lawyer—“but Eric Holder really enjoyed talking to you, so we're going to look for something else for you to do here at the Department of Justice.”And a couple of weeks after that, Eric Holder called me and offered me the DAAG position in the Civil Rights Division and said, “We'd really like you to especially concentrate on our voting-rights litigation.” It was very important litigation, in part because the Supreme Court had recently struck down the pre-clearance regime under Section 5 [of the Voting Rights Act]. So the Justice Department was now bringing a bunch of lawsuits against things they could have blocked if Section 5 had been in effect, most notably the Texas voter ID law, which was a quite draconian voter ID law, and this omnibus bill in North Carolina that involved all sorts of cutbacks to opportunities to vote: a cutback on early voting, a cutback on same-day registration, a cutback on 16- and 17-year-olds pre-registering, and the like.So I went to the Department of Justice and worked with the Voting Section on those cases, but I also ended up working on things like getting the Justice Department to change its position on whether Title VII covered transgender individuals. And then I also got to work on the implementation of [United States v.] Windsor—which I had worked on, representing Edie Windsor, before I went to DOJ, because the Court had just decided Windsor [which held Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional]. So I had an opportunity to work on how to implement Windsor across the federal government. So that was the stuff I got to work on the first time I was at DOJ, and I also obviously worked on tons of other stuff, and it was phenomenal. I loved doing it.I did it for about 20 months, and then I came back to Stanford. It affected my teaching; I understood a lot of stuff quite differently having worked on it. It gave me some ideas on things I wanted to write about. And it just refreshed me in some ways. It's different than working in the clinic. I love working in the clinic, but you're working with students. You're working only with very, very junior lawyers. I sometimes think of the clinic as being a sort of Groundhog Day of first-year associates, and so I'm sort of senior partner and paralegal at a large law firm. At DOJ, you're working with subject-matter experts. The people in the Voting Section, collectively, had hundreds of years of experience with voting. The people in the Appellate Section had hundreds of years of experience with appellate litigation. And so it's just a very different feel.So I did that, and then I came back to Stanford. I was here, and in the fall of 2020, I was asked if I wanted to be one of the people on the Justice Department review team if Joe Biden won the election. These are sometimes referred to as the transition teams or the landing teams or the like. And I said, “I'd be delighted to do that.” They had me as one of the point people reviewing the Civil Rights Division. And I think it might've even been the Wednesday or Thursday before Inauguration Day 2021, I got a call from the liaison person on the transition team saying, “How would you like to go back to DOJ and be the principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division?” That would mean essentially running the Division until we got a confirmed head, which took about five months. And I thought that this would be an amazing opportunity to go back to the DOJ and work with people I love, right at the beginning of an administration.And the beginning of an administration is really different than coming in midway through the second term of an administration. You're trying to come up with priorities, and I viewed my job really as helping the career people to do their best work. There were a huge number of career people who had gone through the first Trump administration, and they were raring to go. They had all sorts of ideas on stuff they wanted to do, and it was my job to facilitate that and make that possible for them. And that's why it's so tragic this time around that almost all of those people have left. The current administration first tried to transfer them all into Sanctuary Cities [the Sanctuary Cities Enforcement Working Group] or ask them to do things that they couldn't in good conscience do, and so they've retired or taken buyouts or just left.DL: It's remarkable, just the loss of expertise and experience at the Justice Department over these past few months.PK: Thousands of years of experience gone. And these are people, you've got to realize, who had been through the Nixon administration, the Reagan administration, both Bush administrations, and the first Trump administration, and they hadn't had any problem. That's what's so stunning: this is not just the normal shift in priorities, and they have gone out of their way to make it so hellacious for people that they will leave. And that's not something that either Democratic or Republican administrations have ever done before this.DL: And we will get to a lot of, shall we say, current events. Finishing up on just the discussion of your career, you had the opportunity to work in the executive branch—what about judicial service? You've been floated over the years as a possible Supreme Court nominee. I don't know if you ever looked into serving on the Ninth Circuit or were considered for that. What about judicial service?PK: So I've never been in a position, and part of this was a lesson I learned right at the beginning of my LDF career, when Lani Guinier, who was my boss at LDF, was nominated for the position of AAG [assistant attorney general] in the Civil Rights Division and got shot down. I knew from that time forward that if I did the things I really wanted to do, my chances of confirmation were not going to be very high. People at LDF used to joke that they would get me nominated so that I would take all the bullets, and then they'd sneak everybody else through. So I never really thought that I would have a shot at a judicial position, and that didn't bother me particularly. As you know, I gave the commencement speech many years ago at Stanford, and I said, “Would I want to be on the Supreme Court? You bet—but not enough to have trimmed my sails for an entire lifetime.”And I think that's right. Peter Baker did this story in The New York Times called something like, “Favorites of Left Don't Make Obama's Court List.” And in the story, Tommy Goldstein, who's a dear friend of mine, said, “If they wanted to talk about somebody who was a flaming liberal, they'd be talking about Pam Karlan, but nobody's talking about Pam Karlan.” And then I got this call from a friend of mine who said, “Yeah, but at least people are talking about how nobody's talking about you. Nobody's even talking about how nobody's talking about me.” And I was flattered, but not fooled.DL: That's funny; I read that piece in preparing for this interview. So let's say someone were to ask you, someone mid-career, “Hey, I've been pretty safe in the early years of my career, but now I'm at this juncture where I could do things that will possibly foreclose my judicial ambitions—should I just try to keep a lid on it, in the hope of making it?” It sounds like you would tell them to let their flag fly.PK: Here's the thing: your chances of getting to be on the Supreme Court, if that's what you're talking about, your chances are so low that the question is how much do you want to give up to go from a 0.001% chance to a 0.002% chance? Yes, you are doubling your chances, but your chances are not good. And there are some people who I think are capable of doing that, perhaps because they fit the zeitgeist enough that it's not a huge sacrifice for them. So it's not that I despise everybody who goes to the Supreme Court because they must obviously have all been super-careerists; I think lots of them weren't super-careerists in that way.Although it does worry me that six members of the Court now clerked at the Supreme Court—because when you are a law clerk, it gives you this feeling about the Court that maybe you don't want everybody who's on the Court to have, a feeling that this is the be-all and end-all of life and that getting a clerkship is a manifestation of an inner state of grace, so becoming a justice is equally a manifestation of an inner state of grace in which you are smarter than everybody else, wiser than everybody else, and everybody should kowtow to you in all sorts of ways. And I worry that people who are imprinted like ducklings on the Supreme Court when they're 25 or 26 or 27 might not be the best kind of portfolio of justices at the back end. The Court that decided Brown v. Board of Education—none of them, I think, had clerked at the Supreme Court, or maybe one of them had. They'd all done things with their lives other than try to get back to the Supreme Court. So I worry about that a little bit.DL: Speaking of the Court, let's turn to the Court, because it just finished its Term as we are recording this. As we started recording, they were still handing down the final decisions of the day.PK: Yes, the “R” numbers hadn't come up on the Supreme Court website when I signed off to come talk to you.DL: Exactly. So earlier this month, not today, but earlier this month, the Court handed down its decision in United States v. Skrmetti, reviewing Tennessee's ban on the use of hormones and puberty blockers for transgender youth. Were you surprised by the Court's ruling in Skrmetti?PK: No. I was not surprised.DL: So one of your most famous cases, which you litigated successfully five years ago or so, was Bostock v. Clayton County, in which the Court held that Title VII does apply to protect transgender individuals—and Bostock figures significantly in the Skrmetti opinions. Why were you surprised by Skrmetti given that you had won this victory in Bostock, which you could argue, in terms of just the logic of it, does carry over somewhat?PK: Well, I want to be very precise: I didn't actually litigate Bostock. There were three cases that were put together….DL: Oh yes—you handled Zarda.PK: I represented Don Zarda, who was a gay man, so I did not argue the transgender part of the case at all. Fortuitously enough, David Cole argued that part of the case, and David Cole was actually the first person I had dinner with as a freshman at Yale College, when I started college, because he was the roommate of somebody I debated against in high school. So David and I went to law school together, went to college together, and had classes together. We've been friends now for almost 50 years, which is scary—I think for 48 years we've been friends—and he argued that part of the case.So here's what surprised me about what the Supreme Court did in Skrmetti. Given where the Court wanted to come out, the more intellectually honest way to get there would've been to say, “Yes, of course this is because of sex; there is sex discrimination going on here. But even applying intermediate scrutiny, we think that Tennessee's law should survive intermediate scrutiny.” That would've been an intellectually honest way to get to where the Court got.Instead, they did this weird sort of, “Well, the word ‘sex' isn't in the Fourteenth Amendment, but it's in Title VII.” But that makes no sense at all, because for none of the sex-discrimination cases that the Court has decided under the Fourteenth Amendment did the word “sex” appear in the Fourteenth Amendment. It's not like the word “sex” was in there and then all of a sudden it took a powder and left. So I thought that was a really disingenuous way of getting to where the Court wanted to go. But I was not surprised after the oral argument that the Court was going to get to where it got on the bottom line.DL: I'm curious, though, rewinding to Bostock and Zarda, were you surprised by how the Court came out in those cases? Because it was still a deeply conservative Court back then.PK: No, I was not surprised. I was not surprised, both because I thought we had so much the better of the argument and because at the oral argument, it seemed pretty clear that we had at least six justices, and those were the six justices we had at the end of the day. The thing that was interesting to me about Bostock was I thought also that we were likely to win for the following weird legal-realist reason, which is that this was a case that would allow the justices who claimed to be textualists to show that they were principled textualists, by doing something that they might not have voted for if they were in Congress or the like.And also, while the impact was really large in one sense, the impact was not really large in another sense: most American workers are protected by Title VII, but most American employers do not discriminate, and didn't discriminate even before this, on the basis of sexual orientation or on the basis of gender identity. For example, in Zarda's case, the employer denied that they had fired Mr. Zarda because he was gay; they said, “We fired him for other reasons.”Very few employers had a formal policy that said, “We discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.” And although most American workers are protected by Title VII, most American employers are not covered by Title VII—and that's because small employers, employers with fewer than 15 full-time employees, are not covered at all. And religious employers have all sorts of exemptions and the like, so for the people who had the biggest objection to hiring or promoting or retaining gay or transgender employees, this case wasn't going to change what happened to them at all. So the impact was really important for workers, but not deeply intrusive on employers generally. So I thought those two things, taken together, meant that we had a pretty good argument.I actually thought our textual