Hearsay Schmearsay

Episode Notes

Transcript

[Music]

Joe Patrice:  Welcome to another edition of Thinking Like a Lawyer.

Kathryn Rubino:  Hey.  You didn’t say hello so I would be sure.

Joe Patrice:  I know.  Well I thought I really did think that maybe by not saying hello it would throw off this continually vexing tradition of time to erupt that —

Kathryn Rubino:  Is it vexing?

Joe Patrice:  It is vexing.

Kathryn Rubino:  What must that be like to be continually annoyed by somebody you work with?

Joe Patrice:  Yeah.  I’m Joe Patrice from Above the Law.

Chris Williams:  Fight.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah.  That is Chris Williams.  You’ve also got Kathryn Rubino talking.  We’re all at Above the Law and we’re all here on this here podcast to do a quick roundup at some of the big stories of the week over and Above the Law which is a website you should be reading if you aren’t already. But if you just like to the dulcet tones of my voice, then maybe you’re here.

Kathryn Rubino:  Maybe you’ve deeper problems than whatever we’re about to talk about.

Joe Patrice:  That’s enough.  Yeah, so, we are here but as always, we like to begin by having a little conversation about non-legal things, if necessary, like a little small talk almost.  I like that.  I’m now going to just switch back and forth between the two sound effects.

Chris Williams:  Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:  Chris, what have you been up to?

Chris Williams:  You know I’ve just been vibing.  I recently had it pointed out to me that it was a little weird that the Supreme Court made it harder for people to get civic justice when they’re like Miranda rights violation right before they released a whole bunch of opinions that will likely lead to protesting the summer.  And I just think that’s like interestingly timed.  I just finished an article where I’m basically claiming that the six Christians of the United States, I mean the Supreme Court are a sitting religious coup that took over and that the January 6 thing was a distraction that everybody is falling for and I’m wondering how that will go over.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah, I’m wondering how this is small talk since that’s literally the topic we’re going to talk about.

Chris Williams:  Listen, it just happens to be the topic but also I’m like, “Oh shit, what the fuck is happening in the United States.

Joe Patrice:  Right, right.

Chris Williams:  So this is just me talking as a citizen.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah, okay.

Kathryn Rubino:  What about you Joe? Any small talk?

Joe Patrice:  I didn’t really have much in the way of small talk.

Chris Williams:  Look at you.

Joe Patrice:  I really thought that there was going to be other people talking about small talk, but whatever.

Kathryn Rubino:  You know you are in fact part of the podcast, right? Like there’s —

Joe Patrice:  Yeah, I understand that. I just —

Chris Williams:  That’s what makes interrupting you so great. For the part of it.

Joe Patrice:  There are no small talk topics with me.  I’m all big topic all the time.

Chris Williams:  Oh, so I had to. Wow!

Kathryn Rubino:  Wow. You literally called Chris out for that. Exact thing.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah, yeah. No, yes.

Chris Williams:  The typical liberal.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:  I’ve been busy cooking recently.

Joe Patrice:  There we go.  That’s a small talk topic.

Kathryn Rubino:   See, that is in fact small talk.  I broke out the slow cooker.

Joe Patrice:  I love the slow cooker.

Kathryn Rubino:  Yeah.  It was in fact the Crockpot brand but you know.  Yeah, broke that out which you know feel like people think about the Crockpot in terms of like winter and like big homey kind of like cold weather, stick to your bones kind of food, but it’s also really great in the summer.  I just threw a bunch of meat in there, a bunch of chicken and was able to make some tacos and so it was like a nice easy meal and then I just took it out, grilled up some Tacos and do some cheese and accoutrement on the top and it was a lot easier than having to worry about it when I was actually starving.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah.  Well that’s awesome.  So, I think that now that we’ve got all that done, let’s transition out of this and into the beginnings of the topic that Chris has previewed for us which is to say the Supreme Court which we talked about a lot last week.

Kathryn Rubino:  We’re going to continue.

Joe Patrice:  We are still going to talk about it because–

Kathryn Rubino:  They are continuing to ruin the constitutions.

