Good Law | Bad Law

Why is it so hard – and getting harder – to get an abortion in the U.S. today?

Aaron Freiwald, Managing Partner of Freiwald Law and host of the weekly podcast, Good Law | Bad Law, is joined by Professor David Cohen, of Drexel University’s Kline School of law, to discuss accessibility of abortion. David’s new co-authored book on the topic, Obstacle Course: The Everyday Struggle to Get an Abortion in America, tells the story of abortion in our country and captures a disturbing reality of insurmountable barriers people face when trying to exercise their legal rights to medical services.

Despite the controversy surrounding this issue, it is a constitutional right that women have access to abortion. Yet getting an abortion can be a monumental challenge in many places throughout the United States, forcing some to risk their lives and livelihoods in the process. Aaron and David dive into these obstacles and their implications, discussing restrictions, fake clinics, health care coverage, protestors and more. David explains his approach to the book and reasons for working on it while talking about state legislation, upcoming Supreme Court cases, and how the law tries to interfere with women’s rights and autonomy.

A graduate of Columbia Law, Professor Cohen’s scholarship explores the intersection of constitutional law and gender, emphasizing how the law impacts abortion provision, including violence against abortion providers, as well as sex segregation and masculinity. In addition to his most recent book, David is also the co-author of Living in the Crosshairs: The Untold Stories of Anti-Abortion Terrorism. Published in 2015, “Living in the Crosshairs” examines how abortion providers are targeted by anti-abortion extremists and how law can better respond.

Professor Cohen has published articles in the Harvard Journal of Law and Gender, Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online, George Washington Law Review, and others. Before coming to Drexel, David was a lecturer-in-law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law and held adjunct professor positions at Penn and Long Island University. He currently serves on the board of directors for the Women’s Law Project in Philadelphia and the National Abortion Care Network. Professor Cohen also continues to work on pro bono cases affecting abortion access and LGBT rights.

To learn more about Professor Cohen, please visit his bio page at Drexel here.

To check out Professor Cohen’s new book, Obstacle Course: The Everyday Struggle to Get an Abortion in America, please click here.

Host: Aaron Freiwald

Guest: David Cohen

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Why can’t members of the military sue the government for their injuries?

Aaron Freiwald, Managing Partner of Freiwald Law and host of the weekly podcast, Good Law | Bad Law, is joined by Professor Andrew Popper, of American University, Washington College of Law, to discuss democracy, the notion of “sovereign immunity,” and the way in which basic civil liberties are being denied to our country’s military service members.

In today’s episode, Aaron and Andy are talking about what is known as the Feres Doctrine. Stemming from a 1950 Supreme Court decision, the Feres Doctrine significantly limits the civil rights of U.S. military members and their abilities to pursue justice as average citizens otherwise could. Andy and Aaron explain the ins and outs of the case while also explaining how and why this law came to be. Andy illustrates his recommendation for overturning the law, providing examples of instances in which Feres has caused extreme suffering, frustration and unfairness. Throughout today’s conversation, Aaron and Andy talk about the effectiveness of our military, the fear of undermining authority, chain-of-command, agent orange, Camp Lejeune, judicial activism and more.

A veteran himself, Professor Popper is the Bronfman Distinguished Professor of Law and Government, teaching torts, administrative law, government litigation, and advanced administrative law. Andy is the recipient of American Bar Association awards for excellence in both tort and administrative law and has received American University’s highest faculty award, Scholar/Teacher of the year. He has served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and for nearly two decades has chaired the law school admissions committee.

In addition to his other works, Andy is also a successful fiction writer, having been the recipient of the Maryland Writer’s Association First Place Award for mainstream fiction. He has served as a consumer rights advocate and pro bono counsel for the Consumers Union of America, testified before more than 40 states and federal congressional committees, and authored amicus curiae briefs before the United States Supreme Court. Prior to coming to the Washington College of Law, he held an endowed chair at the University of Denver, School of Law, and before that practiced law in Washington, D.C.

To learn more about Professor Popper, please visit his bio page here.

To read Professor Popper’s article, “Rethinking Feres: Granting Access to Justice for Service Members,” please click here. 

To learn more about Feres v. United States, please click here.