argument was not our best argument, but it was the one that they were most likely to buy. So it was really interesting: we made a bunch of different arguments in the brief, and then as soon as I got up to argue, the first question out of the box was Justice Ginsburg saying, “Well, in 1964, homosexuality was illegal in most of the country—how could this be?” And that's when I realized, “Okay, she's just telling me to talk about the text, don't talk about anything else.”So I just talked about the text the whole time. But as you may remember from the argument, there was this weird moment, which came after I answered her question and one other one, there was this kind of silence from the justices. And I just said, “Well, if you don't have any more questions, I'll reserve the remainder of my time.” And it went well; it went well as an argument.DL: On the flip side, speaking of things that are not going so well, let's turn to current events. Zooming up to a higher level of generality than Skrmetti, you are a leading scholar of constitutional law, so here's the question. I know you've already been interviewed about it by media outlets, but let me ask you again, in light of just the latest, latest, latest news: are we in a constitutional crisis in the United States?PK: I think we're in a period of great constitutional danger. I don't know what a “constitutional crisis” is. Some people think the constitutional crisis is that we have an executive branch that doesn't believe in the Constitution, right? So you have Donald Trump asked, in an interview, “Do you have to comply with the Constitution?” He says, “I don't know.” Or he says, “I have an Article II that gives me the power to do whatever I want”—which is not what Article II says. If you want to be a textualist, it does not say the president can do whatever he wants. So you have an executive branch that really does not have a commitment to the Constitution as it has been understood up until now—that is, limited government, separation of powers, respect for individual rights. With this administration, none of that's there. And I don't know whether Emil Bove did say, “F**k the courts,” or not, but they're certainly acting as if that's their attitude.So yes, in that sense, we're in a period of constitutional danger. And then on top of that, I think we have a Supreme Court that is acting almost as if this is a normal administration with normal stuff, a Court that doesn't seem to recognize what district judges appointed by every president since George H.W. Bush or maybe even Reagan have recognized, which is, “This is not normal.” What the administration is trying to do is not normal, and it has to be stopped. So that worries me, that the Supreme Court is acting as if it needs to keep its powder dry—and for what, I'm not clear.If they think that by giving in and giving in, and prevaricating and putting things off... today, I thought the example of this was in the birthright citizenship/universal injunction case. One of the groups of plaintiffs that's up there is a bunch of states, around 23 states, and the Supreme Court in Justice Barrett's opinion says, “Well, maybe the states have standing, maybe they don't. And maybe if they have standing, you can enjoin this all in those states. We leave this all for remind.”They've sat on this for months. It's ridiculous that the Supreme Court doesn't “man up,” essentially, and decide these things. It really worries me quite a bit that the Supreme Court just seems completely blind to the fact that in 2024, they gave Donald Trump complete criminal immunity from any prosecution, so who's going to hold him accountable? Not criminally accountable, not accountable in damages—and now the Supreme Court seems not particularly interested in holding him accountable either.DL: Let me play devil's advocate. Here's my theory on why the Court does seem to be holding its fire: they're afraid of a worse outcome, which is, essentially, “The emperor has no clothes.”Say they draw this line in the sand for Trump, and then Trump just crosses it. And as we all know from that famous quote from The Federalist Papers, the Court has neither force nor will, but only judgment. That's worse, isn't it? If suddenly it's exposed that the Court doesn't have any army, any way to stop Trump? And then the courts have no power.PK: I actually think it's the opposite, which is, I think if the Court said to Donald Trump, “You must do X,” and then he defies it, you would have people in the streets. You would have real deep resistance—not just the “No Kings,” one-day march, but deep resistance. And there are scholars who've done comparative law who say, “When 3 percent of the people in a country go to the streets, you get real change.” And I think the Supreme Court is mistaking that.I taught a reading group for our first-years here. We have reading groups where you meet four times during the fall for dinner, and you read stuff that makes you think. And my reading group was called “Exit, Voice, and Loyalty,” and it started with the Albert Hirschman book with that title.DL: Great book.PK: It's a great book. And I gave them some excerpt from that, and I gave them an essay by Hannah Arendt called “Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship,” which she wrote in 1964. And one of the things she says there is she talks about people who stayed in the German regime, on the theory that they would prevent at least worse things from happening. And I'm going to paraphrase slightly, but what she says is, “People who think that what they're doing is getting the lesser evil quickly forget that what they're choosing is evil.” And if the Supreme Court decides, “We're not going to tell Donald Trump ‘no,' because if we tell him no and he goes ahead, we will be exposed,” what they have basically done is said to Donald Trump, “Do whatever you want; we're not going to stop you.” And that will lose the Supreme Court more credibility over time than Donald Trump defying them once and facing some serious backlash for doing it.DL: So let me ask you one final question before we go to my little speed round. That 3 percent statistic is fascinating, by the way, but it resonates for me. My family's originally from the Philippines, and you probably had the 3 percent out there in the streets to oust Marcos in 1986.But let me ask you this. We now live in a nation where Donald Trump won not just the Electoral College, but the popular vote. We do see a lot of ugly things out there, whether in social media or incidents of violence or what have you. You still have enough faith in the American people that if the Supreme Court drew that line, and Donald Trump crossed it, and maybe this happened a couple of times, even—you still have faith that there will be that 3 percent or what have you in the streets?PK: I have hope, which is not quite the same thing as faith, obviously, but I have hope that some Republicans in Congress would grow a spine at that point, and people would say, “This is not right.” Have they always done that? No. We've had bad things happen in the past, and people have not done anything about it. But I think that the alternative of just saying, “Well, since we might not be able to stop him, we shouldn't do anything about it,” while he guts the federal government, sends masked people onto the streets, tries to take the military into domestic law enforcement—I think we have to do something.And this is what's so enraging in some ways: the district court judges in this country are doing their job. They are enjoining stuff. They're not enjoining everything, because not everything can be enjoined, and not everything is illegal; there's a lot of bad stuff Donald Trump is doing that he's totally entitled to do. But the district courts are doing their job, and they're doing their job while people are sending pizza boxes to their houses and sending them threats, and the president is tweeting about them or whatever you call the posts on Truth Social. They're doing their job—and the Supreme Court needs to do its job too. It needs to stand up for district judges. If it's not willing to stand up for the rest of us, you'd think they'd at least stand up for their entire judicial branch.DL: Turning to my speed round, my first question is, what do you like the least about the law? And this can either be the practice of law or law as a more abstract system of ordering human affairs.PK: What I liked least about it was having to deal with opposing counsel in discovery. That drove me to appellate litigation.DL: Exactly—where your request for an extension is almost always agreed to by the other side.PK: Yes, and where the record is the record.DL: Yes, exactly. My second question, is what would you be if you were not a lawyer and/or law professor?PK: Oh, they asked me this question for a thing here at Stanford, and it was like, if I couldn't be a lawyer, I'd... And I just said, “I'd sit in my room and cry.”DL: Okay!PK: I don't know—this is what my talent is!DL: You don't want to write a novel or something?PK: No. What I would really like to do is I would like to bike the Freedom Trail, which is a trail that starts in Montgomery, Alabama, and goes to the Canadian border, following the Underground Railroad. I've always wanted to bike that. But I guess that's not a career. I bike slowly enough that it could be a career, at this point—but earlier on, probably not.DL: My third question is, how much sleep do you get each night?PK: I now get around six hours of sleep each night, but it's complicated by the following, which is when I worked at the Department of Justice the second time, it was during Covid, so I actually worked remotely from California. And what that required me to do was essentially to wake up every morning at 4 a.m., 7 a.m. on the East Coast, so I could have breakfast, read the paper, and be ready to go by 5:30 a.m.I've been unable to get off of that, so I still wake up before dawn every morning. And I spent three months in Florence, and I thought the jet lag would bring me out of this—not in the slightest. Within two weeks, I was waking up at 4:30 a.m. Central European Time. So that's why I get about six hours, because I can't really go to bed before 9 or 10 p.m.DL: Well, I was struck by your being able to do this podcast fairly early West Coast time.PK: Oh no, this is the third thing I've done this morning! I had a 6:30 a.m. conference call.DL: Oh my gosh, wow. It reminds me of that saying about how you get more done in the Army before X hour than other people get done in a day.My last question, is any final words of wisdom, such as career advice or life advice, for my listeners?PK: Yes: do what you love, with people you love doing it with.DL: Well said. I've loved doing this podcast—Professor Karlan, thanks again for joining me.PK: You should start calling me Pam. We've had this same discussion….DL: We're on the air! Okay, well, thanks again, Pam—I'm so grateful to you for joining me.PK: Thanks for having me.DL: Thanks so much to Professor Karlan for joining me. Whether or not you agree with her views, you can't deny that she's both insightful and honest—qualities that have made her a leading legal academic and lawyer, but also a great podcast guest.Thanks to NexFirm for sponsoring the Original Jurisdiction podcast. NexFirm has helped many attorneys to leave Biglaw and launch firms of their own. To explore this opportunity, please contact NexFirm at 212-292-1000 or email careerdevelopment at nexfirm dot com to learn more.Thanks to Tommy Harron, my sound engineer here at Original Jurisdiction, and thanks to you, my listeners and readers. To connect with me, please email me at davidlat at Substack dot com, or find me on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, at davidlat, and on Instagram and Threads at davidbenjaminlat.If you enjoyed today's episode, please rate, review, and subscribe. Please subscribe to the Original Jurisdiction newsletter if you don't already, over at davidlat dot substack dot com. This podcast is free, but it's made possible by paid subscriptions to the newsletter.The next episode should appear on or about Wednesday, July 23. Until then, may your thinking be original and your jurisdiction free of defects. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit davidlat.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Stanford Law Professor Evelyn Douek, a First Amendment scholar and permanent U.S. resident, expands on her recent Atlantic essay, “Can I Teach the First Amendment If I Only Have a Green Card?” She reflects on the paradox of teaching constitutional protections for free speech while watching the U.S. government detain or revoke visas for foreign students and other non-citizen residents engaged in protest or student journalism. Douek joins fellow Stanford Law professor Pamela Karlan to explore what these developments could mean for the future of American universities, long known for drawing global talent. Their conversation highlights the growing tension between the nation's commitment to free expression and policies that penalize dissent by non-citizens.Links:Evelyn Douek  >>> Stanford Law page“Can I Teach the First Amendment If I Only Have a Green Card?” >>> The Atlantic pageModerated Content podcast >>>  Stanford Law pageConnect:Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast WebsiteStanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn PageRich Ford >>>  Twitter/XPam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School PageStanford Law School >>> Twitter/XStanford Lawyer Magazine >>> Twitter/X(00:00:00) Introduction and Exercising First Amendment Rights(00:01:53) Writing the Essay(00:02:27) Teaching the First Amendment(00:15:25) Freedom of Speech and Religion(00:16:11) Challenges of Teaching the First Amendment

