Stanford Legal

Law touches most aspects of life. Here to help make sense of it is the Stanford Legal podcast, where we look at the cases, questions, conflicts, and legal stories that affect us all every day. Pam Karlan studies and teaches a range of constitutional law-related courses with a special focus on what is known as the “law of democracy,”—the law that regulates voting, elections, and the political process. She served as a commissioner on the California Fair Political Practices Commission, an assistant counsel and cooperating attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and (twice) as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. She also co-directs the Stanford Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, which represents real clients before the highest court in the country, working on important cases including representing Edith Windsor in the landmark case striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act and Donald Zarda in a case where the Suprem