Real Cases: A Legal Podcast

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 why the final frontier holds a host of new ethical, technological, and legal questions that law scholars have only just begun to contemplate.

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 the unexpected ways new technologies can replicate structural biases.

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.

Over one out of four adults in the U.S. has some type of disability. In this episode we’re joined by Kathryn Pelham, Stetson Law’s Associate Director of Accessibility Resources & ADA Coordinator, to discuss how Stetson and other law schools are accommodating a growing number of students with conditions that impact their access to education. She discusses her philosophy behind equitable accommodations in law school curricula, the challenges of reaching for universal accessibility, and the importance of advocating for yourself.

The Supreme Court’s new ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard reverses an over 40-year-old precedent for how university admissions committees can cultivate racial diversity in their incoming classes. In this episode we’re joined by Professor Peter Lake, an internationally recognized expert on higher education law and policy. He discusses the history of race-conscious college admissions, the consequences of judicial mistrust for higher ed administration, and why he thinks the court’s latest ruling is “litigation bait” for many more lawsuits to come.

In this episode, Stetson Law Professor Louis Virelli III, a leading expert on the constitutional questions underlying Supreme Court recusal, discusses the importance of legal career development — as a student and after. After making a hard pivot from engineering to the law, Virelli knew he wanted to teach and followed a career path to take him there.

In this episode, Stetson Law Professor Christine Cerniglia and recent grad Denia Angelino discuss judicial externships, the legal profession’s standards for ethical behavior outside the courtroom, and how the passions Denia pursued in her independent study led her to her current career working in employment discrimination law.

In this episode, Stetson Law Professor Kristen Adams and her students Jase Maden and Taylor Simonds discuss the intersections between literature, performance, and legal scholarship they explored in Adams’ course, “The Law as Reflected through Poetry.”

In this episode, Stetson professors Catherine Cameron and Ashley Krenelka Chase discuss cases every 1L student should know, what to do when your clients over-share, and how to separate the essential facts from the merely weird ones when the law and the real world collide.

In this episode, Stetson Student Wellness Society members Katie Johnson, Kayla Albritton, and Christopher Manon talk about finding the right work/life balance, how to avoid burnout, and the crucial difference between being “The Best” and being the best version of yourself.

In this episode, Stetson Law students Francesca Little and Logan Jackson – plus recent Stetson grad Edson Abadia, Jr. – open their case files on their diverse leadership roles. Plus: how Stetson has created an inclusive space for Latinx, Black, and queer students.

In this episode, Darren Kettles (Director for Admissions) and Karla Davis-Jamison (Assistant Dean for Enrollment Management) of Stetson University College of Law open their case files on breaking down enrollment barriers, building a school community, and reaching a diverse applicant pool.

Plus: dispelling some myths about college applications.

In this episode, Professor Stacey-Rae Simcox of Stetson University College of Law opens her case file on civil war pardons, backlogs at the VA, and what the GI bill promises. Plus: how Stetson Law students are already changing veterans’ lives.

A student approaches her law professor and says “I’m interested in Space Law.” With very little case law on the books, the professor begins pulling statutes to create a scenario that puts this student in the pilot’s seat of a legal situation that doesn’t even exist…yet.

In this episode we talk about the limits of attorney-client privilege, practicing law during a global pandemic, and why students should get out of the classroom.

Join us as we open the case file.

Episode #6 features an interview with Stetson’s own Professor Peter Lake as he opens his case file on students’ evolving identities, shifts in SCOTUS ideology, and controversies faced by the Department of Education.