To explore the collection of Professor Popper’s literary works, please visit his Amazon page here.

Host: Aaron Freiwald

Guest: Andrew Popper

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Aaron Freiwald, Managing Partner of Freiwald Law and host of the weekly podcast, Good Law | Bad Law, is joined by Brian Fitzpatrick, a law professor at Vanderbilt University and self-proclaimed “life-long Republican”, to discuss class action lawsuits, and specifically, Brian’s recent book on the subject, The Conservative Case for Class Actions.

In his new book, Brian makes the case for class action litigation a conservative’s view point. Arguing that conservatives, and even libertarians, believe that markets need at least some policing to thrive, from laws that enforce contracts, to laws that prevent companies from committing fraud, to laws that prohibit price fixing. Aaron and Brian break down what a class-action is, what the requirements are, and just how important they are to protect consumers from corporate wrongdoing.

Brian illustrates the different types of conservatives he sees and explains that there are only two ways of policing the marketplace: 1) private lawsuits filed by private citizens and their lawyers or 2) more government regulation. He argues that, for the same reasons conservatives prefer other private sector solutions to problems, they should prefer private enforcement of the law as well. Acknowledging that the class action is not perfect, Brian shows, in his book and in today’s episode, that our system is working better than one might expect given all the widespread misunderstanding and misinformation about class action lawsuits.  He also suggests a few tweaks that he hopes will persuade opponents to keep the class action around for the next generation of consumers, employees, and shareholders alike.

Brian Fitzpatrick’s research at Vanderbilt focuses on class action litigation, federal courts, judicial selection and constitutional law. A graduate of Harvard Law, Brian went on to clerk for Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. After his clerkships, Professor Fitzpatrick practiced commercial and appellate litigation for several years at Sidley Austin in Washington, D.C., and served as Special Counsel for the Supreme Court Nominations to U.S. Senator John Cornyn. He joined Vandberbilt’s law faculty in 2007 after serving as the John M. Olin Fellow at New York University School of Law and has received the Hall-Hartman Outstanding Professor Award, which recognizes excellence in classroom teaching, for his Civil Procedure course.  

To learn more about Professor Brian Fitzpatrick, please visit his bio page at Vanderbilt here.

To check out Professor Fitzpatrick’s book, “The Conservative Case for Class Actions,” please click here.

Host: Aaron Freiwald

Guest: Brian Fitzpatrick

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Aaron Freiwald, Managing Partner of Freiwald Law and host of the weekly podcast, Good Law | Bad Law, is joined by Robert Glicksman, a Professor at the George Washington University Law School, and Alejandro Camacho, a Professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, to discuss governmental policy, authority and the dimensions of government, as well as their co-authored book on these subjects, Reorganizing Government: A Functional and Dimensional Framework.

In today’s episode, Aaron, Rob, and Alex talk about how the government works… and moreover, how it doesn’t. What are the ways in which the government works well? And, what are the areas that need improvement? Today’s conversation focuses on how the government could work more effectively and more efficiently. Rob, Alex, and Aaron talk about the structures of government, the day to day tasks, the complexities that need to be considered when discussing reorganization, and more. Throughout, the three talk about regulations, the power of administrative agencies, policy making, the branches of government, as well as the ideas of centralization and decentralization. How should we allocate power to the various agencies in the government? What are the different components of authority? And what are the roles of these agencies?

Alex and Rob assert that regulation is frequently less successful than it could be, arguing that there are often misunderstandings due to the allocation of authority to regulatory institutions and the relationships between them. “Reorganizing Government” explains how past approaches have failed to appreciate the full diversity of alternative approaches to organizing governmental authority. In the book, Rob and Alex illustrate the often neglected dimensional and functional aspects of inter-jurisdictional relations through in-depth explorations of several diverse case studies involving securities and banking regulation, food safety, pollution control, resource conservation, and terrorism prevention. In today’s conversation, Aaron asks Alex and Rob to discuss and expand on these ideas and more.