Joe Patrice:  Well, it is over now.

Chris Williams:  Hey, they’re not ruining it.  They’re discovering what was there the whole time.

Joe Patrice:  Right.

Kathryn Rubino:  Aren’t we so fortunate that these six justices have insight into the constitution that literal hundreds of years have been unable to reveal.

Joe Patrice:  Look, they held a seance with George Mason and now they understand what really going on.

Kathryn Rubino:  What you don’t understand is George Mason in his third diary to his–

Joe Patrice:  Yeah, Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:  No, I mean, that is a joke-ish, but that is literally how some of these decisions read.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah.  So carrying on from last time, a few things have happened.

(00:05:01)

We got the Oklahoma Decision.  This is the decision that decided that Native American reservations which enjoy sovereignty is part of a nuanced relationship with the federal government that they don’t have that anymore.  The Supreme Court decided that instead the State of Oklahoma can intervene and just impose its will on what “Indian countries” what it’s legally called.

Kathryn Rubino:  I think that this is obviously a pretty terrible decision, but what the most fascinating part about this entire thing to me is Neil Gorsuch’s dissent.  His jurisprudence on Indian issues is very nuanced, it tends to track a lot more with what we think of as the liberal justices on the court.  So, his dissent really gets upset about overturning the precedent that and the historical relationship that Indian country has–

Joe Patrice:  Oh, precedence?  He’s really–

Kathryn Rubino:  All of a sudden.  all of a sudden.

Joe Patrice:  He’s really upset that somebody overturned a bunch of precedence.

Kathryn Rubino:  It’s almost like the 110 years of precedent and the Bruin case does it.  That didn’t matter, but now it matters.  It doesn’t matter Roe.

Joe Patrice:  Roe was.

Kathryn Rubino:  Yeah.  Okay.  So it is interesting that he understands the concept of precedent, He just doesn’t care when the policy result that he desires is involved.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah, and he’s very angry in this dissent.

Kathryn Rubino:  I mean, I am too but it’s the —

Joe Patrice:  Oh my, hoisted by my own petard moment.

Chris Williams:  It’s a good sign you can’t give him at least the “Forgive them for they know not what they do” defense.  He knows exactly what he’s doing.

Kathryn Rubino:  Yeah.  I think that Chris is 100% right.  It really, I think reveals how cynical he is as an actor and I think that if there’s ever any sort of people out there that are like, “Well, you know, they’re just doing, they’re just reading the cases or the original intent — they’re just doing –” No, that it’s not true.  That is 100% not true.  If you actually read the words that are written all of them, it’s very, very clear.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah, it’s a bad move.  What’s going on in Oklahoma is really rough.  The Republican state government is trying to bully around the tribes of that occupy a lot of eastern part of the state, Eastern or Western, I think eastern part of the state.  I’m not from Oklahoma.

Kathryn Rubino:  Don’t worry, this is not a geography podcast.

Joe Patrice:  Fair enough.

Chris Williams:  I just want somebody to make a meme that’s like, “Reducing women to incubators is one thing but NATO sovereignty is where I draw the line.”

Joe Patrice:  Oh yeah, the community meme.

Chris Williams:  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah.  Well I mean the correct answer is I don’t know why you haven’t done that yet but we will do that as soon as we’re done.

Chris Williams:  To be fair, I did just think about it.  This what happens when great minds and Joe put together to think.

Joe Patrice:  There we go.  Fair enough.  So, following up on that, we also got the EPA Decision.  This is the decision where the Supreme Court decided that having clean air was–

Kathryn Rubino:  Optional.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah.  More of a hint than a rule.  In particular, what they argued was that the initiatives of the EPA to say, to do stuff to reduce emissions exceeded their authority and that actually Congress has to pass laws over and over and over again to do every little thing.  This is obviously not what the system is set up to be.  Congress instead actually had said, “Hey, we don’t want to do all that.  Here are the broad parameters and we want the executive branch and scientists in EPA to do it.”

