Opening Arguments
Opening Arguments is a law show that helps you make sense of the news! Comedian Thomas Smith brings on legal analysts to help you understand not only current events, but also deeper legal concepts and areas! The typical schedule will be M-W-F with Monday being a deep-dive, Wednesday being Thomas Takes the Bar Exam and patron shoutouts, and Friday being a rapid response to legal issues in the news!
Episodes
OA1173 - More people have been to space than practice space law, and Professor Michelle Hanlon is one of its most important modern pioneers. Professor Hanlon joins to talk Star Trek captains, preserving historic sites on the Moon, and why she believes the mass privatization of space is--at least if properly regulated--the only way forward.
OA1172 - It’s been two weeks since the Supreme Court decided that babies in only half of the US get to be born as citizens. We try to make sense of what they left behind in one of the most important shadow docket cases in history, and how concerned Samuel Alito should really be that the actual text of the 14th Amendment might still prevail in the end. Matt also considers how likely it is that Zohran Mamdan...
If you'd like to play along with T3BE, here's what to do: hop ...OA1171 - Today's episode is a nice, fun departure from the doom and gloom. Oral arguments in a recent SCOTUS case went terribly wrong. And for once, it wasn't the court itself that was looking like a clown show. The case was AJT v Osseo and it involved disability rights. So naturally, I had to invite everyone's favorite disability rights advocate and all around all-star, Dr. Jenessa Seymour!
Hey folks, I'm taking a little time off! Hope you enjoy this SIO in the meantime.
Thank you!
Part 1: The Legal Stuff
Dr. Jenessa Seymour is here to break down something that even our moms are spreading on social media: a group in New York claims to have uncovered discrepancies in the vote count for the 2024 election, and they're suing over it! Dr. Seymour hits ALL of the expert boxes for this one - statist...
OA1170 - This Rapid Response Friday it’s Boh-vey (yes that is how you pronounce it, probably) all day--as in former Trump defense attorney and current Trump henchman Emil Bove, now up for a seat formerly occupied by Samuel Alito on the Third Circuit. Matt ties together several different stories from the news--from January 6th to the Eric Adams prosecution to DOJ’s deportations in violation of court orders-...
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. Or best of all, become a patron at patreon.com/law and play there!
Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!
This content is CAN credentialed, which means y...
OA1169 - We had our first live video QnA of the new era! It was so good that I really thought more folks should hear it. Thank you to all who attended and we look forward to the next one!
If you'd prefer to watch it, it's available on YouTube.
OA1168 - Did the Karen Read trial just become the most expensive drunk driving prosecution in US history? We then briefly discuss legal issues around the arrest by ICE of New York mayoral candidate Brad Landry, and Matt fills in the most important missing detail of a story which nearly the entire media got wrong this week. And in our main story: the Supreme Court has struck an expected but thoroughly disap...
T3BE74
First an exciting announcement! We're bringing back the original Q&A format where everyone can hang out for the livestream, but patrons get the extra special opportunity to ask questions in advance! Be sure to join us on YouTube on Sunday, June 22nd, at 3pm Pacific/6pm Eastern!
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 epis...
OA1167 - Georgetown law student Mari Latibashvili is the co-founder of the GU Law Coalition for Justice, which recently made national headlines by organizing law students to refuse interviews and job offers from law firms which have given in to the Trump administration’s war on the legal profession. We discuss (among other things) this remarkably successful campaign, what life in law school has been like s...
OA1166 - We consider the legal realities behind this week's most important stories, from the unprecedented statutory justification for Trump sending troops into California to why a wrongfully-deported man’s return to the US is--bad, actually? Matt then serves up a digestif of a note en bas de page about one of the most audacious counterfeiters in French history and how they were brought down with one well-...
T3BE73
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. Or best of all, become a patron at patreon.com/law and play there!
Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!
This content i...
OA1165 - Anna Chu is the Executive Director at We the Action, a nonprofit that recently collaborated with labor and democracy partners like the American Federation of Government Employees and Democracy Forward, to launch Rise Up: Federal Workers Legal Defense Network. This Network connects federal workers who are being illegally terminated to pro bono legal services to help them understand their rights and...
OA1164 - After a brief conversation from the front lines about the chaotic state of US immigration enforcement as of June 2025, we examine three unusual recent 9-0 decisions authored by three of our favorite Supreme Court justices. Join us behind the headlines to learn why Matt agrees that stopping a lawsuit against gun manufacturers, potentially opening the door to dumbass “reverse discrimination” lawsuit...
T3BE72
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. Or best of all, become a patron at patreon.com/law and play there!
Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!
This content i...
OA1163 - No really. That's a real stat. It may actually be WORSE than that. So uh... how in the hell? Professor Valena Beety is here to break it down. She's done a ton of great work in this area, and has a new legal research paper, "Unfit": Gender, Ableism and Reproductive Wrongful Convictions by Valena Elizabeth Beety, which goes into this and much more!
Content note: this episode does involve discussion ...
OA1162 - It’s all good news from our favorite branch of government today! We review recent judicial wins in everything from illegal deportations to tariffs to the Trump administration’s wars on international students, private law firms, and common-sense understandings of the expression “foreign policy.” Plus, Matt shares a footnote from the front lines of Trump’s mass deportation efforts to explain why an...
T3BE71
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. Or best of all, become a patron at patreon.com/law and play there!
Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!
This content i...
OA1161 - Micah Herskind is an activist, Harvard law student, and most recently a co-editor of the essay collection No Cop City, No Cop World with Mariah Parker and Kamau Franklin. We welcome Micah on to discuss his experience with Atlanta’s Stop Cop City movement and the lessons which activists and advocates around the US can learn from it in these times of mass dissent in the face of American authoritaria...
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