In this powerful conversation, I sit down with Nick Halaris, a purpose-driven real estate entrepreneur, to explore the evolving landscape of entrepreneurship—and why it's more important than ever to lead with both ambition and impact.

It's not just the MAGA or the Woke crowd. According to Greg Lukianoff, CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), free speech in America is under existential threat from all political sides. While he's long criticized campus cancel culture from the left, he now opposes Trump's coercive targeting of big law firms, media companies, and universities. The Stanford Law trained Lukianoff argues that Trump's actions—removing security clearances, barring lawyers from federal buildings, and threatening media mergers—violate constitutional principles. Five Key Takeaways * Bipartisan Authoritarianism: Lukianoff fights free speech threats from both sides—campus cancel culture from the left that he's criticized for years, and now Trump's government coercion of law firms, media, and universities from the right.* Trump's Legal Warfare: The administration is removing security clearances from lawyers who opposed Trump, barring them from federal buildings (including courthouses), and threatening media companies' business deals—unprecedented attacks on legal and press freedom.* Institutional Cowardice: Major law firms like Paul Weiss capitulated quickly, offering millions in pro bono services to Trump, while others like Covington & Burling stood firm. Media responses have been mixed, with some caving under pressure.* Free Speech is Fragile: Lukianoff argues free speech isn't humanity's default state—it requires constant defense and can easily revert to authoritarianism when not actively protected by institutions and individuals.* Technology Accelerates Crisis: Social media and AI are speeding up existing problems of polarization and institutional decay, making the current free speech crisis more acute and unpredictable than previous eras.Greg Lukianoff is an attorney, New York Times best-selling author, and the President and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). He is the author of Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, Freedom From Speech, and FIRE's Guide to Free Speech on Campus. He co-authored The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure with Jonathan Haidt. Most recently Greg co-authored The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All—But There Is a Solution with Rikki Schlott. Greg is also an Executive Producer of Can We Take a Joke? (2015), a feature-length documentary that explores the collision between comedy, censorship, and outrage culture, both on and off campus, and of Mighty Ira: A Civil Liberties Story (2020), an award-winning feature-length film about the life and career of former ACLU Executive Director Ira Glasser.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode of Madison's Notes, Michael McConnell examines the gap between the Founders' vision of a limited presidency and today's expansive executive power. Drawing on his book The President Who Would Not Be King (Princeton University Press, 2022), we discuss how the Constitution's safeguards against monarchical authority have eroded over the past century—and what steps might restore balance to our system of government. From war powers to administrative overreach, the conversation tackles the urgent question: How did we get here, and what can be done? Michael McConnell is a renowned constitutional scholar, Stanford Law professor, and former federal judge on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. A leading voice on originalism and separation of powers, his work bridges historical intent and modern legal debates, making him the perfect guide for this critical discussion. Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In this episode of Madison's Notes, Michael McConnell examines the gap between the Founders' vision of a limited presidency and today's expansive executive power. Drawing on his book The President Who Would Not Be King (Princeton University Press, 2022), we discuss how the Constitution's safeguards against monarchical authority have eroded over the past century—and what steps might restore balance to our system of government. From war powers to administrative overreach, the conversation tackles the urgent question: How did we get here, and what can be done? Michael McConnell is a renowned constitutional scholar, Stanford Law professor, and former federal judge on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. A leading voice on originalism and separation of powers, his work bridges historical intent and modern legal debates, making him the perfect guide for this critical discussion. Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

In this episode of Madison's Notes, Michael McConnell examines the gap between the Founders' vision of a limited presidency and today's expansive executive power. Drawing on his book The President Who Would Not Be King (Princeton University Press, 2022), we discuss how the Constitution's safeguards against monarchical authority have eroded over the past century—and what steps might restore balance to our system of government. From war powers to administrative overreach, the conversation tackles the urgent question: How did we get here, and what can be done? Michael McConnell is a renowned constitutional scholar, Stanford Law professor, and former federal judge on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. A leading voice on originalism and separation of powers, his work bridges historical intent and modern legal debates, making him the perfect guide for this critical discussion. Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

In this episode of Madison's Notes, Michael McConnell examines the gap between the Founders' vision of a limited presidency and today's expansive executive power. Drawing on his book The President Who Would Not Be King (Princeton University Press, 2022), we discuss how the Constitution's safeguards against monarchical authority have eroded over the past century—and what steps might restore balance to our system of government. From war powers to administrative overreach, the conversation tackles the urgent question: How did we get here, and what can be done? Michael McConnell is a renowned constitutional scholar, Stanford Law professor, and former federal judge on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. A leading voice on originalism and separation of powers, his work bridges historical intent and modern legal debates, making him the perfect guide for this critical discussion. Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented.

In this episode of Madison's Notes, Michael McConnell examines the gap between the Founders' vision of a limited presidency and today's expansive executive power. Drawing on his book The President Who Would Not Be King (Princeton University Press, 2022), we discuss how the Constitution's safeguards against monarchical authority have eroded over the past century—and what steps might restore balance to our system of government. From war powers to administrative overreach, the conversation tackles the urgent question: How did we get here, and what can be done? Michael McConnell is a renowned constitutional scholar, Stanford Law professor, and former federal judge on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. A leading voice on originalism and separation of powers, his work bridges historical intent and modern legal debates, making him the perfect guide for this critical discussion. Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

In this episode of Madison's Notes, Michael McConnell examines the gap between the Founders' vision of a limited presidency and today's expansive executive power. Drawing on his book The President Who Would Not Be King (Princeton University Press, 2022), we discuss how the Constitution's safeguards against monarchical authority have eroded over the past century—and what steps might restore balance to our system of government. From war powers to administrative overreach, the conversation tackles the urgent question: How did we get here, and what can be done? Michael McConnell is a renowned constitutional scholar, Stanford Law professor, and former federal judge on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. A leading voice on originalism and separation of powers, his work bridges historical intent and modern legal debates, making him the perfect guide for this critical discussion. Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

In this episode of Madison's Notes, Michael McConnell examines the gap between the Founders' vision of a limited presidency and today's expansive executive power. Drawing on his book The President Who Would Not Be King (Princeton University Press, 2022), we discuss how the Constitution's safeguards against monarchical authority have eroded over the past century—and what steps might restore balance to our system of government. From war powers to administrative overreach, the conversation tackles the urgent question: How did we get here, and what can be done? Michael McConnell is a renowned constitutional scholar, Stanford Law professor, and former federal judge on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. A leading voice on originalism and separation of powers, his work bridges historical intent and modern legal debates, making him the perfect guide for this critical discussion. Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since ChatGPT came on the scene, numerous incidents have surfaced involving attorneys submitting court filings riddled with AI-generated hallucinations—plausible-sounding case citations that purport to support key legal propositions but are, in fact, entirely fictitious. As sanctions against attorneys mount, it seems clear there are a few kinks in the tech. Even AI tools designed specifically for lawyers can be prone to hallucinations. In this episode, we look at the potential and risks of AI-assisted tech in law and policy with two Stanford Law researchers at the forefront of this issue: RegLab Director Professor Daniel Ho and JD/PhD student and computer science researcher Mirac Suzgun. Together with several co-authors, they examine the emerging risks in two recent papers, “Profiling Legal Hallucinations in Large Language Models” (Oxford Journal of Legal Analysis, 2024) and the forthcoming “Hallucination-Free?” in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. Ho and Suzgun offer new insights into how legal AI is working, where it's failing, and what's at stake.Links:Daniel Ho  >>> Stanford Law pageStanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) >>> Stanford University pageRegulation, Evaluation, and Governance Lab (RegLab) >>> Stanford University pageConnect:Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast WebsiteStanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn PageRich Ford >>>  Twitter/XPam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School PageStanford Law School >>> Twitter/XStanford Lawyer Magazine >>> Twitter/X (00:00:00) Introduction to AI in Legal Education (00:05:01) AI Tools in Legal Research and Writing(00:12:01) Challenges of AI-Generated Content (00:20:0) Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback(00:30:01) Audience Q&A

Logical Reasoning predictions rely on the basics: accept the premises, assume the conclusion is false, and don't read the question first. Ben and Nathan explain how these steps make the section easier and why reading the question first often hurts performance.They also discuss how law schools use seat deposit deadlines to encourage students to accept weaker scholarship offers. The guys warn about the return of student loan collections and emphasize avoiding debt without a solid repayment plan. They introduce “Crushing 1L,” a new tool to help students start law school strong. Then another episode of Personal Statement Gong Show. Study with our Free PlanDownload our iOS appWatch Episode 504 on YouTube0:28 – Deposit Deadline Drama - Law schools' admissions offices are sales departments. Changing offers right before deposit deadlines puts pressure on applicants to accept worse deals. It's all part of the game schools play to leverage scholarship offers to manipulate their GPA and LSAT medians.10:35 – Student Loans in Collections - Collections are now in effect for defaulted student loans, including wage garnishments. With less than 40% of borrowers current on their payments, it's a stark reminder not to take on massive debt for law school unless you have a solid plan to pay it off. Always check employment outcomes. Most importantly, get an LSAT score that lets you go to law school for free. 23:34 – Prepping for 1L Success - The Demon has a new feature, “Crushing 1L,” to help you get a grasp of the language and the big picture of law school before you even start. Hadari's story—getting into Stanford Law without debt after 2.5 years of prep—shows it's worth taking your time to do law school the right way. Even if you finish law school at the bottom of your class, graduating debt-free puts you on firm financial footing.37:19 – Making Better Predictions - Never read the question first. You get better at making predictions in Logical Reasoning by practicing the right way. Accept the premises, expect the conclusion not to be properly proven, and be skeptical of every argument. 52:16 – Remaining Time in Reading Comprehension - If you're low on time in Reading Comprehension in a practice section, go ahead and start the next passage. Then finish the passage and the questions after time runs out. The goal of practice is long-term reading improvement, not squeezing out a few extra points. On test day, though, you might try reading a bit and grabbing a main point question, or simply use the remaining time to rest and reset.56:17 – Personal Statement Gong Show - Bryan is the next contestant in the Personal Statement Gong Show. This is the segment where Ben and Nate will read your personal statement, but as soon as they spot a problem, they ring the gong and stop reading. The current record is five lines, held by Jeremiah. 1:12:18 – Don't Want to Be an Attorney - A demon student aspires to become a clinical ethicist after a decade of nursing experience. Ben and Nate caution that if a JD is necessary, fine, but do not pay for law school. A nursing license already carries a ton of career value, so make sure you know exactly what you're getting into before you commit to more school and debt.1:18:54 - Word of the Week - Verisimilitude - “After reading this chain, I recognized that this conversation possessed a high degree of verisimilitude. The texts, in their word choice and arguments, sounded as if they were written by the people who purportedly sent them, or by a particularly adept AI text generator.”