Robert Glicksman is a nationally and internationally recognized expert on environmental, natural resources and administrative law issues. A graduate of the Cornell Law School, his areas of expertise include environmental, natural resources, administrative, and property law. Before joining the GW law school faculty in 2009, Professor Glicksman taught at the University of Kansas School of Law where he was the Robert W. Wagstaff Distinguished Professor of Law. Professor Glicksman has practiced with law firms in D.C. and New Jersey, focusing on environmental, energy, and administrative law. He has consulted on various environmental and natural resources law issues, including work for the Secretariat of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation in Montreal, Canada. Professor Glicksman has been a member scholar for the Center for Progressive Reform since 2002 and a member of the Center’s Board of Directors since 2008.

Professor Camacho has a joint appointment at UC Irvine in both Law and Political Science. His scholarship explores the goals, structures, and processes of regulation, with a particular focus on natural resources and public lands law, pollution control law, and land use regulation. His writing considers the role of public participation and scientific expertise in regulation, the allocation of authority and relationships between regulatory institutions, and how the design and goals of legal institutions must and can be reshaped to more effectively account for emerging technologies and the dynamic character of natural and human systems. Professor Camacho’s legal scholarship includes articles published or forthcoming in the Yale Journal on Regulation, Washington University Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, UCLA Law Review, Stanford Environmental Law Journal, North Carolina Law Review, Harvard Journal on Legislation, Emory Law Journal, Colorado Law, Review, Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, and BYU Law Review.

To learn more about Professor Glicksman, please visit his bio page here. 

To learn more about Professor Camacho, please visit his bio page here.

To check out the book, Reorganizing Government: A Functional and Dimensional Framework, please visit the NYU Press website here.

Host: Aaron Freiwald

Guests: Robert Glicksman and Alejandro Camacho

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What are the flaws of eyewitness testimony? Can we rely on it? And, how does it intersect with cognitive science?

Aaron Freiwald, Managing Partner of Freiwald Law and host of the weekly podcast, Good Law | Bad Law, is joined by Professor Jules Epstein, of Temple’s Beasley Law School, to discuss eyewitness testimony. A professor of law and the Director of Advocacy Programs at Temple, Jules is an expert in today’s topic, with his research focusing on criminal law and procedure, evidence, trial advocacy, Pennsylvania Criminal Law and procedure, the death penalty, and forensic science. In today’s episode, Aaron and Jules discuss the idea of eyewitness testimony in criminal cases, the science behind it, and the questions of whether or not it is reliable.

Can we trust what we see? Do we always remember things as clearly as we think we do? In today’s conversation, Jules breaks down some of the biggest reasons why eye witness testimony can be flawed, including the idea of ‘contaminated memory’. Aaron and Jules talk about the impact of developing sciences, such as DNA, and the effects they can have, as well as the role juries play in deciding and interpreting eyewitness testimony. Jules and Aaron discuss a recent case in which an innocent man was freed in Philadelphia after being wrongly convicted 27 years ago and Jules explains the significance that recreating the crime can have in assessing the risk of an eyewitness’ testimony. Aaron and Jules consider racial bias, super rememberers, estimator and system variables, and more throughout the conversation.  

A graduate of Penn’s Carey Law, Professor Epstein began his legal career as a public defender with the Defender Association of Philadelphia. He is a former partner at Kairys, Ruovsky, Messing & Feinberg, LLP, where he remains of counsel. He was an adjunct professor at Penn from 1988 through 2006, has taught in and prepared materials for countless continuing legal education programs, and has authored dozens of articles and book chapters on criminal law and evidence topics.

Professor Epstein’s work has concentrated, in recent years, on capital case, eyewitness, and forensic issues. He has taught death penalty law nationally, and continues to handle capital cases at the appellate and post-conviction stages. Professor Epstein served as a member of the National Commission on Forensic Science from 2013 until the Commission’s demise in 2017. He is faculty for the National Judicial College, teaching courses to judges in advanced evidence and capital case law. In Pennsylvania, he is a member if a group of lawyers, judges and academics revising the Suggested Standard Jury Instruction, Criminal, and served on a commission addressing issues in cases of wrongful convictions.

 To learn more about Professor Epstein, please visit his Bio here.

To learn more about the Willie Veasy case, please click here.

Host: Aaron Freiwald

Guest: Jules Epstein  

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