More Just

UC Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky is joined by three renowned experts: UCLA Law Professor Ann E. Carlson and UC Berkeley Law Professors Daniel A. Farber and Sharon Jacobs.

For full show notes and the transcript, please visit this episode page on the UC Berkeley Law Podcast Hub.

Production by Yellow Armadillo Studios.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is both one of today’s hottest technologies and a significant challenge for lawmakers and regulators. As AI-based applications continue to proliferate, where are guardrails needed, and where might a hands-off approach be smarter? And how can legal scholars impact the discourse while teaching the next generation of lawyers about this important innovation?

In this episode, UC Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky is joined by Stanford Law Professor Daniel Ho and UC Berkeley Law Professors Pamela Samuelson and Colleen Chien. 

About:

“More Just” from UC Berkeley Law is a podcast about how law schools can and must play a role in solving society’s most difficult problems.

The rule of law — and the role of the law — has never been more important. In these difficult times, law schools can, and must, play an active role in finding solutions. But how? Each episode of More Just starts with a problem, then explores potential solutions, featuring Dean Erwin Chemerinsky as well as other deans, professors, students, and advocates, about how they’re making law schools matter.

Have a question about teaching or studying law, or a topic you’d like Dean Chemerinsky to explore? Email us at [email protected] and tell us what’s on your mind.

Production by Yellow Armadillo Studios.

For the full transcript and show notes please visit the episode page on the UC Berkeley Law Podcast Hub.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This special episode features UC Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky in conversation with Professor Katerina Linos and Temple Law Professor Mark Pollack introducing a wider audience to the European Union Court of Justice and a special series of Linos’ “Borderlines” podcast on the court.

Together, these three leading legal educators introduce listeners to the form and function of the EUCJ and contrast its civil law history and consensus methodology with the U.S. common law heritage utilizing dissenting opinions. Learn about the court’s traditions, scope, and unique Advocate General role, get a glimpse behind the scenes of the massive EU caseload, and compare fundamentals like sovereignty over states, the role of voting in chambers, and balancing accessibility and privacy.

“Borderlines" features exclusive content with the world’s leading international law experts. Check out recent interviews with former ICJ President Donoghue and ICC President Hofmański. 

About:

More Just from Berkeley Law is a podcast about how law schools can and must play a role in solving society’s most difficult problems. The rule of law — and the role of the law — has never been more important. In these difficult times, law schools can, and must, play an active role in finding solutions. But how? Each episode of More Just starts with a problem, then explores potential solutions, featuring Dean Erwin Chemerinsky as well as other deans, professors, students, and advocates, about how they’re making law schools matter.

Have a question about teaching or studying law, or a topic you’d like Dean Chemerinsky to explore? Email us at [email protected] and tell us what’s on your mind.

Production by Yellow Armadillo Studios. 

Please visit the episode page for a full transcript.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This November’s race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is expected to go down to the wire. But ahead of, on, and after Election Day, both campaigns and parties at the local, national, and state level will be ready to fight not just at the ballot box, but in the courtroom. From when mail-in ballots can be counted to the final Electoral College tally, state and federal election laws will play a major role in the outcome of this election. 

What can we expect heading into this contest, and how can legal academics and law students play a role? In this episode, Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky talks with two election law experts: Richard Hasen, the Gary T. Schwartz Endowed Chair in Law at the UCLA School of Law, and Berkeley Law Professor Emily Rong Zhang. 

Hasen is the director of UCLA’s Safeguarding Democracy Project and an internationally recognized expert in election law. He’s the co-author of leading casebooks in election law and remedies, the co-founder of the peer-reviewed Election Law Journal, and was an election law analyst for CNN in 2020 and for NBC News and MSNBC in 2022.

Zhang studies how the law can promote political participation and representation, especially of individuals from historically disadvantaged communities. Before she joined the Berkeley Law faculty in 2022, she was a Skadden Fellow at the ACLU Voting Rights Project.

Read more about the recent developments in the Pennsylvania case they discuss in this episode. 

About:

More Just from Berkeley Law is a podcast about how law schools can and must play a role in solving society’s most difficult problems. 

The rule of law — and the role of the law — has never been more important. In these difficult times, law schools can, and must, play an active role in finding solutions. But how? Each episode of More Just starts with a problem, then explores potential solutions, featuring Dean Erwin Chemerinsky as well as other deans, professors, students, and advocates, about how they’re making law schools matter.

