Category: 3-LawSometimeCommentary

The Trumpian inversion of reality was threaded into so many areas of the law and active litigation this week.

Slate senior writer Mark Joseph Stern joins Dahlia Lithwick to discuss the apparent evaporation of judicial patience for Trump lawyers simultaneously claiming that a signal chat was not classified or subject to record preservation rules, AND the flights to El Salvador that were  filmed for posterity on arrival at a prison were in fact state secrets. Together, they also think through the likelihood of the Supreme Court stepping into the Alien Enemies Act case at this early stage by just taking the Trump administration at its word that those summary renditions were totally legal and constitutionally correct. 

Next, Dahlia Lithwick talks to Wendy Weiser, vice president for democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School, about another Trumpian inversion of reality: his executive order titled “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections”, which in fact is not about election integrity, but instead an extension of the Big Lie election theory that could disenfranchise millions of eligible voters.

Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

*** Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code OPENING at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: http://incogni.com/opening ***

OA1143 - In the past month, Donald Trump has issued a series of truly fascist orders targeting some of the country’s best-known law firms for crimes ranging from hiring people Trump doesn’t like personally to doing some favors for special counsel Jack Smith to flagrantly hiring non-white non-men. What is actually in these orders, and how bad is it that one of leading litigation firms in the country gave in to Trump’s demands without  a fight? And what will it mean for the already-overloaded immigration court system when they start going after immigration lawyers as they have also promised? Former NYC Biglaw associate (and current NYC public defender) Liz Skeen joins to help us to understand this uniquely un-American moment in American legal history.

(UPDATE: This episode was recorded shortly before news broke about the Trump administration taking action against major US law firms Wilmer Hale and Skadden Arps.)

• Addressing Risks From Jenner & Block (3/25/25)

• Addressing Remedial Action by Paul Weiss (3/25/25)

• Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court (3/22/25)

• Addressing Risks From Paul, Weiss (3/14/25)

• Addressing Risks from Perkins Coie LLC (3/6/25)

• Suspension of Security Clearances and Evaluation of Government Contracts (Covington & Burling LLP)(2/25/25)

• “Complicity in the Perversion of Justice: The Role of Lawyers in Eroding the Rule of Law in the Third Reich,” Cythnia Fountaine, St. Mary’s Journal of Legal Ethics (2020) 

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!

We’re a bit late this week, because following our recent conversation with Justice Breyer, we had the opportunity to speak at length with Judge William Pryor, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, former Alabama Attorney General, and an important member of the Judicial Conference the “national policymaking body for the federal courts.” Judge Pryor has had a colorful career, having effectively prosecuted another judge for misconduct, had a contentious confirmation hearing, clerked for a titan among judges in Judge Wisdom, and served at the highest level short of the Supreme Court for many years.  We discuss a wide range of matters from judicial safety, to the importance of following Court orders, to enforcing civil rights laws, and much more.  The discussion took place in two parts;  with an audience of undergraduates, and then with an audience of Yale Law School students, many from the Federalist Society chapter at Yale; this produced a great variety of topics. We also have timely information on a new EverScholar program where registration is about to open; be among the first to know about this!  CLE credit is available from podcast.njsba.com.

Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code OPENING at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: http://incogni.com/opening

OA1142 and T3BE64 - The State Bar of California wanted to save a buck or two, so they switched from paying a company to administer a real bar exam to a company that... didn't do that. It's an absolute fiasco. Heather is pulling double duty today on Wildcard Wednesday (tm) as she is our expert on this nonsense, in addition to giving us the usual Thomas Takes the Bar Exam treatment!

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.

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

On February 21, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court issued their 9-0 opinion in Williams v. Reed. The Court held that state courts may not deny those claims on failure-to-exhaust grounds when a state court’s application of a state exhaustion requirement in effect immunizes state officials from 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims challenging delays in the administrative process.
Please join us in discussing the decision and its future implications.

Featuring:
Prof. Tyler Lindley, Associate Professor of Law, Brigham Young University J. Reuben Clark Law School

OA1141 - Are Republican AGs really trying to have some of the most important federal protections for disability rights declared unconstitutional? Attorney Jenessa Seymour joins to explain the history and purpose of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the pending challenge to a Biden-era regulatory update intended to protect trans health care rights. 

• Texas v. Becerra docket

• Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973

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!

After a deep dive on the Trump administration’s horrifying misuse of the Alien Enemies Act to deport people from the US without due process, Kate and Leah preview upcoming SCOTUS cases about the Voting Rights Act and the Environmental Protection Agency. Along the way, they also touch on the Trump administration’s targeting of certain law firms and its continued attacks on DEI. 

Hosts’ favorite things this week: 

• Leah: Fight! Fight! Fight!, Rebecca Traister; AOC’s Bluesky feed during the CR debates/debacle; The Hidden Motive Behind Trump’s Attacks on Trans People, M. Gessen; This Election Will Be a Crucial Test of Musk’s Power, Kate Shaw; Trump Has Gone From Unconstitutional to Anti-Constitutional, Jamelle Bouie
• Kate: The Feminist Law Professor Who Wants to Stop Arresting People for Domestic Violence, Sarah Lustbader; The Dangerous Document Behind Trump’s Campus Purges, Daphna Renan & Jesse  Hoffnung-Garskof; The Cost of the Government’s Attack on Columbia, Christopher L. Eisgruber

Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025! 

• 6/12 – NYC
• 10/4 – Chicago

Learn more: http://crooked.com/events

Order your copy of Leah's book, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes

Follow us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky

If you’re overwhelmed by the sheer volume of lawless acts, constitutional crises (we count five), and huge Trump administration losses in court this week - honestly, same. But if anyone can render this swirling storm of lawsuits and orders and injunctions legible, and put them in terms that can help make sense of this moment, it’s Dahlia Lithwick. On this week’s show, Dahlia is first joined by Quinta Jurecic, a fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and a senior editor at Lawfare, to discuss the deeply worrying shift in the Trump regime’s posture toward judges and the rule of law, that’s been playing out inside and outside the courts this week. Next, Dahlia speaks with a lawyer who secured a big win against Elon Musk and DOGE this week in one of the USAID cases. Mimi Marziani explains the litigation strategy, and its limits.  

Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

OA1140 - The Trump administration has openly defied a court order--and that’s only the third worst thing about today’s main story. Also: what exactly does it mean to “sign” something into law? What is actually in all of these articles of impeachment which Republicans keep filing against federal judges who have defied Trump? And is there a First Amendment right to communicate with monkeys?

• 50 USC Ch. 3: ALIEN ENEMIES

• Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act Regarding the Invasion of The United States by Tren De Aragua, March 15, 2025 (3:53 PM)

• Docket in J.G.G. v. Trump (filed 3/15/25)

• Articles of Impeachment filed against Judge James Boasberg by Rep. Brandon Gill (3/18/25)

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!

On February 26, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court issued their 9-0 opinion in Dewberry Group, Inc. v. Dewberry Engineers Inc. The Court held that in a trademark infringement suit under the Lanham Act the court, when awarding the "defendant’s profits" to the prevailing plaintiff, can award only profits ascribable to the "defendant" itself.

Please join us in discussing the decision and its future implications.
Featuring:

Prof. Jake Linford, Loula Fuller & Dan Myers Professor and Associate Dean for Research, Florida State University College of Law