Oral Argument

A spur of the moment episode in which we discuss streaming music, public opinion, interpretation and precedent, war and peace, the legality of airstrikes, and the survival of our species.

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Do judges make law or find and apply it? Or both? Long ago, the realists seemingly won the argument that judging inevitably involves making law, not just identifying it. We talk with Stephen Sachs, who argues for the rehabilitation of the possibility that judges acting in good faith can indeed find the law. Will Stephen and Joe clash over what this means for Erie? You'll just have to listen to find out.

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Special Guest: Stephen Sachs.

Late at night, mics dragged up by the fire, talking mailbag items on conversation, Banach spaces, mental models, the Facebook dumpster fire, and Christian's weird old tricks for managing your online world. Finally, Mr. Rogers and being better.

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What is the legal precedent following a decision of the Supreme Court that lacks a majority opinion? For a few decades, the meta-rule has been that such as case stands for the position of those justices "who concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds." Or has it? And could it? Richard Re joins us to discuss the problems of the Marks rule, the meaning of precedent, and ultimately the nature of our law. This problem will be confronted in the Supreme Court in the coming weeks.

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Special Guest: Richard Re.

We dive in to the mailbag and one other topic, discussing: nonsense, statutory interpretation and a rebuke to our prior discussion of it, the nature of podcasting, and public corruption by tweet. (No links this week.)

Audiobooks, capital, banks, slavery, regulation, choice, racism, and the racial wealth gap. Mehrsa Baradaran joins the show for the fourth time to talk about her latest book. Recorded in front of a live audience at the University of Georgia School of Law.

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Special Guest: Mehrsa Baradaran.

Scott Shapiro joins us to discuss how law relates to, well, everything. His article with David Plunkett argues that theorizing about the nature of law is a project to understand how talking and thinking about law fit into reality. But first, we talk with him about Twitter, writing, collaboration, Joe's innermost psyche, and more.

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Special Guest: Scott Shapiro.

Steve Vladeck rejoins us on the law of civilian-military separation, whether Marbury v. Madison was rightly decided, and how his recent oral argument before the Supreme Court went (spoiler: amazingly but weirdly). (Ignore Christian's use of the term "basises" (wtf?) and other misstatements and inanities ... you try recording ever week between classes....)

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Special Guest: Steve Vladeck.

Live to tape, we discuss viewer mail, Tolkien, laptops, and (kind of) a couple of SCOTUS cases.

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We find ourselves in a moment of untruth. Our guest, Brad Wendel, talks with us about political and legal truth and their relation to morality and social roles.

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