Episodi

  • Could a shadow court restore the balance of power to American democracy?

    Could a shadow court restore the balance of power to American democracy?
    Oct 9 2026
    Julie Suk is worried about American democracy. "Over time, the control of our constitutional future has really been in the domain of the judiciary and the executive branch, with the judiciary increasingly green-lighting actions by the executive branch," Suk tells host Lee Rawles. "And at the same time, our institutions, our lawmaking institutions that are supposed to represent the people have become less and less representative because of gerrymandering, and also less and less capable of making laws that push back against judicial and executive power." In her new book, The Shadow Court: Rescuing Democracy from the Supreme Court, Suk proposes one potential tool to fight back. The "shadow docket" may be a familiar term to people who have been paying attention to growing controversies over the U.S. Supreme Court's emergency decisions. But a shadow court is a different–and older–concept, Suk says. Just as a shadow parliament is intended to be a check on the power of a parliament, a shadow court could issue legal opinions independent of h a supreme court's actions. Many other countries have constitutional courts in addition to courts of litigation, that issue advisory opinions on constitutional issues. Suk proposes that Congress could create "a watchdog institution that provided an alternative jurisprudence or an alternative set of rulings so that the people could know what would we have in America if we actually had institutions that were designed better for the purposes of constitutional lawmaking and constitutional change." One benefit of an Article I shadow court would be the ability for its judges to weigh in on constitutional questions without the necessity of a plaintiff with standing bringing a case through the entire Article III court system to reach the U.S. Supreme Court, Suk says. They could evaluate pending legislation or executive actions with much greater speed. "And that opinion is advisory," says Suk. "It's not binding on Congress. It doesn't invalidate the state statute. It doesn't suspend the operation of the executive order in the same way that a court can issue a preliminary or permanent injunction. The shadow court's opinion being advisory, I would say could still, if it's designed properly, could still have a tremendous effect on our politics and also on our law." In this episode, Suk and Rawles discuss how other countries have used shadow parliaments and constitutional courts to safeguard democracy. They also discuss ways to make a shadow court more reflective of changing public attitudes, and Suk's Lego-piece theory for improving the United States government.
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    1 ora e 7 min
  • Where are America's hate speech laws?

    Where are America's hate speech laws?
    Sep 23 2026
    "In most other countries, there are laws, criminal laws that prohibit the expression of racial hatred or incitement to racial hatred," says Samantha Barbas, author of Hate Speech: The Legal and Cultural History of an American Dilemma, in this episode of the Modern Law Library. "There are no hate speech laws in the United States, and that makes the U.S. a true exception, a true outlier in the world. And so my book was trying to get to the question, why did the U.S. take this unique path? How do we explain that historically? Where and when and why did we diverge from the path that was taken by most other countries?" World War II prompted a barrage of hate speech legislation after it ended, but not in the United States, Barbas tells host Lee Rawles. "We had just seen how totalitarian governments establish themselves through censorship," Barbas says. "There are two really important ideals that seem to be clashing in the post-war era. Many hate speech laws are proposed, but they are rejected or struck down on free speech grounds. So at this moment when Europe is adopting hate speech laws, America is going the other way: Proposing them, but then rejecting them, and that consensus in favor of freedom of speech is going to hold for several decades." In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Barbas and Rawles discuss how American courts and society have dealt with hate speech issues in the past, and how the growing awareness of psychological harm has impacted public attitudes about hate speech. They also explore Henry Ford and the Dearborn Independent, D. W. Griffith and Birth of a Nation, the Streisand Effect, and a series of cases about Illinois Nazis.
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    42 min
  • Are you getting paid what you're really worth?

    Are you getting paid what you're really worth?
    Sep 9 2026
    Vanessa Ugatti is the True Worth Expert, a UK-based international keynote speaker, transformational trainer and coach, and author of How to Get Paid Your True Worth Ethically, Without Selling Your Soul. Through her unique True Worth™ Methodology, Vanessa helps forward-thinking law firms and sole practitioners get paid their true worth ethically, without over-servicing, discounting or losing clients. “Lawyers are quite fearful people, certainly in the UK, and I’m imagining it’s probably not that much different in the States,” Ugatti tells Modern Law Library host Lee Rawles. "They're driven by fear. Fear of losing the client, fear of getting in trouble with their board. Just fear. And so they'll tend to focus on doing the legal work at the expense of the business–that comes second–and the expense of themselves." In her new book, How to Get Paid Your True Worth Ethically: Without Selling Your Soul (and Keeping Your Clients Happy!), Ugatti shares her methodology, based on the acronym TRUE WORTH. "Getting paid your true worth is not just about making enough revenue to have a sustainable life and business," says Ugatti. "It's also to make sure that you are well, you can supply the right work to your clients, and you can give them the level of service that they need." In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Ugatti outlines what each letter of TRUE WORTH stands for, and discusses her own journey towards having the confidence to value herself properly.
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    41 min
  • We need to rein in Silicon Valley unicorns, says law prof