Kathryn Rubino:  In literal, experts.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah, literal experts to do it.  The Supreme Court determined that Congress that in defense of the congress’ honor, congress doesn’t get to make that decision for itself.  So, in some ways, it’s a theme of the whole term.  In your defense, you don’t get to make a decision for yourself and they forced these laws off the books and these regulations and are going to make the congress have to pass it all which of course it won’t happen because congress is dysfunctional and has other things going on and don’t really have that expertise.

Chris Williams:  They have poems to read or something?

Joe Patrice:  Yes.  it gets in the way of their poem time.  So that opinion came out.  Obviously with all the stuff going on, it kind of was below the radar somewhat but it is actually really, really crippling to the government’s power to —

Kathryn Rubino:  I think that you are right, but I was a little bit surprised that the Supreme Court did not take the opportunity to overturn Chevron.

Joe Patrice:  That is fair.  So Chevron is the rule that allows Congress to delegate its power basically to executive agencies.

(00:10:02)

And there was an opportunity here for the Supreme Court to directly overrule it the same way they did directly overruled Roe.  But instead, they went more with the option that a lot of us thought was how Roe was going to play out where they allow the precedent to stay on and just water it down to the point of.

Kathryn Rubino:  Sure.  Which is obviously devastating for the EPA, but for the rest of the sort of Administrative State, they get at least a temporary reprieve.

Joe Patrice:  I think temporary reprieve is exactly the right terminology here.

Kathryn Rubino:  Well, temporary means that we have a potential to pack the court or strip authority from the Supreme Court jurisdiction from them.  We are not going to do any of it, but at least there’s a moment where we could.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah.  Actually, at that this point, let’s now transition to the story that Chris previewed a little bit in the small talk period, which is after the session and after the term ended, don’t worry, the hits kept on coming.  They granted cert to Moore v. Harper which is a case that is set up to advance The Independent State Legislature Doctrine.  For those who aren’t familiar with that the argument —

Kathryn Rubino:  Because it’s dumb.  If you’re listening, you’re like, “I don’t know what that is.”  Don’t worry you shouldn’t because it’s dumb.

Joe Patrice:  It requires a very tortured reading of pretty straightforward text.  The Constitution suggests that the election of federal officials in setting those rules is the job of State Legislatures.  Basically, the State Legislature gets to decide like, “Oh, this is how what our process is.”  And then it also says that the Federal Government can override that.  Now, most people would read this especially in the context of the constitution where the word legislature used a lot to mean legislative power, basically in our system of checks and balances the like “that capital Legislature passes a law and then the governor signs it and the courts interpret it and all that.”  This theory is that by using the word legislature there, what the constitution really intended was that the state legislature could pass a rule about how the election happens and the governor can’t have any check or balance over that and moreover, the State Courts and Federal Courts can’t review what that law says.  So, it’s only the legislature acting completely on their own which of course in most of the country the state legislators are dominated by Republicans for a lot of reasons between gerrymandering and just State Senates being set up as they are.

Kathryn Rubino:  And also because the way our system works, there have been a lot less attention paid to things like state and local elections by the Democratic machine, meaning like the Democrats not democracy.

Joe Patrice:  Right.

Kathryn Rubino:  And the truly terrifying part about them taking the Moore case is that at least four of the justices have come out or written stuff in support of this theory.  The sort of swing vote? is Amy Coney Barrett who hasn’t said anything one way or the other on the doctrine.  The doctrine has also got a ton of play recently because that was the theory that Ginni Thomas advanced to a bunch of Arizona State politicians advocating that they should ignore the fact that people in Arizona voted for Joe Biden and instead bring a completely false set of electors that would cast their vote for Donald Trump.  So the mechanism that they tried to coup with, that’s what’s about to be legal.

Joe Patrice:  Right.  Potentially.  Yeah so it’s rough.

