Stanford Legal

Just as pandemic fatigue is setting in and the Omicron variant is sweeping across the nation—putting a tremendous strain on America’s healthcare infrastructure—the Supreme Court heard arguments in challenges to the Biden administration’s authority to combat the COVID-19. Labor law expert Professor William B. Gould IV joins Joe and Rich to discuss challenges to the administration’s efforts to impose vaccine mandates—and trends in the American labor market during the pandemic.

When AG Garland put out a call to lawyers, law students, and law schools generally to suit up to deal with the "eviction tsunami" that many are predicting in the coming months, Juliet Brodie , director of the Stanford Community Law Clinic and an expert in tenants’ rights answered the call. In this episode, Joe and Rich discuss evictions, the challenges lower income Americans face in staying in their homes, and how the law has been innovating during Covid-19. Juliet is joined by Lauren Zack, a teaching and litigation fellow working on the eviction projects with the clinic. In this episode, Joe and Rick discuss evictions, the challenges lower income Americans face in staying in their homes, and how the law has been innovating during Covid-19. Juliet is joined by Lauren Zack, a teaching and litigation fellow working on the eviction projects with the clinic.

It was the stuff of Silicon Valley dreams. Elizabeth Holmes dropped out of Stanford University to launch the blood testing disruptor Theranos and built it to a $9 billion valuation. But the tech adage “fake it until you make it” didn’t quite work for this medical device startup, and charges that the devices didn’t work mounted. Holmes and Ramesh Balwani, her onetime business and romantic partner, were indicted with 12 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. In this episode, Stanford Law School Professor Robert Weisberg, a criminal law expert, discusses the trial, which began in September, the prosecution, the defense, and the larger implications of the case.

In 2007, Erik Jensen, helped launch the Afghanistan Legal Education Project, a collaboration with with Stanford Law School and the American University in Afghanistan to build a high quality legal program for Afghan law students. Today, dozens of Afghan men and women count themselves as graduates—lawyers critical to building the legal infrastructure so badly needed in Afghanistan. But what will happen to the country—and those dedicated to law and civil society—under the new Taliban regime? In this episode, Jensen discusses the abrupt withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan and the prospects of the still struggling country.

Western states are once again in severe drought with water in short supply. And California’s fire season is starting earlier and causing more devastation, with the Dixie fire, the second largest in the state’s history, still growing after destroying almost 750,000 acres. In this episode, a leading national water law expert Buzz Thompson joins us to discuss fires, water, and climate change.

Legal issues surrounding the elderly and mentally incapacitated have been making headlines lately, particularly the conservatorship for popstar Britney Spears. But why are these legal tools used? What are the alternatives? And what rights do people like Britney have? In this episode of Stanford Legal, Michael Gilfix , a leading authority in the field of law, aging, and estate planning, answers these questions and more.

We complain about paying taxes, but appreciate the roads, bridges, safety net, and more that they pay for. But is the U.S. tax system fair? Should the rich pay more, and the poor pay less?

The 2020 Election continues to have an unprecedented impact on the country, the “big lie” about fraud spread by some media outlets and used by at least 14 states as justification to undo key election laws. Yet since Trump was banned from popular social media platforms, his voice is less prevalent in mainstream America. In this episode, we hear from election law expert Nate Persily about Facebook’s oversight board and its decision to continue the ban on Trump for another two years. Nate also discusses efforts by state legislators to curtail voting laws and why he is sounding the alarm bells for a threatened American democracy.

While calls to "defund the police" have made headlines, a new Stanford Law report "Safety Beyond Policing: Promoting Care Over Criminalization" explores alternatives to the use of police in sensitive situations such as mental health crises and in schools. Two of the report's co-authors, Professor Robert Weisberg and Stanford Law student Michelle Portillo discuss key questions about policing, shedding light on promising alternatives that have been piloted in a variety of places around the country—alternatives that deploy mental health professionals, saving lives, police resources, and funds.

Imagine serving a life sentence in prison for stealing a floor jack from a tow truck? Many of the clients our guest today, Michael Romano, has represented were drug addicts or homeless when they got caught up in California’s Three Strikes law that forced minimum sentences and locked up thousands of nonviolent offenders for 20, 30 years and more. Romano, the founder of Stanford's Three Strikes and Justice Advocacy Project, has become a leading voice in criminal reform in California and the nation—shining a light on the high cost to both the imprisoned and the taxpayer, who foots the bill. Romano, who was recently appointed to chair the state’s new criminal law and policy reform committee, the California Committee on the Revision of the Penal Code, joins Stanford Legal to talk about the criminal justice crisis in American and efforts in California to release nonviolent offenders through reform of the Three Strikes law and other legal reforms.