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Stanford Legal
Stanford Law School
215 episodes
Law touches most aspects of life. Here to help make sense of it is the Stanford Legal podcast, where we look at the cases, questions, conflicts, and legal stories that affect us all every day.
More about the show
Pam Karlan studies and teaches a range of constitutional law-related courses with a special focus on what is known as the “law of democracy,”—the law that regulates voting, elections, and the political process. She served as a commissioner on the California Fair Political Practices Commission, an assistant counsel and cooperating attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and (twice) as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. She also co-directs the Stanford Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, which represents real clients before the highest court in the country, working on important cases including representing Edith Windsor in the landmark case striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act and Donald Zarda in a case where the Supreme Court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects LGBT individuals against discrimination in employment. She has argued before the Court ten times.
And Rich Ford’s teaching and writing look at the relationship between law and equality, cities and urban development, popular culture and everyday life. He teaches local government law, employment discrimination, and the often-misunderstood critical race theory. He studied with and advised governments around the world on questions of equality law, lectured at places like the Sorbonne in Paris on the relationship of law and popular culture, served as a commissioner for the San Francisco Housing Commission, and worked with cities on how to manage neighborhood change and volatile real estate markets. He writes about law and popular culture for lawyers, academics, and popular audiences. His latest book is Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History, a legal history of the rules and laws that influence what we wear.
Law matters. We hope you’ll listen to new episodes that will drop on Thursdays every two weeks. To learn more, go to https://law.stanford.edu/stanford-legal-podcast/.
Episodes page 1 of 5
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Best of Stanford Legal: What Stands Between Voters and the Ballot?
The ACLU’s Sophia Lin Lakin discusses voting access and the redistricting battles shaping political power ---- Sophia Lin Lakin, JD ’11 (MS ’04, BA ’02), director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, challenges the…
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The Court Records We're Not Allowed to See
A sweeping Stanford Law study reveals how routinely federal courts seal records, sometimes concealing information with profound implications for public health and safety. ---- Evidence of dangerous drugs, defective…
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Dismantling Environmental Law
Deborah Sivas discusses the recent rollback of environmental laws, calls to streamline environmental review to speed up development, and the role communities should play in decisions about what gets built. --- As the…
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U.S. Elections Under Pressure from White House
Nate Persily joins Pam Karlan to discuss efforts to change the rules governing the 2026 elections and the legal battles over how those changes would affect voting. --- As the push to build more infrastructure gains…
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Who Fills In When Federal Jobs Are Vacant?
Stanford’s Anne Joseph O’Connell examines who can step in when a top federal position is vacant and what recent court decisions could mean for how those positions are filled. ---- When a top federal position is…
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Best of Stanford Legal: Inside the ACLU’s Docket with Anthony Romero
The ACLU’s Anthony Romero unpacks a sweeping docket—from a Supreme Court showdown over birthright citizenship to voting rights and free speech—as the rule of law is tested. --- In a timely conversation about the…
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America's Promissory Note
The Declaration as a “promissory note”—and what it demands now In the final discussion of The Declaration at 250 series, Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program…
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The Growing Influence of State Solicitors General
Former state solicitors general Michael Mongan and Kevin Gallagher discuss the evolving role of state solicitors general and how states work together to shape legal battles before the Supreme Court. --- When states…
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Countering Contemporary Criticism of America's Founding Principles
The real crisis isn’t the Declaration—it’s what we’ve stopped teaching. Peter Berkowitz, Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, contends that universities have failed at liberal education—the…
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The Declaration In the Age of General Purpose AI
"The Declaration meets the machine age" In this episode of The Declaration at 250, Michael McConnell frames a question the Founders never confronted: if the Declaration grounds rights in human nature, what happens…
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The Iran War and the Limits of Presidential Power
Stanford’s Allen Weiner examines how the U.S. war with Iran raises questions about the president’s power to wage war and negotiate peace. --- The American war with Iran began with ambitious goals, including…
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Is the Declaration Our Law?
