Opening Arguments

OA1172 - It’s been two weeks since the Supreme Court decided that babies in only half of the US get to be born as citizens. We try to make sense of what they left behind in one of the most important shadow docket cases in history, and how concerned Samuel Alito should really be that the actual text of the 14th Amendment might still prevail in the end. Matt also considers how likely it is that Zohran Mamdani might lose his citizenship over his rap lyrics, and we wrap with a quick footnote combining two of our favorite things: bad AI in court and Mike Lindell. Trump v. CASA (6/27/25) Judge LaPlante’s order certifying class in Barbara v. Trump (7/10/2025) DOJ memo re: priorities including denaturalization (6/11/2025)

Professor Heather Varanini is here to get us ready for the Bar Exam with the next question!If you'd like to play along with T3BE, here's what to do: hop on Bluesky, follow Openargs, find the post that has this episode, and quote it with your answer! Or, go to our Subreddit and look for the appropriate T3BE posting. Or best of all, become a patron at patreon.com/law and play there! Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! This content is CAN credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm on their hotline at (617) 249-4255, or on their website at creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org.

OA1171 - Today's episode is a nice, fun departure from the doom and gloom. Oral arguments in a recent SCOTUS case went terribly wrong. And for once, it wasn't the court itself that was looking like a clown show. The case was AJT v Osseo and it involved disability rights. So naturally, I had to invite everyone's favorite disability rights advocate and all around all-star, Dr. Jenessa Seymour!  

Hey folks, I'm taking a little time off! Hope you enjoy this SIO in the meantime. Thank you! Part 1: The Legal Stuff Dr. Jenessa Seymour is here to break down something that even our moms are spreading on social media: a group in New York claims to have uncovered discrepancies in the vote count for the 2024 election, and they're suing over it! Dr. Seymour hits ALL of the expert boxes for this one - statistics, voting rights, the law, and New York. Want part 2 early? Head to Patreon.com/seriouspod!

OA1170 - This Rapid Response Friday it’s Boh-vey (yes that is how you pronounce it, probably) all day--as in former Trump defense attorney and current Trump henchman Emil Bove, now up for a seat formerly occupied by Samuel Alito on the Third Circuit. Matt ties together several different stories from the news--from January 6th to the Eric Adams prosecution to DOJ’s deportations in violation of court orders--together with this week’s stunning 27-page account from deep inside the DOJ provided by a former loyalist. Finally, in today’s footnote: a pro se plaintiff invents a completely new way for AI to be useless in the courtroom Government’s Motion to Clarify in D.H.S.. v. D.V.D.:  (filed shortly after we recorded on 6/27/25) The U.S. Supreme Court’s order in D.H.S. v. D.V.D. (6/23/25)  Day 1 of Emil Bove’s confirmation hearing (6/25/26) Letter filed by Government Accountability Project on behalf of Erez Reuveni (6/25/25) Oral arguments before New York’s First Appellate Division (3/26/25)(clip starts at

If you'd like to play along with T3BE, here's what to do: hop on Bluesky, follow Openargs, find the post that has this episode, and quote it with your answer! Or, go to our Subreddit and look for the appropriate T3BE posting. Or best of all, become a patron at patreon.com/law and play there! Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! This content is CAN credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm on their hotline at (617) 249-4255, or on their website at creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org.

OA1169 - We had our first live video QnA of the new era! It was so good that I really thought more folks should hear it. Thank you to all who attended and we look forward to the next one! If you'd prefer to watch it, it's available on YouTube.  