    We need to rein in Silicon Valley unicorns, says law prof
    Aug 5 2026
    In Silicon Valley, a "unicorn" is a private startup with a net worth of $1 billion. As the term suggests, these were once incredibly rare creatures. Most startups would go public within 4-7 years, long before they had a $1 billion valuation. But two key pieces of legislation made the rare into the rampaging, starting in 1996. In her new book, Untamed Unicorns: Why Startup Finance is Broken and How to Fix It, Renée M. Jones warns that by staying private and shielded from oversight and disclosure, these startups could be endangering the stability of our financial system. Jones, who served as the director of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Corporation Finance under President Joe Biden, shows how these tactics were used (and misused) by startups like FTX, WeWork, Uber and Theranos. "One of the big concerns is that startups are taking advantage of the secrecy to engage in, we could call it 'antisocial' or 'unsocial' behavior, but there are not really any mechanisms for the public to really see what's going on," Jones tells Modern Law Library host Lee Rawles. "If Theranos's investors and directors understood that they were going to have to go public and prove that the product worked, they would've been more demanding on Elizabeth Holmes most likely, and they wouldn't have been able to get away with all of those lies." A big concern Jones has is with the recent push by private equity companies to allow regular retail investors and 401K plan managers to invest in these opaque and risky private startup companies. "That includes private equity, it includes infrastructure. It could even include crypto. Again, these are illiquid assets," says Jones. "There's no ready market for those shares. And they're high risk assets and there's not a lot of information to even know, 'What am I actually invested in?' " "If the Department of Labor's plans are adopted, you're going to have to really work hard to avoid having any private equity in your 401k plans," Jones warns. "There's a risk that these overvalued assets are going to be transferred from professional investors who can act to protect their interest to sort of your average, unsophisticated 401k saver." In this episode, Jones shares her advice for reforming the oversight of these companies, warning signs that financial novices should be on the look for, and introduces a new creature to the financial bestiary: the centicorn.
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    54 min
  • Summer Reading and Still Perplexed About AI?

    Summer Reading and Still Perplexed About AI?
    Jul 31 2026
    For this year's summer reading recommendations, host Lee Rawles shares three recommended reads, three books on her to-be-read pile, and three TV shows she's enjoyed. The recommended reads are all fiction this time around, ranging from a spooky contemporary, to a historical novel about the Black Death, to a frothy sweet romance novel. Her to-be-read pile includes a Danish book about time loops, a history of the world in 12 shipwrecks, and a romantic fantasy book with the tag line: "Two heroes. One brain cell." After her pop culture picks, this episode includes a re-airing of a May 2025 interview with Richard Susskind about his book How to Think About AI: A Guide for the Perplexed. There have been so many developments in the AI landscape in the year since it first aired that it's worth listening back to Susskind's predictions and warnings to see what's already come true and what has changed. Recommended Reads: The Children, by Melissa Albert The Last Hours and The Turn of Midnight, by Minette Walters The MASH Up, by Laura Marie Meyers To Be Read: On the Calculation of Volume I, by Solvej Balle A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks, by David Gibbons Bromantasy, by Maire Roche Recommended Watches: Star City, on Apple TV Silo, on Apple TV The Other Bennett Sister, on Britbox
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    55 min
  • Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the body in the well

    Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the body in the well
    Jul 23 2026
    In January 1800, Elma Sands's dead body was found in a New York City well. The case has captivated people ever since, not least because in the resulting trial, defendant Levi Weeks was represented by Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and a future Supreme Court justice. The Girl from Greenwich Street: A Novel of Hamilton, Burr and America's First Murder Trial is a historical fiction novel by Lauren Willig. On this episode of the Modern Law Library, she explains how four years before their fatal duel, Hamilton and Burr came to be co-counsels on a murder case. "The New York Bar was perishingly small in 1800. And in fact, Burr and Hamilton were co-counsel on a complex commercial litigation at the exact time," says Willig. "So people were constantly–it's like swing your partners, do-si-do. They were always working together, working against each other. It was just the way the bar worked in 1800." The defendant, Levi Weeks, lived in the same boarding house as Sands, a hatmaker whose cousin owned the house. The prosecution contended that Weeks had seduced Sands with a promise of marriage, then dumped her body in the Manhattan Well. His trial was the first murder trial in America to have a court transcript, thanks to a clerk who'd recently learned shorthand. This transcript gave Willig a wealth of witness testimony to draw on when fleshing out her characters. "One of the things that drove me nuts when I was researching this case was how little attention has been expended over the years in trying to figure out anything about Elma Sands, the murdered woman," Willig tells Rawles. "There are some big personalities and really big names involved in the trial itself. And people are so eager to get into the courtroom with Hamilton and Burr that they just trample over Elma. And she gets flattened into one of two archetypes. Either she's the innocent young maiden who's been seduced and betrayed, which is how the prosecution portrays her in the trial, or she's a melancholy laudanum-addicted nymphomaniac, which is how the defense tries to portray her." "And I think the reality of Elma was a lot more complicated than those flat depictions would have us believe." Willig and Rawles also discuss her time at Harvard Law, where she signed a contract to write her popular Pink Carnation series as a 1L, and then her time at Cravath, Swain & Moore, trying to balance being a published romance writer and lawyer. "I had to make a choice, try to continue to juggle or go all in on being an author. And I left Cravath and my partner mentor came up to me and said, 'Well, what took you so long? I would've left sooner.' "
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    57 min
  • 'Lessons for a Warming Planet' offers hope and cautions