Have a question about teaching or studying law, or a topic you’d like Dean Chemerinsky to explore? Email us at [email protected] and tell us what’s on your mind.

Production by Yellow Armadillo Studios. 

Please visit the episode page for a full transcript.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Constitutional Law has changed dramatically in the past few years, and therefore so has the course for law students. In this episode, Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky — a leading scholar in the field who has been teaching the class for decades and is the author of a popular casebook — talks about the U.S. Supreme Court’s most recent term. It’s the latest in a series of monumental years for the Court, and Chemerinsky analyzes these sweeping changes with Michael Dorf, the Robert S. Stevens Professor of Law at Cornell Law School, and CNN Chief Supreme Court Analyst Joan Biskupic.

Professor Dorf has authored or co-authored well over one hundred scholarly articles and essays for law reviews, books, and peer-reviewed science and social science journals. He is a co-editor of a Constitutional Law casebook, writes a bi-weekly column for Justia’s web magazine, Verdict, and posts several times per week on his own blog, Dorf on Law.

Biskupic has covered the Supreme Court for more than 25 years and has written several books on the judiciary, including Nine Black Robes: Inside the Supreme Court’s Drive to the Right and its Historic Consequences and The Chief, a biography of Chief Justice John Roberts. 

More Just from Berkeley Law is a podcast about how law schools can and must play a role in solving society’s most difficult problems. 

The rule of law — and the role of the law — has never been more important. In these difficult times, law schools can, and must, play an active role in finding solutions. But how? Each episode of More Just starts with a problem, then explores potential solutions, featuring Dean Erwin Chemerinsky as well as other deans, professors, students, and advocates, about how they’re making law schools matter.

Have a question about teaching or studying law, or a topic you’d like Dean Chemerinsky to explore? Email us at [email protected] and tell us what’s on your mind.

Production by Yellow Armadillo Studios.

Transcript available on this podcast episode page of the Berkeley Law website.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Debates over free speech have simmered, and occasionally boiled over, on university campuses for decades. But in recent months, the clash over words and phrases has reached a flashpoint, reaching beyond classrooms and quads as far as the halls of Congress. College and university presidents have faced fierce criticism — chronicled in extensive media coverage — over how they’ve handled protests over the Israel-Gaza conflict and other activities at their schools, including who can or should speak at events and how to foster a sense of community safety. 

Looking ahead, what can colleges and universities do to protect the fundamental principles of free speech and academic freedom while simultaneously creating an atmosphere where everyone can learn? When can speech be considered threatening, and who decides where the line is? How can journalists cover a topic so rife with nuance and rhetorical complexity? And as this debate continues, how much influence should alumni, donors, and political leaders have on campuses, private and public? 

In this episode, Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky leads a panel discussion about these important questions with three experts who approach the topic from different angles:

• Geeta Anand, dean of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who wrote for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Rutland Herald, and Cape Cod News during her 27-year career as a journalist. She began teaching at Berkeley in 2018 and became the journalism school’s dean in 2020. 
•  University of California, Irvine, Chancellor Howard Gilman, an award-winning scholar and teacher with an expertise in the American Constitution and the Supreme Court, with appointments in the School of Law and the departments of Political Science, History, and Criminology, Law, and Society. He also provides administrative oversight to and serves as co-chair of the advisory board of the University of California’s National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement.
• Emerson Sykes, a staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. Sykes focuses on First Amendment free speech protections. From 2019-2020, he was also host of “At Liberty,” the ACLU’s weekly podcast. Before joining the ACLU in 2018, he was a legal advisor for Africa at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, and assistant general counsel to the New York City Council, where he contributed to the council’s friend-of-the-court brief against the NYPD’s “stop and frisk” program.

About:

“More Just” from Berkeley Law is a podcast about how law schools can and must play a role in solving society’s most difficult problems. Have a question about teaching or studying law, or a topic you’d like Dean Chemerinsky to explore? Email us at [email protected] and tell us what’s on your mind.

Production by Yellow Armadillo Studios.

For a transcript, please visit the episode page on the Berkeley Law podcast hub.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Herma Hill Kay Memorial Lecture with Justice Sonia Sotomayor in Conversation with Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. Recorded Monday, January 29, 2024, at UC Berkeley.