OA1168 - Did the Karen Read trial just become the most expensive drunk driving prosecution in US history? We then briefly discuss legal issues around the arrest by ICE of New York mayoral candidate Brad Landry, and Matt fills in the most important missing detail of a story which nearly the entire media got wrong this week. And in our main story: the Supreme Court has struck an expected but thoroughly disappointing blow against trans rights in one of the season's biggest cases, and we talk out our first impressions of the informed medical judgments of Drs. Roberts, Thomas, and Alito.  Finally, in today's footnote: why America’s favorite crack-smoking pillow salesman now owes millions for repeating a second-hand rumor about an Antifa conference call. Footage of Brad Landry’s arrest (CNN) Trump’s “Further Extending the TikTok Enforcement Delay” EO (6/19/2025)  The Supreme Court's decision in Skrmetti v US  (6/18/2025) Be sure to join us on YouTube on Sunday, June 22nd, at 3pm Pacific/6pm Eastern! Check o

T3BE74 First an exciting announcement! We're bringing back the original Q&A format where everyone can hang out for the livestream, but patrons get the extra special opportunity to ask questions in advance! Be sure to join us on YouTube on Sunday, June 22nd, at 3pm Pacific/6pm Eastern! If you'd like to play along with T3BE, here's what to do: hop on Bluesky, follow Openargs, find the post that has this episode, and quote it with your answer! Or, go to our Subreddit and look for the appropriate T3BE posting. Or best of all, become a patron at patreon.com/law and play there! Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! This content is CAN credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm on their hotline at (617) 249-4255, or on their website at creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org.

OA1167 - Georgetown law student Mari Latibashvili is the co-founder of the GU Law Coalition for Justice, which recently made national headlines by organizing law students to refuse interviews and job offers from law firms which have given in to the Trump administration’s war on the legal profession. We discuss (among other things) this remarkably successful campaign, what life in law school has been like since the November 2024 election, and the growing influence of abolitionism among law students and new lawyers. Spreadsheet assembled by Georgetown Coalition of Students for Justice cataloging hundreds of law firms and their responses to the Trump administration’s executive orders targeting specific law firms “Law students organize to give Trump-caving law firms a recruitment problem,” Adam Klasfeld, All Rise News (4/25/2025) Amicus brief filed by 1,129 law students in the Susman Godfrey litigation against the Trump administration Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! Th

OA1166 - We consider the legal realities behind this week's most important stories, from the unprecedented statutory justification for Trump sending troops into California to why a wrongfully-deported man’s return to the US is--bad, actually? Matt then serves up a digestif of a note en bas de page about one of the most audacious counterfeiters in French history and how they were brought down with one well-placed tongue. Trump executive order deploying National Guard to California (6/7/25) 10 U.S.C 12406 Newsom v. Trump (complaint filed 6/7/2025) Indictment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia (5/21/25) Filing in Maryland Abrego Garcia litigation seeking sanctions against the government Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! This content is CAN credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm on their hotline at (617) 249-4255, or on their website at creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org.

T3BE73 If you'd like to play along with T3BE, here's what to do: hop on Bluesky, follow Openargs, find the post that has this episode, and quote it with your answer! Or, go to our Subreddit and look for the appropriate T3BE posting. Or best of all, become a patron at patreon.com/law and play there! Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! This content is CAN credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm on their hotline at (617) 249-4255, or on their website at creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org.

OA1165 - Anna Chu is the Executive Director at We the Action, a nonprofit that recently collaborated with labor and democracy partners like the American Federation of Government Employees and Democracy Forward, to launch Rise Up: Federal Workers Legal Defense Network. This Network connects federal workers who are being illegally terminated to pro bono legal services to help them understand their rights and fight back. But before our main segment, Lydia sneaks in to OA HQ to give us an old fashioned Doozy Watch of how things have been looking for federal employees and where the various lawsuits stand. Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! This content is CAN credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm on their hotline at (617) 249-4255, or on their website at creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org.

OA1164 - After a brief conversation from the front lines about the chaotic state of US immigration enforcement as of June 2025, we examine three unusual recent 9-0 decisions authored by three of our favorite Supreme Court justices. Join us behind the headlines to learn why Matt agrees that stopping a lawsuit against gun manufacturers, potentially opening the door to dumbass “reverse discrimination” lawsuits, and expanding tax-exempt status for the Catholic church further than ever are--fine, actually? Plus, a truly shocking immigration law development with potentially massive consequences which the media is totally missing, and one spicy meatball of a footnote. Smith & Wesson v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos  (6/5/25) Catholic Charities v. Wisconsin (6/5/25) Ames v. Ohio Dept of Youth Services (6/5/25) Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! This content is CAN credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm on their hotline at (617) 2

T3BE72 If you'd like to play along with T3BE, here's what to do: hop on Bluesky, follow Openargs, find the post that has this episode, and quote it with your answer! Or, go to our Subreddit and look for the appropriate T3BE posting. Or best of all, become a patron at patreon.com/law and play there! Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! This content is CAN credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm on their hotline at (617) 249-4255, or on their website at creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org.

