Illinois MCLE Podcast

How are cryptocurrencies treated by the U.S. government? Former Chairman of the CFTC and a pioneer of crypto regulation, Christopher Giancarlo breaks down the crypto-regulatory landscape. Giancarlo explains why some crypto is treated as a commodity, others as a security, while others may not be regulated at all (yet). In a time of extreme volatility in the crypto markets, Giancarlo explores FTX, B...

In the religious freedom case, Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022), the Supreme Court weighed in on the role of God in football in American public schools. Professor Sarah Barringer Gorden (UPenn Law) explains the case, its impact on the First Amendment's Establishment Clause separating church and state, and the unusual history of religion and football at the Supreme Court. In Bremerton, t...

With incredible powers to make life-changing decisions involving liberty and fortune, judges are expected to make decisions with a threshold level of neutrality. In this conversation, we explore the limits of that threshold. When does judicial bias legally or ethically preclude a judge from hearing a case?  Alicia Bannon (director of the Judiciary Project at the Brennan Center for Justice) explain...

On June 23rd, 2022 the Supreme Court decided the landmark gun rights case New York State Rifle and Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen. The case, widely seen as a win for advocates of personal gun rights, fundamentally altered the test that courts use to evaluate constitutionality under the 2nd Amendment and expanded gun rights outside of the home. Professor Joseph Blocher of Duke Law School explains...

Jailhouse lawyers are inmates who help other inmates with legal filings while in prison. They handle matters from divorce to criminal appeals to claims against prison officials. They write motions and briefs and counsel clients; short of court representation, they provide the range of legal services that a licensed lawyer would. While the Supreme Court has recognized the importance of jailhouse la...

More than ever before, Americans are turning to assisted reproduction to start their families. In this interview, leading family law expert Professor Douglas NeJaime (Yale Law School) explains how U.S. laws are attempting to catch up to this shift. Traditionally parental rights are based on the marital presumption – the parents are, by default, the woman who birthed the child and her husband. This...

Recent studies have suggested that lawyers are particularly prone to depression, anxiety, and stress, but are lawyers becoming zombies? According to Professor Peter Huang (who co-authored an article of similar title), the plight of the profession presents interesting parallels to the concept of “zombification,” with lawyers and law students mindlessly reacting to stress. Prof. Huang discusses thes...

Prosecutors have the power to make decisions that have a deep impact on the lives of arrestees and defendants. This power arises, in large part, from the enormous discretion they exercise over decisions like whether to initiate charges and which charges to bring, whether to offer plea bargains and under what terms, what sentences to seek, and how to present and try a case. Public attention has foc...

A Credibility Gap in Cases of Rape. In cases of sexual assault, the credibility of the victim is crucial to whether law enforcement will investigate the assault, prosecutors will bring charges, and whether the jury will ultimately find the defendant culpable. Time and again, victims who come forward recount being disbelieved at each stage of the criminal justice system, a function of what Professo...

Forensic science is often viewed as the silver bullet in modern criminal convictions, but not all forensic science disciplines are backed by sound empirical data. M. Chris Fabricant of Innocence Project explains how junk science leads to injustice, wrongful convictions, and the failure to apprehend violent criminals responsible. He explains that the term "poor people science" refers to how the cou...

A dispute over the proper owner of Barry Bonds’ million-dollar home run ball, the right to grow California redwood trees that are shading a neighbor’s solar panels, the legality of shooting down a drone flying over private property: the common thread among all these seemingly unrelated cases is that these are conflicts about ownership design. Ownership design is a powerful social engineering tool...

The United States has a long history of racial discrimination in juries. In 1875, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act which prohibited race-based discrimination in jury service. Yet, states continued to remove Black prospective jurors, by instituting vague requirements for jury service or designating prominent citizens to compile juror lists, and then shifted to excluding jurors from jury selecti...

When does a lawyer have a duty to investigate her own clients? If a lawyer suspects, but does not know, that a client or potential client is seeking their services to engage in criminal activity, can they still offer legal counsel? In its Formal Opinion 491 issued in 2020, the American Bar Association addressed lawyers’ obligations to inquire further to determine whether a client may be attempting...