Legal Evolution - a Chicago Best Idea

University of Chicago law professor Saul Levmore gave a lecture on legal evolution October 12 as part of the series "Chicago's Best Ideas". Legal evolution, the idea that the Common Law evolves towards efficient results, was first presented by Richard Posner. 1hour (45 min. of Levmore, 15 min. audience questions), good subtitles on YouTube.

New Law Podcasts

Just discovered -- two relatively new podcasts, one from the UK and the other the US.

• Law Pod UK -- So far 10 episodes, the most recent being an examination of artificial intelligence and the law. 13 min, no transcript. Sound quality sometimes less that optimum.
• Pro Say -- a weekly podcast,  Each podcast examines several different topics. For instance, the September 4 podcast has a 15 minute interview with a federal district judge about Judge Richard Posner’s new book, followed by a 5 minute story about a class action against the Subway sandwich chain for selling « footlong » sandwiches that are only 11 inches long. About 30 min, no transcript.

The U.S. Supreme Court term reviewed

NPR's Morning Edition of July 6 has a recap of this year's term, "a term to remember", by their legal correspondent Nina Totenberg. 7 min 47 sec, transcript available.

Judging in the United States

Judge Richard Posner delivered a lecture entitled "The Rise and Fall of Judicial Self-Restraint" at the University of Chicago law school where he is a senior lecturer. Judge Posner's remarks, followed by comments by Lee Epstein and Aziz Huq, can be found here. More information about the lecture can be found here. Recently added to the U of C website, the event was recorded April 14, 2011.
82 min, downloadable .mp3, no transcript

Richard Posner on Pragmatic Judging Judge Richard Posner, one of the most well-known and respected U.S. federal appellate judges, gave a fascinating talk recently about how judges do and should decide cases. The best place to start is here. (.mp3, no transcript, 1h 27min)

Supreme Courts - Legal Theory There are a lot of great videos/audios about legal topics on the Internet. Here are a few of my favorites Supreme Court - US Interview with three justices (O'Connor, Scalia, Breyer), April 21, 2005, click here Justices Breyer and Scalia discussing the use of foreign law by the Supreme Court, click here Brown v. Board of Education (1954 school desegregation case) 50 years later, talk by journalist Anthony Lewis click here Oral arguments before the Court can be found at the Oyez site. The most popular audios are here. Or click here then choose the case you are interested in, and click on "resources" in the box on the left to get to the audio download. Supreme Court - South Africa Justice Albie Sachs of the South African Constitutional Court - lecture entitled "Freedom and Bread: the Judicial Enforcement of Socio-economic Rights" audio, very clear and easy to understand click here Legal Theory Conference on norms and the law click here to see the program Richard Posner on democracy - audio click here Justice Antonin Scalia (US Supreme Court) on Constitutional Interpretation click here Role of politics and the rule of law, at Stanford Law School click here Stem Cells: Science, Ethics and Politics at the Crossroads Part 1: The Science click here Stem Cells: Science, Ethics and Politics at the Crossroads Part 2: The Ethics click here for more legal theory links click here