Kathryn Rubino:  That were potentially is not necessary.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah.  Taken to its extreme if this theory gets enshrined.  You have like you said about Ginni, you would have the opportunity for Republican legislators to just name other slates of electors that were the ones elected.  You would have them being able to having unilateral power to rewrite the maps in ways that are violative of all sorts of rights.  Normally, we have the Voting Rights Act to protect us there.  They’ve already got at that so that’s not going to be an issue.  So yeah, this is–

Chris Williams:  Us?  Joe, you’ll be fine. 

Joe Patrice:  Well, I guess that’s fair.  What’s the Homer line?  I’m a white male between 18 and 45.  Everyone listens to what I say, and that fair.  Anyway, so there’s that.  So I guess we’ll close our conversation about the Supreme Court and with the–

Kathryn Rubino:  With good news, it’s about to get worse.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah.  The only good bit that came out of it which is Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in.

Kathryn Rubino:  Now Justice.

Joe Patrice:  And now Justice.  Yeah, I guess that’s true.

Kathryn Rubino:  Now Justice Jackson.  Yes.  That is really nice.  I hope she gets used to writing to sense because that is the only role she will have.

(00:15:04)

Chris Williams:  And also, I know that Justice Jackson already picked her clerks for this term, but next, hit my line, @WritesForRent.

Kathryn Rubino:  You know there’s actually an application process? 

Joe Patrice:  Yeah.

Chris Williams:  Oh, I mean, I won’t do that. 

Kathryn Rubino:  You just don’t like randomly think of names of law students.

Chris Williams:  Oh, so I guess they can do that with like elections but not in court.  Anyway, whatever.  Next topic.

Joe Patrice:  Oh, what’s that?

Kathryn Rubino:  It sounds like a telephone.

Joe Patrice:  It does but we’re in the middle of a show.  So we can’t —

Kathryn Rubino:  Somebody quick get that.  Someone who’s not me.

Joe Patrice:  Well, and that’s where you could bring in virtual reception services like Posh.

Kathryn Rubino:  It would be like exactly what you should do.

Joe Patrice:  So let’s hear from them.

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Craig Williams:  Today’s legal news is rarely a straightforward as the headlines that accompany them.  On Lawyer 2 Lawyer, we provide legal perspective you need to better understand the current events that shape our society. Join me, Craig Williams, in a wide variety of industry experts as we break down the top stories.  Follow Lawyer 2 Lawyer on the Legal Talk Network or wherever you subscribe to podcasts.

Joe Patrice:  Now we’re back.  Let’s change gears wildly as far as not to diminish any case in the world but to something that’s a little less the government collapsing.

Chris Williams:  I just want to make it be known.  You missed the chance to make a really obvious Smith reference.  You could have said “Oscillate wildly” but whatever.

Joe Patrice:  I don’t even get what that is.

Chris Williams:  And this song goes like, da-da-da-da da-da-da.  Trust me, it exists.  Learn your Smith Joe.  I thought you were the Democratic.

Joe Patrice:  Anyway, so, Britney Spears.

Kathryn Rubino:  She’s free.  But that case is not over yet.

Joe Patrice:  I know.  So Britney Spears, obviously we already have freed her from her conservatorship.  There are still some legal issues to tie up.  In particular, she’s going after some improper transfers that she alleges her dad made while he was running a conservatorship.  Things that where with a conflict of interest, he took money and used it for personal expenses.  She alleges that he was paying managers for stuff that he shouldn’t have.  That’s the case.  Because that’s the case that Britney is pursuing, they want to depose the father.  He has been–

Kathryn Rubino:  Jamie.

Joe Patrice:  Yes.  Right.  He has been ducking that deposition so far and has been coming back through his team with Willkie Farr.  He has been coming back with document requests of Britney and now is asking for a deposition to Britney.  It is unclear to me why she would have any relevant information about what he did.  And even to the extent that she would, it would seem like you would only get to that point if you had already gone through all of these other depositions.  Look, Jamie Spears gets deposed and says Britney actually told me to do this.  I suppose then Britney’s testimony becomes relevant.

Kathryn Rubino:  Sure.  But.