    'Lessons for a Warming Planet' offers hope and cautions
    Jun 17 2026
    Environmental law in the United States can be a double-edged sword. "I think that when people think about environmental law, very frequently what they mean is environmental protection, and what that misses is the other side of the coin, that there is a whole lot of law that is meant to exploit the environment," says law professor Brig Daniels. When Daniels and his writing partner Alejandro Camacho looked at the literature available on the development of environmental law in the United States, they found it lacking. "Most sort of focus only on environmental protection laws emerging from the 1970s or possibly the progressive era, missing frankly centuries of legal history that drove exploitation," says Camacho. They hope to remedy this with their new book, Lessons for a Warming Planet: A Vital History of US Environmental Law. From colonial expansion that deprived Native Americans of their ancestral lands to modern day battles over the Clean Air Act, Lessons for a Warming Planet offers a broad history of how environmental law has been developed. Change can happen gradually, or all at once. Camacho and Daniels have identified five different eras with dominant ideologies, some pushing towards protection and others towards exploitation. But in all eras, there were elements of both, the authors say. "It isn't just a black and white sort of binary of any of these eras," Camacho tells host Lee Rawles in this episode of the Modern Law Library. "And of course, what often happened is that an undercurrent in any given era becomes the dominant era in a subsequent era." The latest era of environmental law is one of contention, without a dominant force yet emerging. Lessons for a Warming Planet warns that either exploitation or protection could hold sway in the next era. "The thing that I hope that people understand is that looking back, one of the things that is so prevalent is that we didn't get the history that we had due to luck," says Daniels. "A big chunk of way we got our history was due to effort." In this episode of the Modern Law Library, Camacho, Daniels and Rawles discuss the Homestead Act, Cuyahoga River fires, and what Nixon really thought of pesky environmentalists.
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    56 min
  • 'Unlikely insider' critiques how law school thinking can reinforce injustices

    'Unlikely insider' critiques how law school thinking can reinforce injustices
    May 27 2026
    When Shaun Ossei-Owusu looked around at his classmates at UC Berkeley School of Law, there were many upper middle class children of lawyers who were coming straight from their undergraduate degrees. There were not many people like him, a child of Ghanaian immigrants who grew up in an impoverished South Bronx community and was now finishing his PhD as a returning student. That background and his academic training gave him a different perspective on the law school curriculum. For example, his Property Law class was mostly focused on the ins and outs of titles and transfers. "It was strange to me, particularly being going to school at Berkeley, how little the class said about homelessness," Ossei-Owusu tells host Lee Rawles in this episode of the Modern Law Library. "We have about 750,000 people in this country who are unhoused in any given night. And this is the course, Property Law, that's most directly concerned with how we organize access space and shelter. And the course doesn't say much about homelessness. And so I felt that that was strange, but I didn't want to be the student in class saying, 'Well, why aren't we talking about this?' " Ossei-Owusu went on to practice healthcare enforcement law at Sidley Austin, and worked for the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia. His time as a litigator and public interest lawyer gave him a look at how law school principles fared in real world situations. "Lawyers are implicated in many of the hot-button issues of the day, and much of that is tied to the ways that we train lawyers in law school to distance legal reasoning from social and moral consequences–and the ways they bring that habit into legal practice, whether it be BigLaw, public interest lawyering, or government lawyering," Ossei-Owusu says. It's something he now thinks deeply about as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School who focuses on criminal justice, social welfare and professional responsibility. In Law on Trial: An Unlikely Insider Reckons with Our Legal System, he calls out the ways this early training can result in further injustice and inequality for society. "Professional ethics say your job is to primarily serve clients, which creates an inevitable distance between what lawyers do and who pays the price," writes Ossei-Owusu in Law on Trial. "The result is a system that trains smart people to engineer brilliant solutions while staying disconnected from the human wreckage they may leave behind." In this episode of the podcast, Ossei-Owusu and Rawles talk about the hard truths of public interest legal work, how regulatory work can sometimes have more impact than litigation, and and how good intentions alone cannot erase harm.
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    49 min