OA1163 - No really. That's a real stat. It may actually be WORSE than that. So uh... how in the hell? Professor Valena Beety is here to break it down. She's done a ton of great work in this area, and has a new legal research paper, "Unfit": Gender, Ableism and Reproductive Wrongful Convictions by Valena Elizabeth Beety, which goes into this and much more! Content note: this episode does involve discussion of events where young children died. We don't dwell on these events much at all other than to mention them as needed. More links: Indiana Innocence Project, Kristine Bunch | National Registry of Exonerations, Manifesting Justice: Wrongly Convicted Women Reclaim Their Rights, Op ed: Why has Brenda Andrew been on death row for two decades? It has everything to do with sex.

OA1162 - It’s all good news from our favorite branch of government today! We review recent judicial wins in everything from illegal deportations to tariffs to the Trump administration’s wars on international students,  private law firms, and common-sense understandings of the expression “foreign policy.” Plus, Matt shares a footnote from the front lines of Trump’s mass deportation efforts to explain why an immigration judge 2000 miles away just left him an angry voicemail. MA District Court judge Brian Murphy’s preliminary injunction in DVD v. DHS (4/18/25) Judge Murphy’s denial of DHS’s motion to reconsider (5/26/25) Order to return O.C.G. to Guatemala (5/23/25) Judge Michael Fabiarz’s order on Mahmoud Khalil’s habeas claim (5/28/25) VOS v. USA decision from the Court of International Trade (5/28/25)  DC Circuit judge Tanya Chutkan’s decision in New Mexico v. Musk (5/27/2025) Judge Richard Leon’s order in Wilmer Hale’s challenge to Trump EO (5/27/25)

T3BE71 If you'd like to play along with T3BE, here's what to do: hop on Bluesky, follow Openargs, find the post that has this episode, and quote it with your answer! Or, go to our Subreddit and look for the appropriate T3BE posting. Or best of all, become a patron at patreon.com/law and play there! Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! This content is CAN credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm on their hotline at (617) 249-4255, or on their website at creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org.

OA1161 - Micah Herskind is an activist, Harvard law student, and most recently a co-editor of the essay collection No Cop City, No Cop World with Mariah Parker and Kamau Franklin. We welcome Micah on to discuss his experience with Atlanta’s Stop Cop City movement and the lessons which activists and advocates around the US can learn from it in these times of mass dissent in the face of American authoritarianism.  No Cop City, No Cop World, ed. Micah Herskind, Mariah Parker, & Kamau Franklin (2025) Cop City RICO Indictment, Fulton County Superior Court (8/29/2023) “The Tools of Repression,” Hanah Riley & Micah Herskind, Inquest (4/24/25) The Free Speech Forest Fund Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do! This content is CAN credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm on their hotline at (617) 249-4255, or on their website at creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org.

OA1160 - Sheryl Weikal is an Illinois trial lawyer with a name-your own-price practice representing marginalized people facing eviction, foreclosure, discrimination, and incarceration--which is all incredibly cool unto itself, but she also has a story like no one else you’ve heard. Sheryl won an incredible victory three years ago against the Illinois state bar for trans attorneys throughout the state in the face of years of open prejudice which she suffered from fellow lawyers, court staff, and even judges from the bench, and has written the story of her personal and professional life in a memoir which will be out June 3rd. This isn’t one to miss! Preorder I Was an Abomination: A Story of Trans Survival in Conservative America by Sheryl Weikal (to be released 6/3/2025) “Transgender lawyer wins suit for declaration that trans discrimination violates attorney ethics rules,” ABA Journal (4/18/2022) Follow Sheryl on Bluesky To support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law! Check o