Oral Argument

Psst, do you want to buy a kidney? How about a human egg, or a baby? We talk about taboo markets and tragic choice with Kim Krawiec. Topics range from egg “donation” to kidney transplants, altruism, reference transactions, military service, sex, and more. How do we allocate scarce goods when enough of us just don’t believe the goods should be traded like loaves of bread? Program note: We failed to ask Kim whether Joe is monstrous on account of his views on speed trap norms. Our apologies to the listeners and to Kim.

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Special Guest: Kimberly Krawiec.

When you think of giant cable companies, do you find yourself wishing they could be bigger? Do you even find yourself thinking of giant cable companies? Whether you do or do not, you might learn something from our discussion with James Speta, who attempts to shows us the middle way on the issues facing broadband internet. Vertical and horizontal integration, bundling, packets, spectrum, and monopoly. We return to the law and policy of the network.

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Special Guest: James Speta.

It’s Reefer Madness week on Oral Argument. We talk with Douglas Berman about marijuana decriminalization and lots more. We discuss blogs and scholarship, LSD, why minds might be changing and how they change on drug use, parental paternalism and state paternalism, what we mean by “good drugs” and “bad drugs,” the productivity of intoxication, why law students take an interest in philosophy and sociology when it comes to drug laws. What levers should we use to minimize the dangers drugs pose, and what levers are available to us? We talk a bit about Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden, and North Korea. Yes, North Korea. Is part of the right answer to restrict the market to Mom and Pop Pot? How do we do that in a maelstrom of conflicting federal and state laws?

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Special Guest: Douglas Berman.

This is the one about eggs. Human eggs. And whether selling them is like selling chicken eggs, teaching law school, or being a good samaritan. Lisa Milot joins us to talk about taxing proceeds from transfers of human body materials. We discuss Christian’s beard, astronaut hair, egg donations, oil reservoirs, how to pronounce Kim Krawiec’s name, speed traps, and follow-up on the US News episode.

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Special Guest: Lisa Milot.

Our guest, Dave Hoffman, writes about everything and helped to found one of the premier legal blogs, Concurring Opinions. We talk about the role of legal blogs in the public sphere and for the academy. And speaking of writing, what’s wrong with legal scholarship? What should we be doing, and how can the forms of writing, the fora for writing, and the expectations for scholars help or hinder that? Also, too, the return to the show of speed trap law and whether Joe satisfies the basic norms of civility.

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Special Guest: David Hoffman.

The U.S. News rankings of law schools are out! We wish they would go away. After follow-up on last week’s episode and a dip into viewer mail, we discuss what problems the rankings might be attempts to solve, how they are calculated, and the obvious problems with them. Joe reports that after the conversation, as after other discussions of the rankings, he felt like he needed a shower.

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The Spring Break episode in which Joe and Christian take a break from solving the world’s legal problems to talk about the technology and culture of writing. We start with some listener feedback, and then Joe reports on an accidental experiment he performed with his car lights. Moving on to email, we discuss a number of bad habits, including needless attachments and clicking on links. Then, the big daddy: Microsoft Word. We discuss what Christian thinks is horribly wrong with it and the excellent, usable alternative to the whole concept of the WYSIWYG word processor. We argue. We close with Memphis. Christian's spouse conducts various noisy activities in the background. And Darcy barks. Never fear: we'll get back to the law stuff next week.

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This is the one about the internet, that which is neither truck nor tube. Christina Mulligan joins us to talk about our beloved cable companies, Netflix, network neutrality, regulation, monopolies, common carriers, sunken and ancient computers, and her super-secret new project (which Christian suggests could yield an excellent new conspiracy theory that would make Logan Sawyer cry). Also we answer viewer mail. Because this is a super-sized show (pour a beverage), we also mention bonobos, Schweddy Balls, Candy Crush, Candyland, the odd shape of either my coffee mugs or Joe’s face, whether we should change our name to improve our Google search position, packets spewing from unicorn horns, and the pronunciation of Smaug. Christian announces the sale of his body parts.

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Special Guest: Christina Mulligan.

Law and banking in one podcast. Take deep breaths lest your racing heart burst in your chest. You think I'm joking. Probably because you don't know Mehrsa Baradaran. But then, you probably do, because everyone does. We talk about, among other things, how one should say “Mehrsa,” what banking is, It’s a Wonderful Life, how banks are subsidized and regulated, how 40 percent of the country doesn’t really bank or at least “underbanks,” and payday lenders. Christian does not call Joe “Adam Smith.” Mehrsa defends banking at the post office (dubbed by one banking industry exec “the worst idea since the Ford Edsel”). From the bank bailouts to moral hazard to the the precarious financial position of the working poor, we cover a lot of ground. And, naturally, speed traps. (Update 11/24/2018: Christian here. A listener got in touch with some very thoughtful criticism of our discussion during the intro. Talking about a gendered list, I casually raised switching genders to get on this list, in a way that the listener perceived as making a joke of transgender people. It pains me that this discussion would hurt anyone. I’m very sorry. Although it has been a long time since this conversation, I know my intent was to poke a little fun at the gendered nature of the list, though I winced at my ham-fisted mention of reassignment surgery. I hope it’s a sign of progress that I don’t believe the conversation would be the same today as it was then. But we feel strongly that retroactively editing the show should be reserved for truly exceptional situations, not to save face.)

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Special Guest: Mehrsa Baradaran.

Fresh off a week-long, snow and ice shutdown, Joe tells Christian he doesn’t want to be called Adam Smith anymore. We discuss viewer mail. Then we circle back to the emerging show specialty: whether you can be charged for warning drivers of a speed trap. Turns out it’s a debate that sprawls over more than a hundred years. We also talk about leveling up one’s understanding of law, from bare opinions about disputes to theories of institutional assignment. Roll for initiative: it’s time for Oral Argument.

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