Real Cases: A Legal Podcast

New litigators dread unscripted moments: witnesses who answer in ways they never prepared for, or objections that land in the middle of a question. In the latest episode of Real Cases , Professor Katherine Donoghue and Carson Sadro explain how Stetson's trial advocacy program is using AI to rehearse those exact moments before students face them in a courtroom or a mock trial. Their custom GPTs pla...

Every generation of lawyers has had to adapt to new tools. But few tools have raised harder questions about judgment, authorship, and accountability than AI. In the latest episode of Real Cases , Professor Kirsten Davis, a nationally recognized expert in legal writing and generative AI and a recipient of the 2026 Mary S. Lawrence Innovation Award, joins us to discuss how artificial intelligence is...

On the latest episode of Real Cases , Dean Benjamin Barros and Associate Director of Student Financial Planning Heidi Gonzales explain how the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) is changing the student loan landscape—and what Stetson is doing to respond. We discuss how to prepare more strategically for funding your legal education, how Stetson supports students through merit-based scholarships and...

Behind every confident lawyer is someone who helped them find their footing. In the latest episode of Real Cases , we explore the mentorships—with deans, with professors, and with working attorneys—that help Stetson students navigate law school and launch meaningful careers. Professors Catherine Cameron and Assistant Deans Catherine B. Martin, Latoya Edwards, and Steve A. Maxwell join us to discus...

Criminal law sits at the crossroads of fairness, accountability, and reform. From questions of who gets prosecuted to how victims are heard, Stetson Law pushes students to see beyond the verdict and into the systems that shape it. In this episode of Real Cases , we sit down with Professors of Law Susan D. Rozelle, Roberta Flowers, and Judith A. M. Scully, along with the Gary R. Trombley Family Whi...

On this episode of Real Cases , we discuss the business law concentration and Stetson's three-year dual JD/MBA degree with Professor of Law Theresa Radwan, Associate Professor of Law William Bunting, and Gage Bonjorn, a third-year law student. Along the way we find out how bankruptcy law can merge the roles of a transactional lawyer and a litigator, why it's helpful when lawyers and business execu...

In the second episode of this two-parter, we sit down with Dean Anne Mullins; inaugural faculty bencher, Professor Kristen Adams; and one of the Inns program's first student readers, Mariana Monforte, a 3L who graduated from Stetson Law this spring. We discuss how law students go from private citizens to public advocates, the importance of developing a cross-generational professional network, and...

Your first few weeks of law school can feel like moving to another country where everyone speaks a slightly different language—and you need to be fluent by midterms. Perhaps that's why Stetson looked to a venerable institution from the UK's legal system to help 1Ls connect with each other, their professors, and the profession: English Inns of Court. In this first episode of a two-parter, we sit do...

Athletes and celebrities may be the ones in the spotlight, but behind every sponsorship deal, headline-making trade, or backstage battle over royalties, there's a lawyer making it all happen. On this episode of Real Cases, we sit down with three Stetson Law alums: music industry attorney and Founding Partner of Keller, Turner, Andrews, & Ghanem, Jason L. Turner; Senior Director and Associate Counc...

They say you should treat law school like a full-time job. But what does that really mean in practice, and how do you get the most out of your first year? In this episode, we sit down with Assistant Professor Erin Okuno, who both teaches at Stetson Law and graduated from the school in 2013, and John Stafford, who's now a second-year student at Stetson. We discuss the most common challenges student...

What's the difference between "waiving" and "modifying," and how does that affect whether the President of the United States can forgive student loan debt? In this episode, we sit down with Stetson Law Professor Mark Bauer to discuss Biden v. Nebraska, the Supreme Court case that struck down the Biden administration's partial student loan forgiveness efforts. On the way we consider the major quest...

What do Babe Ruth, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and a cat named Porkchop all have in common? They've all been distinguished guests on Stetson Law's storied hundred-year-old campus. In this episode we sit down with Brooke M. Smith, a Circulation Librarian and Archivist, and Reference Librarian Sally Ginsberg Waters to discuss the history of that campus, dating back to its original construction as the Hotel...

