Episodes

  • New Season and New Format - SideBar: Optimism in Action with Jackie Gardina and Mitch Winick

    New Season and New Format - SideBar: Optimism in Action with Jackie Gardina and Mitch Winick
    Dec 17 2024
    Seasons one and two of SideBar featured discussions with authors, lawyers, and academics discussing challenges to our individual constitutional and civil rights. Each of our episodes ended with our featured guests providing recommendations on how each of us can contribute to solutions for the common good. Season three of SideBar is going to flip the narrative. We are featuring lawyers, nonprofit leaders, activists, and community members who are already accomplishing extraordinary work that is improving the humanitarian, public policy, and charitable needs of our local, national, and global communities. We hope that you will join us for this season of SideBar as we meet individuals and organizations who prove through their actions that opportunities to influence positive change exist for each of us. We are calling this season of SideBar -- "Optimism in Action”.
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    10 mins
  • Space Law Really is the New Frontier with Chris Hearsey

    Space Law Really is the New Frontier with Chris Hearsey
    Dec 3 2024
    SideBar guest Chris Hearsey has spent over ten years working in international space collaborations, space exploration technologies, and other aerospace applications. His work has contributed to advancements in space law, policy, and technology. Chris is known for his visionary approach and commitment to pushing the boundaries of space capabilities, developing sustainable space technologies, and fostering an economic ecosystem conducive to innovation and growth.
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    43 mins
  • A Rejection of Democrats or a Rejection of Democracy?

    A Rejection of Democrats or a Rejection of Democracy?
    Nov 19 2024
    Was 2024 a "historic" presidential election? Constitutional historians Lawrence Goldstone and Madiba K. Dennie join Jackie Gardina and Mitch Winick to discuss the context, concerns, and questions following the recent re-election of Donald Trump. One of the questions that many of us are asking is whether the recent presidential election was a rejection of Democrats or a broader rejection of Democracy?
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    45 mins
  • The Future of the Legal Profession Impacts Democracy with Ray Brescia

    The Future of the Legal Profession Impacts Democracy with Ray Brescia
    Nov 5 2024
    Since colonial days, the legal profession has been proud of its role in the founding of the republic, the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, and the defense of democracy and the rule of law. However, the profession faces an existential crisis on which the American democratic experiment hinges, says law professor Ray Brescia, author of Lawyer Nation: The Past, Present, and Future of the American Legal Profession. If attorney unethical behavior surrounding the 2020 election repeats without disciplinary repercussions in 2024 . . . democracy itself is at risk.
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    41 mins
  • Equal Justice for All is Possible with Robert Tsai

    Equal Justice for All is Possible with Robert Tsai
    Oct 15 2024
    Stephen Bright made it his life's work to unleash social change by representing unpopular clients--namely those on death row. Remarkably, he succeeded, winning all four cases he argued before the Supreme Court. Robert Tsai chronicles Stephen Bright's decades long fight to ensure equality under the law that is still being challenged at the Supreme Court today.
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    35 mins
  • The Return of Legal Vigilantism with David Noll and Jon Michaels

    The Return of Legal Vigilantism with David Noll and Jon Michaels
    Oct 1 2024
    David Noll and Jon Michaels, authors of Vigilante Nation, discuss the reemergence of state-supported vigilantism. Noll and Michaels explain the vigilante methods, from anti-abortion bounties to book bans to the January 6 attack on the Capitol. They also provide a path forward, outlining what needs to be done to stop these efforts.
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    43 mins
  • Pardon My Concerns - Should We Put Limits on Presidential Pardons? with Kim Wehle

    Pardon My Concerns - Should We Put Limits on Presidential Pardons? with Kim Wehle
    Sep 17 2024
    Like all discretionary authority, the pardon power is only as virtuous as the person who controls it. Kimberly Wehle, author of the new book, Pardon Power: How the Pardon System Works - and Why demonstrates that it can be a righteous tool to remedy wrongful convictions, but it also can be used to obstruct investigations, benefit political allies, and reward the President’s friends and family. As the author of What You Need to Know about Voting—and Why, Kim also challenges efforts to distort or disrupt the U.S. electoral system for selecting the president and warns that vigilance is necessary, locally and nationally.
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    38 mins
  • Does Our Current Constitution Provide the Protections and Rights We Need? with Dean Erwin Chemerinsky

    Does Our Current Constitution Provide the Protections and Rights We Need? with Dean Erwin Chemerinsky
    Sep 3 2024
    Berkeley Law Dean, author of No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States asks the provocative question - is it time to consider drafting a new constitution? Is it absurd to think that a document drafted in the 18th Century can still protect democracy and individual rights in the 21st Century? Join the SideBar discussion about the challenges under the constitution to protect free speech, a democratic electoral system, diversity in higher education, and the status of the Equal Rights Amendment.
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    37 mins