Billionaire investor and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel sits down with Jordan Peterson for a powerful conversation about why real progress has stalled. Thiel argues that the last truly groundbreaking achievement may have been landing on the moon—and since then, we've slowed down. He explains how fear, red tape, and over-specialization have made us more cautious and less ambitious. They dig into how society has shifted away from building and inventing, toward digital distractions and endless talk. They also explore what's been lost as faith and meaning have disappeared from public life. From broken universities to status-driven culture wars, this is a deep and thought-provoking look at the challenges facing the West—and what we might do to turn things around. Peter Thiel is a German-born entrepreneur, venture capitalist, activist, and billionaire who emigrated to the U.S. as a child, eventually settling in California after years of moving between countries. A Stanford Law graduate, he began his career as a clerk and derivatives trader before founding Thiel Capital with $1 million from friends and family. Despite early setbacks, he co-founded Confinity, which became PayPal, launching a streak of ventures including Palantir, Clarium Capital, and early investment in Facebook. Thiel is an openly gay supporter of the Republican party, advocating for both equal rights and certain conservative policies, making his political stance admirably nuanced. This episode was filmed on March 31st, 2025.  | Links | For Peter Thiel: X https://x.com/peterthiel?lang=en Read “Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future” https://a.co/d/fAfeXm8 

Do asylum seekers in the U.S. have rights? Can the U.S. government forcibly deport them to a prison in El Salvador without due process? What about green card holders attending college? Since taking office, President Trump has focused on legal and undocumented immigrants alike, from Venezuelan asylum seekers to visa and green card college students—invoking the Alien Enemies Act to deport some, and even defying court orders. In this episode, Stanford Law immigration law expert Jennifer Chacón joins Rich Ford for a discussion about these unprecedented actions while also addressing the broader implications for human rights and the U.S.'s role as a refuge for persecuted individuals—and the potential for America's diminished international reputation and influence in the world.Links:Jennifer Chacón >>> Stanford Law pageLegal Phantoms >>> Stanford Law pageSurveillance Footage Shows Arrest of Tufts U. Student  >>> NY Times pageWhat the Venezuelans Deported to El Salvador Experienced >>> Time magazine pageConnect:Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast WebsiteStanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn PageRich Ford >>>  Twitter/XPam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School PageStanford Law School >>> Twitter/XStanford Lawyer Magazine >>> Twitter/X (00:00:00) : Introduction of guest Jennifer Chacón and Unprecedented Actions(00:09:00): Redefinition of Wartime Acts and Due Process(00:17:56): Legal Frameworks and Immigration Detention(00:18:36): Aggressive Tactics and Legal Boundaries(00:31:55): Vision of the United States and Future Outlook(00:32:54): Vigilance and Civic Engagement

The TikTok ban decision passed down by the Supreme Court late last year is a clear violation of First Amendment precedent, but President Trump's refusal to enact it as law is a constitutional crisis in the making. We brought Stanford Law professor, rising First Amendment star scholar, and Moderated Content host Evelyn Douek on the […]

Welcome back to 'AI Lawyer Talking Tech'! In today's episode, we're diving into the dynamic world of legal technology, where artificial intelligence continues to reshape the practice of law. From new AI-powered platforms designed to streamline workflows and analyze vast datasets, to discussions around the ethical considerations and regulatory landscape of this rapidly evolving field, we'll explore the latest advancements and the crucial conversations they're sparking within the legal profession. Stay tuned as we unpack the key developments that are impacting how legal services are delivered and consumed.The AI Ethics Dilemma: How Law Firms Are Navigating the Challenges of Artificial Intelligence19 Mar 2025Firsthand.coIt's Actually Not About The AI: A Conversation With Jordan Furlong19 Mar 2025Above The LawPractical applications of legal technology in government legal departments19 Mar 2025Thomson ReutersHow A SXSW Panel Should Make Us Rethink The Legal Profession's Rural Crisis19 Mar 2025Above The LawGenerative artificial intelligence is supercharging legal analytics19 Mar 2025ABA JournalThe Future of AI Compliance—Preparing for New Global and State Laws19 Mar 2025Smith AndersonPolicymakers and Industry Leaders Discuss AI Innovation at Bloomberg Industry Group Executive Forum19 Mar 2025Bloomberg GovernmentYour Personal Cell Phone and Discovery: Bring Your Own Device Policy Considerations19 Mar 2025New York State Bar AssociationData Privacy in the Age of Generative AI: Legal and Ethical Implications for Indian Corporations19 Mar 2025JD SupraLegalweek 2025: Legal Spend Management and Cost Control: Invoice Review Isn't Enough19 Mar 2025Elevate ServicesLegaltech Latest: Entegrata closes seed funding for data lakehouse business as Caddi launches following $5m backing19 Mar 2025Legal IT InsiderHow AI is Augmenting Human-Led Legal Advice at Citizens Advice20 Mar 2025Legaltech on MediumMore than data: AI, law & the indispensable human19 Mar 2025Thomson Reuters InstituteAI Legal Battles: Canada and Beyond18 Mar 2025GenAI-Lexology#0080: (CCT) Unpacking the “Human Element” in the GenAI Equation19 Mar 2025ILTA VoicesLitera flexes its platform with the launch of Litera One and Litera AI+19 Mar 2025Legal IT InsiderTop Five AI Procurement Questions General Counsel for Manufacturers Should Consider20 Mar 2025Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz PCBlog Post Will Ling Chi Kill The Corporate Transparency Act?19 Mar 2025Allen MatkinsCopyright Office Solidifies Stance on the Copyrightability of AI-Generated Works19 Mar 2025Perkins CoieBig Tech Calls for National AI Regulation to Stop Patchwork of State Laws: What Employers Need to Know19 Mar 2025Fisher & Phillips LLPKirkland & Ellis Partner: Slow-Evolving Case Law Is a Major E-Discovery Challenge19 Mar 2025Kirkland & Ellis LLPThe Rise of Micro-Credentials in BigLaw: How Certifications Are Shaping Legal Careers18 Mar 2025Firsthand.coLawyers Using AI Produce Better Work In Half The Time, Landmark Study Finds19 Mar 2025Forbes.comProfessional-grade GenAI: Four common questions, answered18 Mar 2025Thomson ReutersSteering through the UK's business legalities with a lawyer18 Mar 2025London Daily NewsExterro and Integreon Join Forces to Deliver the Gold Standard in Managed E-Discovery and Document Review Solutions18 Mar 2025EDRMCleary Gottlieb + Springbok AI: BigLaw Finally Gets It?18 Mar 20253 Geeks and a Law BlogRead more : Stanford Law's Rhode Center Launches Multidistrict Litigation Toolkit18 Mar 2025Stanford Law School

Welcome to today's episode of 'AI Lawyer Talking Tech', your source for the latest developments at the intersection of law and technology. The legal world is experiencing a rapid transformation, driven by advancements in artificial intelligence and a growing need for efficiency and specialization. Today, we'll delve into the increasing adoption of AI in various aspects of legal practice, from enhancing lawyer productivity and research to managing complex litigation and ensuring regulatory compliance. We'll also explore the evolving landscape of legal careers, the importance of data security, and the strategic decisions law firms are making to stay ahead in this dynamic environment.The Rise of Micro-Credentials in BigLaw: How Certifications Are Shaping Legal Careers18 Mar 2025Firsthand.coLawyers Using AI Produce Better Work In Half The Time, Landmark Study Finds19 Mar 2025Forbes.comProfessional-grade GenAI: Four common questions, answered18 Mar 2025Thomson ReutersSteering through the UK's business legalities with a lawyer18 Mar 2025London Daily NewsExterro and Integreon Join Forces to Deliver the Gold Standard in Managed E-Discovery and Document Review Solutions18 Mar 2025EDRMCleary Gottlieb + Springbok AI: BigLaw Finally Gets It?18 Mar 20253 Geeks and a Law BlogRead more : Stanford Law's Rhode Center Launches Multidistrict Litigation Toolkit18 Mar 2025Stanford Law SchoolHow to Have Secured Background Checks18 Mar 2025Santa Clarita Valley SignalAhead of the curve: reputation management in 202518 Mar 2025Financier WorldwideHeld to account: CFPB targets big tech18 Mar 2025Financier WorldwideAI and Beyond: Key Trends at ABA TECHSHOW 202518 Mar 2025LawyeristMarketing Partner Forum 2025: Which is more difficult? Getting the resources or getting the buy-in?18 Mar 2025Thomson ReutersPhantom Precedents: When AI Hallucinations Invade Judicial Reasoning18 Mar 2025SpicyIPEntegrata Raises $4.5M To Further Its Mission To Transform Law Firm Data Analytics and Business Intelligence18 Mar 2025LawSitesMake Sure You're Covered for the AI Copyright Fight: Insurance Safeguards After Thomson Reuters v. Ross18 Mar 2025IPWatchdog.com | Patents & Intellectual Property LawMaster of the Rolls gives speech on work of the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce18 Mar 2025SCL.orgUS equal opportunity commission demands 20 law firms disclose DEI employment practices18 Mar 2025MSN United StatesHow should law firms navigate data processing with their service providers?18 Mar 2025Law SocietyThe 5 biggest drawbacks of not using legal AI in your law firm18 Mar 2025Today's ConveyancerCleary Gottlieb Acquires Springbok AI to Boost Legal Tech Innovation18 Mar 2025Lawyer MonthlyThe rise of consultant lawyers and the future of legal services18 Mar 2025Legal FuturesLegal Innovators California: Dr Megan Ma + Legal AI18 Mar 2025Artificial LawyerGC Forum: Building a Case for the CLO of the Future18 Mar 2025JD SupraFederal Judicial Conference To Revise Rules of Evidence To Address AI Risks18 Mar 2025Debevoise Data BlogEnhance Your Justia Lawyer Directory Profile with AI-Powered Biography Assistance & Attract More Clients18 Mar 2025Legal Marketing & Technology BlogEntegrata Raises Seed Financing to Transform Legal Data Analytics and AI-Powered Insights18 Mar 2025Legaltech on MediumMarketing Partner Forum 2025: Which is more difficult? Getting the resources or getting the buy-in?18 Mar 2025Thomson Reuters Institute1/3 (Wrongly) Believe AI Will Do ‘Most Legal Tasks' By End Of 202518 Mar 2025Artificial LawyerHarbor acquires CLIENTSFirst Consulting to scale marketing tech offering18 Mar 2025Legal IT InsiderRelativity Announces its Fourth Annual AI Visionaries List18 Mar 2025Legal Technology News - Legal IT Professionals | Everything legal technology

Send us a textGuest Rahul Athaveya, a Stanford Law graduate turned tech entrepreneur, shares his profound journey from addiction and incarceration to redemption and purpose. Rahul discusses his experiences in prison, including founding the Prison Poetry Project, which has helped inmates through education and creative expression. The episode features heartfelt poetry readings, including Rahul's piece 'Incarceration' and Katische's own reflections on love and transformation. Rahul's near-death experience during COVID-19 and his subsequent recovery and reintegration into society highlight the power of resilience and hope. Join Katische and Rahul for an inspiring conversation about the human spirit, redemption, and the healing power of poetry.Chapter Timestamps:00:00 Introduction to the Infinite Life Podcast00:39 New Season: Conversations with Katische01:17 Rahul's Poem: Incarceration02:48 Introducing Rahul Athaveya03:55 Rahul's Journey and Poetry05:38 The Story Behind 'To Have Loved'08:09 Rahul's Writing Journey in Prison15:55 The Impact of Poetry in Prison24:46 Transformative Power of Education and Hope29:24 Introduction to Prison Life30:08 Reading 'Oh, Mongolian Beef'31:55 The Reality of Prison Food34:08 The Business of Prisons36:45 A Near-Death Experience48:47 Life After Prison50:59 Reflections on Love and Family53:46 Closing Thoughts and PoetryPodcaster?- host with Buzzsprout Buzzsprout is my podcast host of choice! 3 years in podcasting has led me to Buzzsprout!Looking for Podcast Guests? PodmatchTake the hassle out of endless emails, Facebook groups and pitches to get Pro guests. Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showFind out more about Katische and book sessions at https://katische.com/ Connect with and follow Katische on Facebook, LinkedIn, Goodreads, YouTube and Amazon