“Two competing originalist instincts” In this episode of The Declaration at 250, Michael McConnell introduces Randy Barnett, the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at the Georgetown University Law Center…
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State Constitutions and the Declaration of Independence
This episode highlights an often-missed story: the Declaration of Independence didn’t just shape the U.S. Constitution—it directly shaped state constitutions, many of which echo its natural-rights language more…
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The Structural Declaration of Independence
This episode reframes the Declaration of Independence as more than soaring ideals about equality and natural rights. Former California Supreme Court Justice Mariano-Florentino “Tino” Cuéllar argues the text contains an…
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Birthright Citizenship and the Future of the Fourteenth Amendment
Stanford’s Fred Smith examines the Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship decision, its historical roots in the Fourteenth Amendment, and the questions the Court leaves unresolved. --- The Fourteenth Amendment opens…
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Inside the Supreme Court’s Key 2026 Decisions
Jeff Fisher discusses a term marked by major rulings across executive power, voting, and civil rights, and what they signal about the Court’s trajectory. --- The Supreme Court has wrapped up a consequential term,…
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The Declaration of Independence as Obligation
This episode of The Declaration at 250 discussion spotlights a striking—and often overlooked—line in the Declaration of Independence: when despotism becomes systematic, “it is their right, it is their duty” to throw…
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The Case for a Public Share in AI
Jeremy Bearer-Friend and Sarah Polcz discuss their proposal to require leading AI firms to pay taxes in equity, reshaping how the gains from AI are distributed --- Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping the…
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The Declaration of Independence and Conditions for Democratic Flourishing
In the opening episode of The Declaration at 250, Michael McConnell introduces former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and historian David Kennedy to ask a deceptively simple question: what does it actually take for…
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Declaration at 250 Trailer
00:00:00 — What new can be said about the Declaration at 250? McConnell opens with the core question and frames 250 years of interpretation, celebration, and controversy. 00:00:58 — The big themes the series will…
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Inside the Trump Administration's Immigration Agenda
Lucas Guttentag discusses the Trump administration’s immigration policies and the legal battles reshaping the U.S. immigration system --- The birthright citizenship case and immigration raids have drawn headlines and…
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The Law Must Be King
Judge J. Michael Luttig on the Rule of Law in an Era of Executive Overreach --- In this special episode, recorded at the Neukom Center's Rule of Law Speaker Series, Judge J. Michael Luttig, former Fourth Circuit…
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When Government Lawyers Draw the Line
Former Justice Department officials reflect on an institution at a crossroads --- Former Department of Justice pardon attorney Liz Oyer describes being pulled out of a meeting, told to pack up her belongings, and…
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Voting Rights at a Turning Point
Pamela Karlan and Nathaniel Persily on the Supreme Court’s latest decision on redistricting and minority representation. --- In the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Louisiana v. Callais, two of the…
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Who Gets to Vote?
The ACLU’s Sophia Lin Lakin discusses voting access and the redistricting battles shaping political power --- Sophia Lin Lakin, JD ’11 (MS ’04, BA ’02), director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, challenges the…
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Native Nations, Federal Indian Law, and the Birthright Citizenship Case
Stanford’s Greg Ablavsky on the history behind the birthright case --- The 14th Amendment to the Constitution says: “all persons born are naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are…
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The Politics and Promise of a Billionaire Tax
Stanford Law Alum Darien Shanske on Wealth, Fairness, and California’s Proposed Billionaire Tax --- On this episode of Stanford Legal, host Professor Richard Thompson Ford talks taxes with Darien Shanske, JD '06, a…
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Trump's Immigration Raids and State Pushback
Jennifer Chacón discusses how immigration crackdowns are reshaping policing and public life --- The Trump administration came in promising mass deportation. What has followed goes well beyond border control to…
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Stanford’s Alan Sykes on the Future of Trump’s Tariffs After the IEEPA Case
Supreme Court limits IEEPA tariff power in a 6–3 ruling as Al Sykes and Pam Karlan explain the impact on Congress, trade, and what’s next --- When President Trump declared a national emergency and imposed sweeping…
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A Seismic Shift in Climate Law
Deborah Sivas on the EPA’s Rescission of the Endangerment Finding --- The Environmental Protection Agency recently announced it was rescinding the 2009 endangerment finding, the legal foundation for federal…
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Inside the ACLU’s Docket: Anthony Romero on the Front Lines of Civil Rights
