Stanford Legal

Stanford Legal is what happens when one of the world's top law schools decides to share its faculty with the public. Hosted by Pam Karlan, a constitutional law heavyweight, and Diego Zambrano, a civil procedure scholar, the show features conversations with Stanford Law professors and visiting experts about legal questions that affect everyday life. With 184 episodes dropping biweekly and a 4.3-star rating, it occupies a unique niche in legal podcasting. The academic pedigree shows in the best possible way. These are people who have spent their careers thinking deeply about voting rights, criminal justice, privacy, executive power, and procedural fairness. The conversations go places that most legal podcasts simply cannot reach because most hosts do not have this kind of intellectual horsepower on speed dial. A single episode might feature a leading expert on democratic theory explaining why a particular election law case could reshape representation for a generation. Episodes run about 30 to 45 minutes, which is refreshingly compact. Karlan and Zambrano are skilled interviewers who know how to draw out the most interesting ideas without letting conversations meander. The tone is serious but not stuffy. There is a genuine excitement about ideas that comes through, the kind of enthusiasm you get from people who chose to spend their lives studying these questions. Stanford Legal will not give you hot takes or breaking news reactions. What it will give you is a deeper understanding of the legal principles that underpin the headlines everyone else is chasing.