What are the legal implications of the unprecedented mass pardoning of the January 6th rioters? What does it say about American rule of law? President Biden's DOJ prosecuted nearly 1,600 of the January 6, 2021, rioters—many for acts of shocking violence against police and government offices. On January 20, newly sworn-in President Trump, in one of his first official acts, issued a sweeping grant of clemency to all of the rioters charged in connection with the attack on the Capitol attack. He pardoned most defendants and commuted the sentences of 14 members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers militia, most of whom had been convicted of seditious conspiracy. The response from some of these violent rioters since the pardons has been alarming.“The people who did this, they need to feel the heat. We need to find and put them behind bars for what they did,” said Enrique Tarrio, the former national Proud Boys leader, sentenced to a 22-year sentence on seditious conspiracy charges, on Alex Jones' podcast soon after his pardon. Our guests today are Stanford Law Professor Shirin Sinnar and former DOJ prosecutor Brendan Ballou.Sinnar's scholarship, including a recent study of hate groups, focuses on the legal treatment of political violence, the procedural dimensions of civil rights litigation, and the role of institutions in protecting individual rights and democratic values in the national security contextBallou was a lawyer at the Department of Justice for five years. He resigned on January 23 soon after President Trump's pardons. In a New York Times opinion essay, he wrote: “For while some convicted rioters seem genuinely remorseful, and others appear simply ready to put politics behind them, many others are emboldened by the termination of what they see as unjust prosecutions. Freed by the president, they have never been more dangerous.” He graduated from Stanford Law in 2016.Links:Shirin Sinnar >>> Stanford Law pageNew York Times piece by Brendan Ballou >>> I Prosecuted the Capitol Rioters. They Have Never Been More Dangerous.Connect:Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast WebsiteStanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn PageRich Ford >>>  Twitter/XPam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School PageStanford Law School >>> Twitter/XStanford Lawyer Magazine >>> Twitter/X(00:00:00) The January 6th Prosecutions and the Pardon Power(00:06:26) Rewriting History and the Threat of Political Violence (00:11:56) The Future of Political Violence in the U.S. (17:24) Addressing Militia Violence and Legal Gaps(21:37) State-Level Prosecutions and Risks of Expanding Criminal Laws(25:27) Pardons, Political Violence, and Historical Parallels  

Brought to you by Trade Coffee! Get up to 3 bags free with any new Trade subscription at drinktrade.com/OA OA1117 - As Donald Trump's executive branch nominees continue to work their way through the confirmation process, we welcome Stanford Law professor Anne Joseph O'Connell to learn more about one of the most important legal protections we have against a fully imperial presidency. Professor O'Connell is one of the leading academic experts on the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, the legislation which Trump may or may not have intentionally circumvented in his last term to install acting heads of departments which would otherwise require Senate confirmation, and provides some essential background and context for what we might expect in his second term as his appointments continue to work their way through the confirmation process. Also covered: getting fired by Trump, defending pandas in court, Aileen Cannon and Clarence Thomas's fringe theory about the unconstitutionality of special counsels, and what Professor O'Connell learned from her time clerking for Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  “Actings,” Anne Joseph O'Connell, Columbia Law Review (2020) Prof. O'Connell's Stanford Law bio page Bluesky post with Prof. O'Connell's notice of termination from the Trump administration Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! To support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law!

Criminal law expert and Stanford Law Professor David Sklansky joins Pam Karlan to discuss his book Criminal Justice in Divided America: Police, Punishment, and the Future of Our Democracy, published in January. In this episode, they explore what he sees as the failures of America's criminal justice system—from overly harsh sentences and prosecutorial abuses to the under-utilization of the jury system—that don't just harm individuals, but erode the very foundations of democratic governance. They also examine the rise and fall of community policing, the role of mental health in police encounters, and the impact of jury service on civic engagement, offering insights into how criminal justice shapes political and social landscapes while proposing steps toward reform.Sklansky, a former federal prosecutor, teaches and writes about policing, prosecution, criminal law and the law of evidence at Stanford Law, where he is also the faculty co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center.Connect:Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast WebsiteStanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn PageRich Ford >>>  Twitter/XPam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School PageStanford Law School >>> Twitter/XStanford Lawyer Magazine >>> Twitter/XLinks:David Sklansky >>> Stanford Law pageCriminal Justice in Divided America, Police, Punishment, and the Future of Our Democracy >>> Stanford Lawyer magazine online feature(00:00:00) Chapter 1: Criminal Justice and the Erosion of DemocracyPam Karlan welcomes professor David Sklansky and explains the link between the crises of criminal justice and democracy, discussing how failures in criminal law and policy have undermined democratic values. The conversation touches on racial disparities, equal protection, and how the criminal justice system has contributed to public distrust in government institutions.(00:05:15) Chapter 2: Policing and PolarizationKarlan and Sklansky delve into the historical role of policing in fueling political polarization, particularly during the rise of crime as a central political issue in the late 20th century. Sklansky highlights the impact of police abuse on public confidence, the Republican Party's pivot toward tough-on-crime policies, and how bipartisan approaches to policing briefly improved public trust.(00:09:12) Chapter 3: The Rise and Fall of Community PolicingThe discussion focuses on community policing as a promising reform effort that ultimately fell short. Sklansky critiques its limited engagement with younger residents and those affected by police violence. He explains how the movement's failure to address systemic issues, like excessive police violence, eroded its credibility and relevance in modern reform conversations.(00:14:15) Chapter 4: Guns, Policing, and Mental Health CrisesThe discussion explores the connection between America's lax gun laws and police killings, highlighting the role of training and the unique challenges posed by mental health crises. Sklansky addresses the need for better collaboration between police and other services while emphasizing the importance of proper training in de-escalation.(00:19:00) Chapter 5: Small Police Departments and Training ChallengesKarlan and Sklansky examine the implications of having too many decentralized police departments in the U.S. They discuss issues like poor training, rehiring problematic officers, and the proliferation of SWAT teams. Sklansky offers insights on potential reforms and the influence of state and federal coordination in improving policing.(00:21:32) Chapter 6: The Role of Juries in DemocracyKarlan and Sklansky delve into the jury system as a cornerstone of democracy, discussing its impact on civic engagement, cross-sectional representation, and public trust. They highlight the need for systemic changes to improve accessibility, fair cross-section representation, and community participation in jury duty.

This week, I talk to Lael Weinberger about the doctrine of church autonomy—what it is and, more importantly, where it came from. Lael has written an excellent paper on the origins of church autonomy (here), as well as put to practice his musings in a recent amicus brief he filed in the D.C. Circuit in the case of O'Connell v. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (here). After we spent some time digging into Lael's past, we got to business discussing his paper and brief. Some of the topics we discussed included the definition and scope of church autonomy, the jurisdictional nature of this topic as it relates to the state and the church, the history of its development in the 19th century, and much more. Lael Weinberger is an attorney and legal scholar. He currently works of Gibson Dunn in Washington, D.C. (bio), and serves as a nonresident fellow at Stanford Law (bio). In the past, he clerked for Justice Neil Gorsuch on the United States Supreme Court, Judge Frank Easterbrook on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and Chief Justice Daniel Eismann on the Idaho Supreme Court. He earned a law degree with high honors from the University of Chicago Law School. He also holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, with a focus on American legal history. Cross & Gavel is a production of CHRISTIAN LEGAL SOCIETY. The episode was produced by Josh Deng, with music from Vexento.

Stanford Law's Daniel Ho and computer science/law student Mirac Suzgun discuss the enduring impact of racially restrictive covenants in real estate with host Rich Ford. Though unenforceable since 1948, these clauses are a lingering reminder of housing segregation and racism in the United States, as Professor Ho's own experience of discovering a covenant barring Asians from purchasing his home highlights. The conversation also looks at legislative efforts to remove the covenants and an innovative AI tool developed by Stanford's RegLab that helps counties identify and redact these covenants, streamlining the process while preserving the historical record.Connect:Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast WebsiteStanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn PageRich Ford >>>  Twitter/XPam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School PageStanford Law School >>> Twitter/XStanford Lawyer Magazine >>> Twitter/XLinks:Dan Ho  >>> Stanford Law School PageStanford's RegLab >>> Stanford Page(00:00:00) Chapter 1: Introduction to Racial Covenants and AB 1466Host Rich Ford introduces the episode, guests Professor Dan Ho and SLS student Mirac Suzgun, and the topic of racial covenants in real estate. They discuss the persistence of racially restrictive covenants, despite being declared unenforceable by the Supreme Court in Shelley v. Kramer (1948), and highlight California's AB 1466 law, which aims to address the issue.(00:04:00) Chapter 2: The Role of AI in Redacting Racial CovenantsDan Ho explains how Santa Clara County faced the challenge of identifying and redacting racial covenants from millions of historical deed records. The conversation shifts to the AI tool developed by Stanford's RegLab, which automates the identification of racially discriminatory language in property documents. Mirac Suzgun elaborates on the stages of the AI tool, including OCR and machine learning, to help counties meet their legal obligations.(00:10:01) Chapter 3: Historical Context and Persistence of Racial CovenantsRich Ford and Dan Ho delve into the history of racial covenants, explaining their rise after the Buchanan decision (1917) and their persistence even after the Shelley v. Kramer ruling. They discuss how these covenants, though unenforceable, served as a community signaling function, reinforcing housing segregation for decades.(00:16:13) Chapter 4: The Legacy of Racial CovenantsRich Ford and Mirac Suzgun discuss the evolution of state-sponsored race segregation and the role of private covenants in perpetuating housing discrimination. They emphasize how these covenants, often embedded in property deeds, remain binding on homeowners, illustrating the historical entrenchment of racial segregation in real estate.(00:18:48) Chapter 5: Uncovering Historical Data and ResponsibilityDan Ho shares findings from a study revealing the prevalence of racial covenants in Santa Clara County. The discussion highlights the significant responsibility of a small number of developers in enforcing these covenants, contrasting this with the example of Joseph Eichler, who resisted such practices and promoted housing reform.(00:23:11) Chapter 6: Utilizing Technology for Social JusticeThe conversation shifts to the innovative tools developed to identify and address racial covenants in property records. The hosts explore the implications of these discoveries for understanding historical injustices and the importance of retaining historical records while advocating for modern social justice initiatives, plus closing remarks.

How are victims of intimate partner violence meant to protect themselves—and, often, their children—without winding up dead, in hospital, or prison? It's a situation that many find themselves in. Approximately 15 percent of women in the United States are victims of intimate partner violence, according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline. But the legal system is not set up to help them. In this episode the executive director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, Debbie Mukamal, and Stanford Law student Jacqueline Lewittes join Pam and Rich to discuss the Center's new study “Fatal Peril: Unheard Stories from the IPV-to-Prison Pipeline and Other Stories Touched by Violence,” that offers groundbreaking data and personal stories from women currently in prison because of intimate partner violence. They also touch on the systemic failures in the justice system in handling these complex cases.  Connect:Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast WebsiteStanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn PageRich Ford >>>  Twitter/XPam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School PageStanford Law School >>> Twitter/XStanford Lawyer Magazine >>> Twitter/XLinks:Debbie Mukamal  >>> Stanford Law School PageFatal Peril: Unheard Stories from the IPV-to-Prison Pipeline >>> Stanford Law School Page(00:00:00) Chapter 1: Introductions and Goals of the Research Hosts Pam Karlan and Rich Ford discuss how the project on women incarcerated for killing their abusers began during the pandemic, sparked by a lack of national data on these cases with Debbie Mukamal and SLS student Jacqueline Lewittes. Mukamal explains how her team's long-standing relationships with the California Department of Corrections facilitated their research access despite COVID-19 restrictions.(00:04:12) Chapter 2: Research Design and Challenges The team outlines the complexities of designing the study, including broadening the focus beyond intimate partner killings and overcoming barriers like accessing reliable court records. They explain how they relied on direct interviews and used validated tools like the Danger Assessment and Composite Abuse Scale to assess the severity of abuse.(00:08:42) Chapter 3: Striking Findings and Legal Implications Explore key findings, including the prevalence of traumatic brain injuries among respondents and the failure of self-defense laws to protect abused women. Jacqueline highlights a specific case that illustrates how memory loss due to abuse complicates self-defense claims, underscoring the systemic legal failures.(00:18:30) Chapter 4: The Role of Intimate Partner Violence in Homicide CasesThe group delves into the startling statistics of women convicted of homicide in connection to intimate partner violence. Debbie Mukamal discusses how nearly 74% of women in their study had experienced abuse at the time of the offense, breaking down the subcategories of cases, from those who killed their abuser to others involving child fatalities.(00:21:25) Chapter 5: Systemic Failures in Protecting Abuse VictimsExamine the various ways in which the legal system fails to protect women who are victims of abuse. From denied protective orders to mistreatment by police and ineffective legal defense, the discussion highlights the failures at multiple levels and the resulting harsh sentences.(00:23:55) Chapter 6: Law Reform and the Impact of Trauma on Legal CulpabilityThis segment focuses on potential legal reforms, including changes to homicide statutes and the need for better understanding of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in abuse survivors. Debbie Mukamal and Pam Karlan discuss the implications of TBI on a woman's ability to recall facts, and how reforms could better account for their experiences.