More and more job applications are processed by machine learning before a real person ever reads them. But can these algorithms exhibit prejudice? And, if so, what would it mean to adopt algorithmic affirmative action? In this episode, we sit down with Stetson Professor Jason Bent to discuss the changing landscape of employment and employment discrimination law in the twenty-first century. We disc...

Are presidents immune from criminal prosecution for actions they take in office? That was just one question – and perhaps not even the most wide-ranging one – under consideration in the decisions released at the end of the Supreme Court's latest term this summer. In this new episode, we sit down with Stetson Law Professor Louis Virelli to discuss how the court's recent slate of decisions is reshap...

How do part-time law students juggle a family, a job, and law school all at once? In this episode, we sit down with two strong advocates for Stetson Law's part-time program, Dominique Alford-Raymond and Grace Moseley. Together we discuss the diversity, the resilience, and the uniquely strong community among members of Stetson's part-time program.   

In an era of sharp and often predictably partisan disagreements within the Supreme Court, it might surprise some that Neil Gorsuch, one of the court's 6 conservative justices, has emerged as one of the fiercest proponents of tribal sovereignty to ever serve on the bench. That fact doesn't surprise Stetson Law Professor Grant Christensen, however. Christensen is a specialist in Federal Indian Law,...

Florida isn't just on the front line for climate change in America – it's also a testing ground for new legal questions about how to deal with its consequences. In the latest episode of Real Cases, we speak with Assistant Professor Jaclyn Lopez, Director of the Jacobs Public Interest Law Clinic for Democracy and the Environment. We discuss public access to environmental justice, new legal problems...

How did free African Americans before the Civil War regard the Constitution, freedom, and citizenship in a republic that excluded them from political participation? In the latest episode of Real Cases, we sit down with Stetson Professor James Fox to discuss the fuzzy boundaries between history and legal scholarship, different varieties of originalism on today's Supreme Court, and how greater racia...

What's life like for young legal professionals in Tampa Bay? On this month's episode of Real Cases, we talk to three Stetson Law alums with prominent positions at law firms in the greater Tampa Bay community: Ciara Willis J.D. 16, a Partner at Bush Ross, P.A. who practices community association law, Matthew Ceriale J.D. '19, an Associate Attorney at Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, L.L.P. who practices...

By scrubbing the internet for information that it recombines into new texts and images, generative AI has launched a host of new questions about intellectual property law and liability. For instance, who's responsible if an AI infringes upon your intellectual property? The company that made it? The company that used it? The AI itself? We discuss these questions and more in the latest episode of Re...

What nation has jurisdiction if an astronaut commits a crime in space? Who owns the right to mine asteroids? How do countries co-manage the physical infrastructure of the internet – on earth and in orbit? On this month's episode of Real Cases, Stetson Law Professor Roy Balleste discusses the complex web of maritime precedents and international agreements that govern space exploration. He explains...

Are AI tools like ChatGPT reshaping the landscape of law and legal education? Or are they just another form of information technology that lawyers and students can harness with a properly critical approach? In this episode, Stetson professors Catherine Cameron and Kelly Feeley discuss the limits of AI tools and online databases, the persistent importance of legal interpretation and analysis, and t...

In this episode, Professors Judith Scully and Kristen Adams join us to discuss Stetson Law's Social Justice Advocacy concentration. They discuss how law students can build their portfolios, how students can learn to advocate for themselves, and how lawyers around the country work for what they believe in without sacrificing their own well-being.  

In this episode, we're joined by Professor Joseph Morrissey and Stetson alum Nathan Bruemmer to discuss the role of advocacy and organizing in law school and beyond, the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association's Lavender Law Career Fair, and what schools like Stetson are doing to make queer students and their allies feel welcome in the legal profession.  

In this episode, we're joined by Lamine Gueye and Sara Fultz, two rising 3L students at Stetson who originally hail from New York and Virginia. They share their thoughts about the Tampa Bay area, what drew them to Stetson, and what it's like going to law school after spending some years working after college.