Joe Patrice:  But absent the record being at that point, I don’t understand why he thinks he could ask for her deposition.  It’s just extra galling when he’s not sitting for his own deposition which is inarguably relevant to these claims.  Anyway, so that’s going on still Britney’s lawyers just filed a new — put a new filing complaining about this and asking for this to be quashed, talking about and now the crazy bit like in that filing, aside–

Kathryn Rubino:  That’s what I was going to say.  I think that actually the most galling to use your term bit of information is some of what Jamie Spears is alleged to have spent money on according to the filing.

Joe Patrice:  According to the filing and this is independent of the whole deposition thing, according the filing after losing the conservatorship he–

Kathryn Rubino:  After using.  After the conservatorship no longer existed.

Joe Patrice:  No, he was going — actually, I don’t know about after.

(00:20:00)

But after all of this was going on I mean, and he was getting bad publicity for it, he charged tons of money to the estate to defend himself.

Kathryn Rubino:  For a PR campaign.

Joe Patrice:  To defend himself.

Kathryn Rubino:  Not like the legal fees associated with defending the conservatorship.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah.  Using her money to defend himself against her motion.

Kathryn Rubino:  Against her.  It’s the PR aspect of it because I can see an argument that legal fee should be covered by the conservatorship et cetera.  But the PR campaign, abso-fucking-lutely not.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah.  it’s really a cringe and what gets me about it like obviously, I’m not involved in this litigation so I don’t necessarily know, but from —

Kathryn Rubino:  All appearances.

Joe Patrice:  From the 30,000-foot level of somebody who’s been involved in litigations before, I cannot for the life of me see what Jamie Spears is trying to accomplish here.  There’s no scenario in which he gets the PR redemption he’s looking for.

Kathryn Rubino:  No.

Joe Patrice:  There’s very little chance that he doesn’t get tagged with having spent stuff that was questionable given that the conservatorship got lifted because of allegations that things were wrong.  It suggests we’re already at the point where judges are prepared to rule that mistakes were made.  So the there’s only a downside.  It’s seems as though the only discretion being the better part of valor I’d say, get out of this as quickly as you can.  Settle for something small and move on with your life.

Kathryn Rubino:  Be done.  Be done.

Chris Williams:  By the way, inside if anybody is living in New York and wants to see an example of a father not taking advantage of their famous child’s legacy, I highly recommend you check out the King Pleasure Exhibit.  It’s an exhibit of Basquiat’s work.  It’s really nice.  It’s really nice.

Joe Patrice:  What was the thing the other day that they’ve now decided one of Basquiat’s — like some Basquiat exhibit is actually forgeries.  I was just watching that the other day.  Yeah, yeah.  Interesting.  It was on the on the TV as they say and I didn’t want watch.

Chris Williams:  No one says that.  No one said that.

Joe Patrice:   I did see that.  Yeah.  Anyway, so that’s a thing too.  All right.  Is there any more that we can do with — I mean, my title made a “Oops Jamie Spears Did it Again” reference.  Are there any more Britney jokes we can throw in here?

Kathryn Rubino:  Two points are given for that one.

Chris Williams:  I don’t think we can hit this content one more time.

Joe Patrice:  Oh, nice.  Obviously, the “Leave Britney Alone” reference.  Yeah, okay.  I think we’ve got every.  I guess filing that —

Kathryn Rubino:  We’re so Lucky.  She’s so Lucky.

Joe Patrice:  I mean trying to get her deposition seems Crazy.  Okay.  All right.  Let’s stop there.

Kathryn Rubino:  Because her dad is Toxic.

Joe Patrice:  Oh.  Yeah, okay, okay.  All right.

Chris Williams:  Wait.  No, did you all make a joke about him trying to seek Amy?

Kathryn Rubino:  Oh.

Joe Patrice:  Oh.

Kathryn Rubino:  If U Seek Amy.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah.  I got it.  All right.

Kathryn Rubino:  I don’t think that you are like deep dive —

Joe Patrice:  Now we are actually done.

Kathryn Rubino:  I don’t know if you’re deep dive on Britney Spears is that great Joe.

Joe Patrice:  No, fair enough.