How can museums remain relevant in the digital age, where visual imagery is more accessible than ever? What role do museums play in fostering creativity and innovation in their communities?Stephen Reily is the Founding Director of Remuseum, an independent research project housed at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. Funded by arts patron David Booth with additional support by the Ford Foundation, Remuseum focuses on advancing relevance and governance in museums across the U.S. He works with museums to create a financially sustainable strategy that is human-focused, centering on inclusion, diversity, and important causes like climate change. During his time as director of the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, KY, Reily presented Promise, Witness, Remembrance, an exhibition in response to the killing of Breonna Taylor and a year of protests in Louisville. In 2022, he co-wrote a book documenting the exhibition. As an active civic leader, Reily has been a part of numerous community organizations and boards, like the Reily Reentry Project, supporting expungement programs for Kentucky citizens, Creative Capital, offering grants for the arts, and founded Seed Capital Kentucky, a non-profit that aims to improve the food economy in the area.A Yale and Stanford Law graduate, Reily clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens before launching a successful entrepreneurial career, experiences he draws upon for public engagement initiatives.“The opportunity is that we have never had a public that is more passionate and obsessed with visual imagery. If the owners of the best original imagery in the world can't figure out how to take advantage of the fact that the world has now become obsessed with these treasures that we have to offer as museums, then shame on us. This is the opportunity to say, if you're spending all day scrolling on Instagram looking for amazing imagery, come and see the original source. Come and see the real work. Let us figure out how to make that connection.”https://remuseum.orghttps://crystalbridges.orgwww.stephenreily.comwww.kentuckypress.com/9781734248517/promise-witness-remembrancewww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“The opportunity is that we have never had a public that is more passionate and obsessed with visual imagery. If the owners of the best original imagery in the world can't figure out how to take advantage of the fact that the world has now become obsessed with these treasures that we have to offer as museums, then shame on us. This is the opportunity to say, if you're spending all day scrolling on Instagram looking for amazing imagery, come and see the original source. Come and see the real work. Let us figure out how to make that connection.”Stephen Reily is the Founding Director of Remuseum, an independent research project housed at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. Funded by arts patron David Booth with additional support by the Ford Foundation, Remuseum focuses on advancing relevance and governance in museums across the U.S. He works with museums to create a financially sustainable strategy that is human-focused, centering on inclusion, diversity, and important causes like climate change. During his time as director of the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, KY, Reily presented Promise, Witness, Remembrance, an exhibition in response to the killing of Breonna Taylor and a year of protests in Louisville. In 2022, he co-wrote a book documenting the exhibition. As an active civic leader, Reily has been a part of numerous community organizations and boards, like the Reily Reentry Project, supporting expungement programs for Kentucky citizens, Creative Capital, offering grants for the arts, and founded Seed Capital Kentucky, a non-profit that aims to improve the food economy in the area.A Yale and Stanford Law graduate, Reily clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens before launching a successful entrepreneurial career, experiences he draws upon for public engagement initiatives.https://remuseum.orghttps://crystalbridges.orgwww.stephenreily.comwww.kentuckypress.com/9781734248517/promise-witness-remembrancewww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“The opportunity is that we have never had a public that is more passionate and obsessed with visual imagery. If the owners of the best original imagery in the world can't figure out how to take advantage of the fact that the world has now become obsessed with these treasures that we have to offer as museums, then shame on us. This is the opportunity to say, if you're spending all day scrolling on Instagram looking for amazing imagery, come and see the original source. Come and see the real work. Let us figure out how to make that connection.”Stephen Reily is the Founding Director of Remuseum, an independent research project housed at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. Funded by arts patron David Booth with additional support by the Ford Foundation, Remuseum focuses on advancing relevance and governance in museums across the U.S. He works with museums to create a financially sustainable strategy that is human-focused, centering on inclusion, diversity, and important causes like climate change. During his time as director of the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, KY, Reily presented Promise, Witness, Remembrance, an exhibition in response to the killing of Breonna Taylor and a year of protests in Louisville. In 2022, he co-wrote a book documenting the exhibition. As an active civic leader, Reily has been a part of numerous community organizations and boards, like the Reily Reentry Project, supporting expungement programs for Kentucky citizens, Creative Capital, offering grants for the arts, and founded Seed Capital Kentucky, a non-profit that aims to improve the food economy in the area.A Yale and Stanford Law graduate, Reily clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens before launching a successful entrepreneurial career, experiences he draws upon for public engagement initiatives.https://remuseum.orghttps://crystalbridges.orgwww.stephenreily.comwww.kentuckypress.com/9781734248517/promise-witness-remembrancewww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

The bedrock of the legal profession is a commitment to upholding the rule of law. Unfortunately, as Stanford Law researchers discover in the complex world of international sanctions, lawyers can often facilitate non-compliance and evasion.It's been two years since Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine. And yet, businesses are still skirting sanctions imposed on Russia. As Erik Jensen, director of the Rule of Law Program at Stanford Law School, and law students Sarah Manney and Kyrylo Korol explore in this episode of Stanford Legal, lawyers could be playing a critical role in enabling Russian Oligarchs' evasive maneuvers.With hosts Rich Ford and Pam Karlan, the three guests explore the intricate relationship between legal practice and international sanctions, discussing insights from their research, the ethical responsibilities of lawyers, and potential solutions for safeguarding the rule of law.Connect:Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast WebsiteStanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn PageRich Ford >>>  Twitter/XPam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School PageStanford Law School >>> Twitter/XStanford  Law Magazine >>> Twitter/XLinks:Erik Jensen >>> Stanford Law School Page(00:00:00) Chapter 1: Introduction and OverviewKyrylo Korol discusses the responsibility of lawyers to uphold democracy and the impact of their actions on the profession. Hosts Rich Ford and Pam Karlan introduce the topic of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the international response.(00:01:33) Chapter 2: Genesis of the Policy LabErik Jensen explains the inception of the Policy Lab focusing on sanctions against Russia, including the motivation from an S-Term course and subsequent student enthusiasm.(00:03:16) Chapter 3: Kyrylo Korol's Personal MotivationKyrylo Korol shares his dual perspective as a Ukrainian and American lawyer, emphasizing the need to keep the discussion on Russia's war against Ukraine alive and his personal drive to support Ukraine.(00:05:32) Chapter 4: Focus of the Policy LabThe team discusses the main areas of their research, including the role of Russian oligarchs in the war and the involvement of legal professionals in facilitating sanctions evasion.(00:12:57) Chapter 5: Comparative Analysis and Legal FrameworksThe conversation shifts to the comparative study of how different countries regulate lawyers concerning sanctions and money laundering, and the ethical obligations of U.S. lawyers with Sarah Manney.(00:21:25) Chapter 6: Challenges and Implications for the Legal ProfessionThe team delves into the implications of their findings for the legal profession, discussing the balance between upholding legal privileges and preventing abuse, and addressing systemic risks and de-risking issues.

Michael McConnell is a Stanford Law professor and today we will discuss the Chevron Doctrine. The Supreme Court has just repealed the Chevron Doctrine in one of the Supreme Court's most important rulings of the year. This decision ends judicial deference for interpretations made by bureaucrats in the Federal agencies. For the past 40 years, the Supreme Court has allowed bureaucratic experts to interpret ambiguous statutes if their analysis was reasonable. No more. Now decision making goes back to the judiciary on how to interpret the law. Get full access to What Happens Next in 6 Minutes with Larry Bernstein at www.whathappensnextin6minutes.com/subscribe

Many businesses and governments have a goal of reaching net zero emissions. Sounds good. But what does “net zero” even mean? And how do we get there? Alicia Seiger is a lecturer at Stanford Law School and leads sustainability and energy finance initiatives at Stanford Law, Graduate School of Business, and the Doerr School for Sustainability. She argues that when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, businesses need to get as good at accounting for their pollution as they are for their dollars. Guest: Alicia Seiger, Lecturer, Stanford Law School It's time for our annual spring appeal! At Climate One, we believe in the power of open conversations to drive positive change. Through our thought-provoking discussions and interviews, we strive not only to raise awareness of climate issues and solutions, but to also empower individuals — like each of our valued listeners — to take tangible steps toward a more sustainable future.  You can show your support for Climate One by contributing to our spring fundraising campaign. For complete show notes, visit our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Highlights from this week's conversation include:Eric's background in venture and investing (0:02)Lessons from a Bottom Decile Experience (2:20)Motivation to Enter the Venture Capital Space (3:45)Challenges for New LP Allocators (6:08)Supporting Emerging Managers (7:35)Specialists vs. Generalists (10:53)Judging New Fund Managers (16:24)Attributes for Winning in Fund Management (18:57)Insider Segment: Building Teams in Venture Capital (21:00)Starting in Venture Capital (27:02)Future of Venture Capital (28:14)Finding Family Offices (31:16)Investing through fund of funds (34:32)Engagement with LPAC (38:02)Follow-on strategy and tiered investment (40:24)Challenges and advice for emerging managers (45:03)Eric Sippel is an esteemed philanthropist and investor. He currently runs his family office and is an active investor and adviser to real estate, venture capital, and hedge funds. Previously, he was the COO of Eastbourne Capital Management, a multi-billion dollar hedge fund firm, and a Partner at Shartsis, Friese & Ginsburg, where he was a nationally recognized hedge fund and venture capital lawyer.  Eric graduated from Stanford Law with Distinction and Wesleyan University with Honors in General Scholarship. Eric has served on many nonprofit boards, including his current role as Chair of Goodwill of San Francisco, San Mateo, and Marin Counties.Armstrong International is a specialist financial services executive search firm with 30 years'​ experience across Public and Private Markets. Our consultants possess deep subject matter expertise within; Fixed Income, Equities, Private Equity, Private Debt, Digital (Data Science & Technology), Private Wealth, Corporate Finance, Real Estate, Infrastructure, Emerging Markets, Credit, FX, Emerging Markets & Commodities We are trusted by some of the world's leading financial institutions, who use us for 3 primary reasons: industry expertise, speed of hire, and ease of doing business. We like to innovate and have been at the forefront of some of the most profitable and exciting changes in the industry, including the technology revolution and the ever-expanding world of Private Markets.Swimming with Allocators is a podcast that dives into the intriguing world of Venture Capital from an LP (Limited Partner) perspective. Hosts Alexa Binns and Earnest Sweat are seasoned professionals who have donned various hats in the VC ecosystem. Each episode, we explore where the future opportunities lie in the VC landscape with insights from top LPs on their investment strategies and industry experts shedding light on emerging trends and technologies. Follow along and subscribe at swimmingwithallocators.com.The information provided on this podcast does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice; instead, all information, content, and materials available on this podcast are for general informational purposes only.