The ACLU’s Anthony Romero unpacks a sweeping docket—from a Supreme Court showdown over birthright citizenship to voting rights and free speech—as the rule of law is tested. --- In a timely conversation about the…
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The Importance of Critical Thinking and Civil Discourse in Today's Polarized World
Stanford’s Robert MacCoun shows how scientific habits can sharpen judgment and strengthen civil discourse in a polarized society. --- In a world where confidence is rewarded and humility can feel like a liability,…
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How Democracies Collapse from Within
What happens when the legal tools meant to protect democracy are used to weaken it? Kim Scheppele explains. --- Professor Kim Scheppele has spent much of her career watching democracies rise and fall. She went to…
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Flexing U.S. Power in Venezuela
Stanford Law’s Allen Weiner explores developments in Venezuela and the role—and limits—of international law --- Can the United States arrest a foreign head of state by sending FBI agents—and military troops—into…
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Best of Stanford Legal: Trump's Pardons
Political Violence, Hate Groups, and the Rule of Law --- 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…
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Best of Stanford Legal: Suing DOGE
Urgent legal questions about privacy protections of the nation’s largest collection of personal data and unprecedented influence of Silicon Valley in Washington --- A coalition of privacy defenders led by Lex Lumina…
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Nationwide Injunctions After CASA
Mila Sohoni on the New Legal Landscape --- When a single federal judge can freeze a president’s policy nationwide, it raises big questions about checks and balances and democratic accountability. That’s one reason…
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Crime, Justice, and Trump’s DOJ
What happens when long-standing norms begin to erode? Jonathan Wroblewski discusses his decades at the DOJ and the forces shaping federal justice --- Over a 35-year career at the Department of Justice, Jonathan…
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Navigating Uncertainty and Unprecedented Shifts in Federal Health Policy
Stanford Law’s Michelle Mello discusses how sweeping changes in federal health policy are reshaping public health--and leading states to fill the void --- “The amount of chaos that’s been introduced into the federal…
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National Guard or Political Weapon?
Legal historian and constitutional law scholar Professor Bernadette Meyler cautions that the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard threatens the “presumption of regularity” that underpins the rule of…
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Political Enemies and the Weaponization of the DOJ
Pam Karlan and Bob Weisberg unpack the Comey and James indictments, and what they reveal about the rule of law in a politicized justice system --- When politics drives prosecutions, what happens to the rule of law?…
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President Trump’s Tariffs and the Separation of Powers at the Supreme Court
The biggest separation-of-powers controversy since the steel seizure case in 1952. --- In April, President Trump declared a national emergency and assumed the power to levy tariffs, introducing uncertainty into…
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Guns, Money, and Mass Shootings
Stanford Law Researchers Discuss How Lobbying Shapes the Political Battlefield --- Frequent mass shootings are a distinctly American problem, with news of another tragic shooting grabbing our attention every few…
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U.S. Risking its Scientific Research Edge?
Stanford Law’s Lisa Ouellette discusses the rollback of federal support for vital academic research, the challenge of defending U.S. research from political interference, and ensuring drug development meets real-world…
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Redrawing Democracy
Stanford's Pamela Karlan and Nathaniel Persily on the redistricting push in Texas, recent signals from the Supreme Court about the Voting Rights Act, and the future of voting and redistricting in America --- At the…
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Trump’s Executive Orders, Culture Wars, and Civil Rights
Stanford's Rick Banks on the Doctrine of Disparate Impact and the Surprising Case for Meritocracy --- Trump-era executive orders, police hiring standards, and college admissions all converge in a decades-long debate…
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Can the Rule of Law Hold?
Pam Karlan on the Erosion of Norms at the DOJ --- In this episode of Stanford Legal, Professor Pam Karlan talks about the growing politicization of the Department of Justice under the Trump administration. Drawing on…
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Free Speech Under Fire: Greg Lukianoff Discusses the Battle for Free Expression on College Campuses
How does the Trump administration's tactics impact elite universities and their freedom of speech? --- Amid escalating federal pressure on universities, Stanford Law School alum Greg Lukianoff, JD ’00, joins host…
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The Free Speech Chill
Analyzing the impact of government actions on foreign students' First Amendment rights --- In this episode, Stanford Law Professor Evelyn Douek, a First Amendment scholar and permanent U.S. resident, expands on her…
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Leveraging Technology to Improve Access to LA Courts
Stanford researchers help bring innovative solutions to high-volume court, enhancing the self-represented litigant experience and its dedication to leading in justice innovation. --- The LA Superior Court is the…
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