Chris Williams:  Do better.

Joe Patrice:  We’re back and to close things off, this is not something that we wrote really about but it’s still interesting.  The January 6th hearings, the Cassidy Hutchinson testimony was fairly sensational.

Kathryn Rubino:  I mean, I wrote a little bit about that.

Joe Patrice:  Mm-hmm.  But that’s not the part that I think we’re focusing on.  It was fairly sensational, but the most interesting aspect of it was Twitter had an opportunity for a bunch of people to try and explain hearsay incorrectly.

Kathryn Rubino:  Never depend on Twitter for defining legal concepts.  It is an entire industry of legal case books and those are the folks you should depend on.  People whose jobs are to define legal concepts.  Go to your Emmanuel notes.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah.  So there were several people who came out trying to claim that everything she was saying was hearsay which is inaccurate.  Obviously, hearsay is not just recounting things that were said out of court because you can recount what you heard people say firsthand.

Kathryn Rubino:  Sure.

Joe Patrice:  You just can’t offer it for “the truth of the matter.”

Kathryn Rubino:  Right. And also this is not a court hearing but rather congress.  So it’s not the same either.  But, I mean I think it was like the official like GOP account that was like, “This is all hearsay.”  I’m just like, I don’t — take away your account.  No, that’s not at all this going on here. 

Joe Patrice:  I mean, there was an incident of hearsay in there, although properly flagged and everything which is her account that she shared that she had been told by the Deputy Chief of Staff that Trump had tried to take the wheel of the car and turn around or whatever there.

(00:25:00)

She’s saying what she heard secondhand and offering it as though that actually happened. 

Kathryn Rubino:  Right.  And the truth of it is whether or not she was told that story.

Joe Patrice:  Right.  So it is not hearsay for her to say that she was told that story.

Kathryn Rubino:  Correct.

Joe Patrice:  It would be hearsay if you tried to enter that to say this means this happened.  But I mean this is properly flagged and it seems that they’re going to try and talk to the people involved.  So Secret Service and the deputy seemed to be denying this account.

Kathryn Rubino:  It’s like a source that is familiar with them saying that they do — which is not the same at all.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah, also hearsay.

Kathryn Rubino:  Not the same.  Also, Liz Cheney has come out and said that they are very confident in the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson.  And yeah, I don’t think that they put this out there without having other corroborating evidence.  But again, more to the point.  There were no other sort of allegations that anything else that she testified to was inaccurate.

Joe Patrice:  Well, that’s the other part that putting aside the hearsay aspect and making this the most useful practical application of the hearsay rule for anyone who’s studying for the bar exam, you got to watch it play out in real time.  But putting all that aside, it did seem that this account of the most sensational aspect of it started to dominate and folks started taking victory laps saying, “Oh well, some people are denying that this part happened.”  It’s like that really wasn’t the biggest part.

Kathryn Rubino:  That’s not the, let them take away the magnetometers, they’re not going to hurt me hard which seems to be the most damning in my humble opinion.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah.  I don’t quite understand.  I said this the other day that I almost feel like there’s the way in which in particular right-wing media has operated has been so fixated on big sensational events and that they almost consume the news such that if there isn’t something wild and sensational, then it can’t matter.  That small issues can’t possibly be newsworthy because that’s the only way in which you look at that whole thing and say, “Well if he didn’t grab the wheel then everything seems kosher.”

Kathryn Rubino:  Well, I don’t know.  It seemed pretty sensational to me as a listener that then President of the United States said take away the magnetometers at an event so that we’re knowingly have guns and then said they’re not going to hurt me and wanting to walk to the capital.  We know that part because she was told by Patsy Baloney, don’t let him do that.  We will be charged with all the crimes. That was something she was told, that was not hearsay.  So here’s actually I think the most relevant and most important question from this whole affair.  What percentage of evidence exams next semester will include oblique references to the Cassidy Hutchinson testimony?

Joe Patrice:  I mean, if it’s not 98 then something’s wrong.

Kathryn Rubino:  No, because there’s at least 5% of law professors that just reuse questions.

