Opening Arguments

Latest Episodes:

T3BE78: Following the Interpleader Jul 24, 2025

Show notes

Professor Heather Varanini has brought us our next question as we study for the Bar Exam!

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!

PORN LAW: When Your Kink Is Strict Scrutiny but the Court Only Goes Intermediate Jul 22, 2025

Show notes

OA1175 - How much of a restriction on your First Amendment rights is it to have to upload an ID to access an adult website? That is the question at the heart of Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, the Supreme Court’s recent review of age verification laws such as Texas’s HB 1181. Matt explains how this newly precedential application of intermediate scrutiny to these kinds of restrictions on adult content could have real implications for the future of other kinds of unpopular speech. Then for more context we welcome Zeve Sanderson, the Executive Director of the NYU Center for Social Media & Politics. Zeve and a team of other researchers have recently published the leading findings on the actual effects of age verification on browsing habits, which he takes us through while also explaining some possibly less-restrictive alternatives to current verification methods.

U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton (6/27/2025)
Audio of Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton SCOTUS oral arguments (1/15/2025)
Do Age Verification Bills Change Search Behavior? A Pre-Registered Registered Synthetic Control Multiverse, David Lang Benjamin Listyg† Brennah V. Ross‡ Anna V. Musquera Zeve Sanderson (March 2024)
Zeve Sanderson’s website

ICE Just... Decided Millions of People Are Ineligible for Bail. This Is Bad. Like, Really Bad. Jul 18, 2025

Show notes

OA1174 - Matt is coming in hot from the front lines of immigration court for an exclusive firsthand account of how a new secret memo directed to ICE's attorneys is trying to unilaterally redefine immigration reality and prime the machine for a new era of mass detention well beyond anything this country has even seen before. In better news: an actual federal judge restores sanity in the surprisingly-difficult-to-locate federal district of central California, and a footnote on why some unexpected federal job openings might be good news for people who hate fascism.

“ICE declares millions of undocumented immigrants ineligible for bond,” Maria Sachetti and Carol Leonning, The Washington Post (7/15/25) (via MSN)
Judge Maame Uwusi-Mensah Frimpong’s findings and TRO against ICE in Perdomo v. Noem (7/11/25)
Board of Immigration Appeals decision in Matter of Q. Li, 29 I&N Dec. 66 (BIA 2025)
Alito’s majority decision in Jennings v. Rodriguez (2018)

Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

T3BE77: If a Chandelier Falls and You Aren’t There to See It, Did the Liability Even Happen? Jul 17, 2025

Show notes

And Professor Heather Varanini has brought us our next question as we study for the Bar Exam!

Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

To support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law!

Let’s Talk Space Law! It’s Law, but From OUTER SPACE! Jul 15, 2025

Show notes

OA1173 - More people have been to space than practice space law, and Professor Michelle Hanlon is one of its most important modern pioneers. Professor Hanlon joins to talk Star Trek captains, preserving historic sites on the Moon, and why she believes the mass privatization of space is--at least if properly regulated--the only way forward.

Prof. Michelle Hanlon’s University of Mississippi faculty biography
“Why Are We All So Obsessed with the Moon?”, Michelle Hanlon, New York Times (12/7/2024)
The Artemis Accords (signed 10/30/2020)
“The Wild Wild West of Space Law,” Michael O’Shea, The Walrus (8/13/2020)

Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

What a Surprise, the Racist Bastards Want to Denaturalize Zohran Mamdani Jul 11, 2025

Show notes

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)

T3BE76: Accidental Evidence Jul 10, 2025

Show notes

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!

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When You're So Bad At Your Job, You Make the Supreme Court Look Good By Comparison Jul 08, 2025

Show notes

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!

SIO484: Lawsuit Alleges Voting Irregularities in 2024. Is There Any There There? Jul 01, 2025

Show notes

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!

No Way, Bove Jun 27, 2025

Show notes

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