Have a question about the law, or a topic you’d like us to cover? Send an email to [email protected] to tell us your thoughts. 

For a transcript, please visit the episode page on the Berkeley Law podcast hub.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Leadership is a key component of other professional schools, particularly business and policy programs. But it’s less emphasized in law schools. Should it be taught in law schools, and what are the most important elements for them to learn? Another critical question is whether leadership training will make a real difference for lawyers as they move into the profession.

In this episode, Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky is joined by three expert leaders to talk about what’s happening and what law schools can do to make an impact in this area: 

• Christopher Edley, who spent 23 years at Harvard Law School before leading Berkeley Law as dean from 2004 to 2013. He recently finished a term as interim dean of the UC Berkeley School of Education and has a public policy portfolio, including government service, stretching over four decades. 
• Janet Napolitano, who served as president of the University of California from 2013 to 2020, as the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security under President Barack Obama, and as governor and attorney general of Arizona. She’s now a professor of public policy at Berkeley and director of the new Center for Security in Politics.
• Donald Polden, dean emeritus and a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, where he was dean from 2003 to 2013 and helped develop its curriculum for leadership education.

Want to know more about the leadership courses offered by Berkeley Law’s Executive Education Program, including Leadership in the Legal Profession, a groundbreaking 10-week leadership course? Click here to see a course description and find out when applications for the spring 2024 cohort will be accepted. 

Have a question about the law, or a topic you’d like us to cover? Send an email to [email protected] to tell us your thoughts. 

For a transcript, please visit the episode page on the Berkeley Law podcast hub.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The U.S. Supreme Court had another momentous term. From affirmative action in college admissions to critical administrative law and First Amendment cases, the court again handed down a string of decisions that will resonate for generations. 

In this episode, veteran court analyst Joan Biskupic returns to break down the term with Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. Biskupic has covered the court for decades and is now CNN Senior Supreme Court Analyst. Her most recent book, Nine Black Robes: Inside the Supreme Court's Drive to the Right and Its Historic Consequences, was published in April.

About:

“More Just” from Berkeley Law is a podcast about how law schools can and must play a role in solving society’s most difficult problems.

The rule of law — and the role of the law — has never been more important. In these difficult times, law schools can, and must, play an active role in finding solutions. But how? Each episode of More Just starts with a problem, then explores potential solutions, featuring Dean Erwin Chemerinsky as well as other deans, professors, students, and advocates, about how they’re making law schools matter.

Have a question about teaching or studying law, or a topic you’d like Dean Chemerinsky to explore? Email us at [email protected] and tell us what’s on your mind.

For a transcript, please visit the episode page on the Berkeley Law podcast hub.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Since 1983, U.S. News and World Report has published rankings of the nation’s law schools. For almost as long, there have been complaints about the way the rankings are done and what value they offer to prospective students. 

Last fall, Yale Law School Dean Heather Gerken announced that Yale — which consistently earned the top spot in the rankings — would no longer participate in the process because it is “undermining the core commitments of the legal profession.” Berkeley Law quickly followed, as did more than 60 law schools. 

If U.S. News’ rankings are weakened, what, if anything, should replace them? And what are the right metrics for measuring a law school’s quality, for both prospective students and potential future employers? 

In this episode, Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky talks to a blockbuster panel to discuss about how we got here, what the revolt means, and what the future may hold: Dean Gerken, now in her second term leading Yale Law School; Colorado College President L. Song Richardson, who pulled her school out of the college rankings; and Colin Diver, a former dean at Penn Law and president of Reed College who’s been a longtime critic of the U.S. News rankings and the author of the 2022 book Breaking Ranks: How the Rankings Industry Rules Higher Education, and What to Do about It. 

About: 

More Just from Berkeley Law is a podcast about how law schools can and must play a role in solving society’s most difficult problems. 

The rule of law — and the role of the law — has never been more important. In these difficult times, law schools can, and must, play an active role in finding solutions. But how? Each episode of More Just starts with a problem, then explores potential solutions, featuring Dean Erwin Chemerinsky as well as other deans, professors, students, and advocates, about how they’re making law schools matter. 

Have a question about teaching or studying law, or a topic you’d like Dean Chemerinsky to explore? Email us at [email protected] and tell us what’s on your mind.

For a transcript, please visit the episode page on the Berkeley Law podcast hub.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.