How do startups maneuver through the complex intersection of law, sustainability, and innovation? Sam McClure, a beacon of environmental advocacy and Stanford Law lecturer, joins me to unwrap this intricate puzzle, sharing his transition from a government career to fostering eco-conscious businesses.  As we traverse Sam's journey and the evolution of Stanford's pro bono legal aid for startups, you'll be privy to tales of resilience and the profound impact of environmental stewardship across professional endeavors. We examine the gritty realities of co-founder dynamics and client relations, shedding light on the virtues of patience, humility, and the power of human connections that often turn legal challenges into growth opportunities. We also delve into the subtleties of non-verbal communication and how our behaviors can either erode or cultivate trust and leadership within our teams – insights you won't want to miss for your own professional toolkit.  From algae farming to solar energy, learn about the exciting legal frontiers these innovative ventures face and how they're paving the way for a future where business success and environmental health go hand in hand. Join us for an episode that's not just about legalities and startups, but a journey towards a greener tomorrow. In this episode, you'll hear about: Stanford Startup Law Sustainability Program Navigating co-founder and client relationships Leadership, trust, and self-care practices Long-term views on the climate crisis Circular economy and sustainability startup trends Navigating sustainability and law Follow and Review: We'd love for you to follow us if you haven't yet. Click that purple '+' in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. We'd love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast. Supporting Resources: https://law.stanford.edu/sam-mcclure/ https://law.stanford.edu/startup-law-sustainability https://www.cedargrovecounsel.com/ https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Self-Deception-Getting-Out-Box/dp/1523097809/ref=sr_1_1?hvadid=580751260451&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9031968&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=7134004013860384827&hvtargid=kwd-307853283104&hydadcr=22595_13493276&keywords=leadership+and+self-deception+book&qid=1707334425&sr=8-1  

Writer Kiwi Smith recalls the making of the 2001 classic LEGALLY BLONDE. Fresh off of her first hit 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU, Kiwi and her writing partner Karen McCullah were eager to find a story centered on female empowerment that was fun, fresh, smart, and accessible. She found all that and more in an unpublished manuscript about a sorority girl going to Stanford Law. Kiwi remembers wearing pink to their studio pitch and being fully committed to bringing Elle's story to the screen in the right way. A huge part of that was the casting. Among many others, Britney Spears was floated as a possible idea, but it was undeniably Reese Witherspoon's part. Reese emerged as a true leader and her turn as Elle is the stuff of movie legend and inspired a generation of beautiful, smart, and successful women.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/hollywood-gold--5670584/support.

Why does the U.S. have the highest incarceration rate in the industrialized world, with individuals, communities, and taxpayers paying a steep price for lengthy prison terms for even nonviolent offenders?  Michael Romano, a criminal justice lawyer who founded and directs the Three Strikes Project at Stanford Law School, the first law school program of its type in the country focused on securing reduced sentences for incarcerated people deemed to be serving disproportionate sentences, has spent his career on this uniquely American challenge. As the project's director for the past 16 years, Mike has worked with Stanford Law students to win the release of more than 200 Californians imprisoned under the state's Three Strikes law.Along with helping hundreds of people sentenced to life in prison for minor/nonviolent crimes, the Three Strikes team also worked to change California's Three Strikes Law. In 2012 they celebrated passage of the Three Strikes Reform Act, a landmark legislative effort led from start to finish by Stanford Law students and project staff members in partnership with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.Connect:Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast WebsiteStanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn PageRich Ford >>>  Twitter/XPam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School PageStanford Law School >>> Twitter/XStanford  Law Magazine >>> Twitter/XMichael Romano >>> Twitter/X

Rundown -    Intro with Troubadour Dave Gunders - 00:35   "Tarred and Feathered" by Dave Gunders - 14:02   John Walsh in Craig's Lawyers' Lounge - 19:20   Craig's Lawyers' Lounge welcomes John Walsh, former US Attorney for District of Colorado under President Obama, who is now seeking the job of Denver DA in this year's election. Find out what makes this Stanford Law grad tick.  https://www.walshfordenver.com/   Show begins with Troubadour Dave Gunders and host discussing dynamic guest, John Walsh and the remarkable $83.3 million dollar verdict in favor of E Jean Carroll against Donald J. Trump in US District Court in NYC. Opening dialogue addresses what happens next. Next, to honor the verdict against female abuser Trump, we play Tarred and Feathered, a funny song of revenge by Dave Gunders.   Learn about John Walsh growing up in metro Denver and serving as a clerk in DC Circuit Court. Walsh went on to be an Assistant US Attorney in Los Angeles in the late 1980's and early 1990's. Once back in Denver, John Walsh has had successful law practices and raised his three kids in the Mile High City.   The MAGA threat on US democracy and Rule of Law is reviewed. John Walsh worked hard to fight the Big Lie in the courts of Michigan during November and December 2020. Listen to how difficult and tense that litigation became.   Find out about the big names that John Walsh has interacted with along the way. Adam Schiff, Joyce Vance, Preet Bharara, Elena Kagan, Ken Salazar, Bill Ritter, Norm Early, Beth McCann and Barack Obama get name dropped.   The January 6 insurrection followed Trump's Big Lie and John Walsh wants folks to follow the ruling of renowned Reagan appointed federal Judge Lamberth who has sized up the effect of relentless MAGA propaganda.   Lamberth wrote, “In my 37 years on the bench, I cannot recall a time when such meritless justifications of criminal activity have gone mainstream. I have been dismayed to see distortions and outright falsehoods seep into the public consciousness.”   The MAGA threat to Rule of Law is thoroughly reviewed. Denver feels the impact of too many social and political problems, but remains one of the great cities in the world.   This podcast is a love letter to Denver, even with her flaws, where John Walsh wants to be Chief Law Enforcement Officer. Size up would be Denver District Attorney, his personality and professional qualifications.

James and Al welcome Stanford Law's Pam Karlan, academy member George Stevens, and economic maven Roger Altman to get their takes on the year ahead in their field of expertise. In the financial arena, they cover the importance of the economy to a Democratic victory in 2024, the factors driving inflation, and how we managed to avoid the predicted recession.  Legally, they look ahead to the coming developments facing Trump in his court cases, and what's next in the intensifying battle over reproductive rights.  Looking at entertainment, they analyze the impact of the strikes on Hollywood, and share their Best Picture and Super Bowl predictions. Email your questions to James and Al at politicswarroom@gmail.com or tweet them to @politicon.  Make sure to include your city, we love to hear where you're from! Check James Carville's new videos: #TrumpStinks James Carville Explains… Why Mike Johnson is a P.O.S. James Carville Explains… everything about Mike Johnson James Carville on the trail of Lauren Boebert Get More From This Week's Guests: George Stevens: Oscars.org | IMDB | Website Roger Altman: Evercore | The Hamilton Project  Pam Karlan: Stanford Law | DOJ.gov | Supreme Court Litigation Clinic Please Support Our Sponsors: Co-Pilot: Use our link at mycopilot.com/warroom to get a 14-day FREE trial AND 20% off your first month of personalized fitness if you sign up before February 1st!

As we close out 2023, we are replaying some of our most listened to episodes. Not surprisingly, AI was the hot topic this year and as its acceptance grows, so to tough questions, like whether AI developers need permission to use copyrighted works and other IP before using it to train artificial intelligence? In a very popular episode, Professor Mark Lemley of Stanford explained whey he does not think so because he believes that copyrighted works used to train AI fall should under the fair use exception to copyright law. Professor Lemley is the Director of the Stanford Program in Law, Science and Technology, an author of seven books and more than 130 articles on intellectual property, antitrust and related areas of the law. He is also a co-founder of Lex Machina and most recently of Counsel to Lex Lumina, a boutique IP law firm. Professor Lemley argues that AI companies should be permitted to use copyrighted works to train AI models without first getting permission from owners because of the benefits AI will yield and the impossibility of tracking down millions of copyright owners to get permission. He also believes that it is a fair use for AI developers to use works protected by intellectual property laws to train artificial intelligence models because such a use is transformative and the more data available to the AI, the more accurate it will be.