Joe Patrice:  Right.  it’s got to be there because this is — evidence needed its moment in the sun and here it is.  We actually are having a real conversation about it and we’re coming to the end here but that means we didn’t even get into the part where George Washington Law Professor Jonathan Turley decided to begin ranting that the Secret Service kidnapped the president when they refuse to sit.

Kathryn Rubino:  What a joke that man is.

Joe Patrice:  You know, mental decline is a serious issue.

Kathryn Rubino:  Okay.

Chris Williams:  Joe.

Joe Patrice:  I’m not saying that about him.  That is a complete non sequitur.

Kathryn Rubino:  Just a non sequitur.

Chris Williams:  It’s a non sequitur.

Joe Patrice:  Just a non sequitur.  It is serious.

Chris Williams:  Non sequitur, my favorite flavor or sequitur.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah.  No, it is getting to the point where I’m starting to wonder though that it is sad.  Like he’s saying things that suggest he has no concept of how law operates anymore.

Kathryn Rubino:  But then maybe folks should stop giving him a goddamn microphone or UPEDS.

Joe Patrice:  Yes, they absolutely should.

Kathryn Rubino:  And I think it’s incredibly important to continue to shine light in all the ways that he’s being a goddamn idiot until he stops getting respected to be on the television. 

Joe Patrice:  He wrote some stuff about the EPA decision that read like he was surprised and shocked by the last 85 years of constitutional law.  He was like, “But what would this mean?”  I was like “I don’t know.  Have you taken?”

Kathryn Rubino:  Are you familiar with Con Law?

Joe Patrice:  Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:  This is big.

Joe Patrice:  It’s real.  Yeah, it’s not good.

(00:30:01)

Anyway.  Yes, people need to stop giving him microphones because it’s not great.

Kathryn Rubino:  But we have microphones.

Joe Patrice:  We do.

Chris Williams:  We are not him.

Joe Patrice:  Well, right and we have microphones and you can use this microphone so that people can listen to the show.

Kathryn Rubino:  Listen to us. Yeah.  Every week, every week.

Joe Patrice:  And they could subscribe and hear us using microphones.

Kathryn Rubino:  Yes, and if they gave us reviews not just the stars, though I always would take them but written reviews help us move up the algorithm and help other people find us a legal podcast.

Joe Patrice:  Do they? Wow. That’s amazing.

Kathryn Rubino:  It is. The algorithm is nifty.

Joe Patrice:  In addition to microphones. We have keyboards.

Kathryn Rubino:  We do.

Joe Patrice:  And we utilize those to write.

Kathryn Rubino:  On the Twitters.

Joe Patrice:  Oh, I was saying on the blogsphere.

Kathryn Rubino:  Oh, we do, we do.

Joe Patrice:  We write Above the Law which is very good thing.

Kathryn Rubino:  Above the Law which we mentioned at the top of the show.

Joe Patrice:  But we also have keyboards where we can write on Twitter.

Kathryn Rubino:  And phones that we can angrily Tweet stuff.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah.  So which is where I’m @JosephPatrice, she’s @Kathryn1, the numeral 1 and Chris is @WritesForRent.  Then we also have some other places where we use these microphones like you host The Jabot.

Kathryn Rubino:  I do host The Jabot.

Joe Patrice:  Oh.  Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:  Yeah, it’s another podcast about issues of diversity in the law.

Joe Patrice:  I’m a guest on the Legaltech Week Journalist Roundtable.

Kathryn Rubino:  You are.

Chris Williams:  You said it.

Joe Patrice:  I mean yeah, I say it.

Kathryn Rubino:  We need to stop thinking about it.

Joe Patrice:  All of those things are real.  So, you can check all those out.

Kathryn Rubino:  Please do.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:  It would be amazing.  That’s it?

Joe Patrice:  Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:  And we’re done for another week.

Joe Patrice:  Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:  Peace.

Chris Williams:  Later.

[Music]

Kathryn Rubino:  Thanks to our sponsor, Posh.

(00:31:51)

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