As the year ends, we take a look back at our judicial system and look forward to what we can expect from it in 2024 with legal expert Dahlia Lithwick, a Senior Editor at Slate and a Contributing Editor at Newsweek. She graduated from Stanford Law and has been covering the courts for over two decades. She hosts the podcast, Amicus. In the pod today, Bill and Dahlia discuss the current state of the American judicial system, focusing on the impact of the Trump administration's appointments and the potential consequences for the 2024 presidential election. They discuss the role of the Supreme Court and its shift to the right under Trump, with three of his appointees now sitting on the bench. They also discuss the potential for authoritarianism if Trump were to return to office, with the former president currently arguing in various courtrooms that he is exempt from the justice system due to his previous role as president.. The podcast ends with a discussion on the legacy of Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court, and her belief in the importance of the court's reputation.Today's Bill Press Pod is supported by The International Brotherhood of Teamsters. More information at Teamster.org.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Since 2023, Rukaiyah Adams has served as CEO of the 1803 Fund, an innovative firm that seeks to grow shared prosperity through the alignment of financial investments and investments in community-based organizations. It is not a conventional investment firm, and it is not traditional philanthropy—its work includes aspects of both and is ultimately about ‘investing for the people'. Rukaiyah has been a pioneer in socially responsible investing, establishing key frameworks in the field. Previously she was CIO at Meyer Memorial Trust, where she spent 8 years growing the foundation's assets under management to more than $1 billion. Rukaiyah has also managed a $6.5 billion fund at The Standard and chaired the Oregon Investment Council, the board that manages approximately $100 billion of public pension and other assets for the State of Oregon. During her time as chair, the Oregon state pension fund was among the top-performing public pension funds in the United States.  Rukaiyah holds a BA from Carleton College, a JD from Stanford Law, and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. In this episode, we discuss: ●      A need to move away from putting bandaids on broken systems and move toward building new systems with awareness and intention ●      The problem inherent in reacting versus responding ●      The gifts of awareness that 2020 brought Key Takeaways: ●      The legacy of African Americans serving as the "original capital" in America is a deep stain on our history. It's a narrative that's still being wrestled with today. Rukaiyah explained it well: Imagine moving from being an object in the economic system to being a subject in control of it. Moving from being chess pieces to becoming the players. With the lens of being players in control, let's look at the term “capitalism”. The word "capital" isn't just about dollars; it encapsulates the value and benefits you bring to the table through your skills, energy, and time. Think of it as the ink in your personal narrative. The "ism" suffix? It converts the noun “capital” into action, practice, and process. No matter who you are, or what narrative society has tried to force on you, it's worth asking yourself: what story do you want to help write with your ink?  How do you want to use your inherent capital to contribute to—or reshape—existing narratives? What practices do you want to support, and where can you build something better than we ever imagined possible? ●      Language isn't just a collection of words and grammar; it's the very framework that shapes our perceptions and dreams. If your aspirations are so grand that no existing term captures their magnitude, then it's time to create new language. Once that new language is in place, it acts like a bridge, facilitating collaboration and sparking movements. Then we can evaluate the systems that support this new dream and identify those that act as roadblocks. Language shapes the way we think and defines the boundaries of our dreams; it's a tool for both reflection and revolution. ●      Discomfort is a precursor to growth. Much like a toddler learning to walk, stepping into unfamiliar territory is bound to involve stumbles and moments of frustration. But it's within this discomfort and uncertainty that expansion takes root. When you stretch beyond your current boundaries, knowledge, and capabilities, you're essentially investing in your future. And the currency? It's your newfound growth and abilities. Discomfort always precedes expansion; it's the gritty, less Instagrammable side of personal development. Yet, it's precisely in navigating this discomfort that your new capabilities evolve and eventually become as natural as walking.  References: ●      Connect with Rukaiyah on LinkedIn ●      1803 Fund ●      “A Love Letter to Portland, OR”, Rukaiyah's 2nd TEDx talk ●      “Homegirls' Guide to Being Powerful”, Rukaiyah's 1st TEDx talk ●      Meyer Memorial Trust ●      Michael McAfee ●      Beyond Doer and Done to: Recognition Theory, Intersubjectivity, and the Third by Jessica Benjamin ●      Albina Vision Trust Connect & Share: If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading them! If this episode resonated with you, I ask you to send it to a friend. Help bring even more visibility to these leaders that are using business as a force for good! Subscribe to the Purpose and Profit newsletter to make sure you don't miss future episodes.  This podcast is for you, the listener. I'd love to hear what resonated with you, or if you have a suggestion on who would be a great guest for this show. Please send me a note at info@KathyVarol.com.

Author Brendan Ballou joins me to discuss his superb new book, Plunder: Private Equity's Plan to Pillage America in the latest episode of The Grant Williams Podcast. After graduating Columbia and Stanford Law, Brendan served as a Federal prosecutor and Special Counsel for Private Equity in the Justice Department's Antitrust Division, where his mandate was to investigate private equity's influence on financial markets. What he found shocked Brendan and moved him to write a book chronicling the outsize effect private equity has had in so much of American life over the last several decades. From nursing homes to prison phone companies, Brendan details how private equity has reshaped American business by raising prices, reducing quality, cutting jobs, and shifting resources from productive to unproductive parts of the economy. Forced to take on huge debts and pay extractive fees, companies purchased by private equity firms are often left bankrupt, or shells of their former selves, with consequences to communities that long depended on them. Every episode of the Grant Williams podcast, including This Week In Doom, The End Game, The Super Terrific Happy Hour, The Narrative Game and Shifts Happen, is available to Copper, Silver and Gold Tier subscribers at my website www.Grant-Williams.com. Copper Tier subscribers get access to all podcasts, while members of the Silver Tier get both the podcasts and my monthly newsletter, Things That Make You Go Hmmm… Gold Tier subscribers have access to my new series of in-depth video conversations, About Time.

The disruption of Judge Kyle Duncan's speech at Stanford Law School ... Why did people have a problem with Duncan? ... Will the current Supreme Court overturn Obergefell v. Hodges ... The necessity of free inquiry and reasoned discourse ... What it's like being a FedSoc conservative at Stanford Law ... The fallout from the Duncan protests ... The vulgarity of the insults hurled at Duncan ... The role of conservatives at Stanford ...

Our overlords at YouTube are active throttling this channel, so please make sure to like, subscribe, and share so we can defeat them! The infighting between supporters of Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis started heating up this week. With it starting to get out of hand, we need to remember this is a distraction from the real goal: beating the Left. Both sides have fair points, and there's nothing wrong with constructive criticism. Whoopi Goldberg defended the Stanford Law students who heckled and shut down a conservative judge. Yes, these people have a right to protest, but shutting down events and squashing ideas isn't a great way to go about it. UpRising Bakery, a Chicago-area business that hosted a family-friendly drag show, announced it is closing its doors this month as sales slowed to a crawl. Hopefully, this trend will continue as people support companies and businesses that support their values. Lazy parenting has become far too widespread and we need to put an end to it. If you don't want to actively raise your kids, why have them in the first place? We're joined by Sara Gonzales, BlazeTV host and parenting expert, to get her thoughts on giving kids iPads and screens instead of proper attention. HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra announced a program to go into schools and get students on Medicaid, because big government wants you dependent on it for as much as possible. Today's Sponsors: PureHealth Reignite your metabolism… Burn fat… Boost energy. And fight fatty liver that affects 100 million Americans.. Well, the good folks over there put together a short presentation that shares 4 warning signs of a damaged or fatty liver… The warning sign number 2 is downright scary. You can watch this free presentation and learn more about your liver health right now.. Just head over to https://www.CheckYourLiver.com/Chad Patriot Mobile Patriot Mobile, America's ONLY Christian conservative wireless provider, offers dependable nationwide coverage on ALL THREE MAJOR networks, so you can get the best possible service in your area. PLUS, they offer a COVERAGE GUARANTEE. If you're not happy with your coverage, you can switch to a different network FOR FREE, without changing carriers! All this plus the knowledge that you are supporting free speech, the sanctity of life, Second Amendment, and our military and first responder heroes! Their 100% US-based customer service team makes switching easy! Just go to https://www.PATRIOTMOBILE.COM/CHAD or call them right now at 878-PATRIOT! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Unprepared, scatterbrained, and guestless, Jonah returns to the AMA format on today's program, releasing Guy, his immigrant majordomo, from the grimy basement where he normally resides to field an unusual assortment of listener questions. Things get off to an innocuous start: There's some shameless plugging of Jonah's books, a hefty digression into the various strands of conservatism, and a rambly assessment of the recent controversy at Stanford Law. But though the latter half of this episode features no discussion of cruises, it still offers its fair share of bizarre images, one of which may forever change Jonah and John Podhoretz's friendship. Show Notes: - Wolfram & Hart - David Oshinsky: “Heil Woodrow” - Yuval Levin: “Redeeming the Miracle” - Sarah Isgur interrogates Jonah on Dispatch Live - The Remnant with Philip K. Howard - Skijoring Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First, we talked with Jason Whitlock about how sports became woke, how China is the biggest influence in American sports culture now, and how being conservative changed his career. Next, Leo Terrell talks about the release of the J6 videos and how the J6 committee should face consequences for withholding evidence in Jacob Chancely's case. Then, Lauren Boebert talks about the newly released J6 videos, how we're winning against media manipulation, and the Covid hearings. Finally, Charlie Gasparino on the recent bank failures and why the terrible economic policies of the Biden administration are going to lead to a world of hurt. BONUS: Dan, talking about the snowflakes at Stanford Law goes on an epic rant about safe spaces. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Editors' Picks:Rich: The Iraq symposium in the latest magazine issueCharlie: Dan McLaughlin "A Misleading Defense of Fox in the Dominion Case”Maddy: Judges James Ho and Elizabeth Branch's piece "Stop the Chaos: Law Schools Need to Crack Down on Student Disrupters Now"Michael: W. James Antle III's magazine piece "Iraq Was a Setback for Conservatism"Light Items:Rich: NCAA seasonCharlie: With the Beatles albumMaddy: A St. Patrick's Day mealMichael: Listening to Andy Irvine and Paul BradeySponsor:DonorsTrustThis podcast was edited and produced by Sarah Colleen Schutte.

Colorado lawmakers appear intent on having the most liberal abortion laws in the nation. John and Maria discuss the ramifications of the recent meltdown at Stanford Law School over the appearance of a conservative federal judge. — Recommendations — I Was There When podcast 52 Weeks in the Word devotional Segment 1 - Colorado Abortion Laws Segment 2 - Higher Education Christian Legal Society Submit a comment at regulations.gov ChristianLawStudents.org Segment 3 - Stories of the Week "Of Primates and Percentages: No, Humans Aren't 99% Chimp" Breakpoint

By now you've probably heard about Judge Duncan's bad day at Stanford Law School. No worries if not, because this Marvel-length special episode will leave no question unanswered. To complete the autopsy, Sarah and David are joined by Original Jurisdiction's David Lat and the man of the dark hour himself, Fifth Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan. They discuss the Stanford standoff and the ongoing trend of student disruptions, the response from Stanford administrators, whether shouting down speakers is a form of speech, how the judge responded to the students and whether he thinks federal judges should boycott the school, and more. Prepare yourself for a two-hour marathon that will leave you wondering, was the juice worth the squeeze? Show Notes: -David Lat: Yale Law is no longer #1 for free speech debacles -Ed Whelan on Stanford Law (includes video) -David Lat on ideological diversity in law firms -David Lat's follow-up piece -Article: Stanford Tells Federalist Society Students To 'Reach Out' to Diversity Dean Who Encouraged Disruption of Their Event—and To Shut Up on Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Megyn Kelly is joined by David Sacks, founder of Craft Ventures and co-host of the All-In Podcast, and Vivek Ramaswamy, GOP candidate for president and founder of Strive Capital, to discuss and debate the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, what it means for America, whether this is a bailout of the bank or a bailout of tech startups and entrepreneurs, who should be responsible for helping the tech startups, whether there will be a run on more banks in America and a cascading effect, evaluating risk management and due diligence in the wake of the collapse, how to fix the problem short-term and long-term, how the Biden administration may have played a role in this, and more. Then Tim Rosenberger, president of The Federalist Society at Stanford University, joins to discuss the mayhem at Stanford Law School after students protested a federal judge in extreme ways, faculty joining in on the protesting, the corruption and boneheaded training of our young people, the partial apology coming now, and more. Finally, Megyn Kelly breaks down what happened at the Oscars last night, including a pro-America speech and a winner slamming Don Lemon.David - http://www.craftventures.com Vivek - https://www.vivek2024.comTim - https://twitter.com/TimJRJR Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Charlie welcomes Trump Endorsed candidate for the U.S. Senate from the state of Arizona, Blake Masters. Masters has also been endorsed by Charlie Kirk personally, and Turning Point Action. Blake makes his case to the voters of Arizona, explaining why a mid-30s, Peter Thiel backed, Stanford Law educated father chose to enter into one of the most contentious Senate races in the country. America First, pro-family values, pro-family formation, anti-CRT, anti-radical gender ideology, anti-illegal invasion, and much more, Blake lays out why he feels he deserves to be the GOP candidate for Arizona, and why he thinks he can beat Mark Kelly in the general. As a representative of the new generation of fighting conservatives rising up to reform and renew the GOP from within, this is a critical race we must all be aware of and invested in if we are going to take back power in the US Senate and elect representatives who will not back down when we send them to Washington.  Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/support See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.