The act of governing is an exercise of power. Part of the genius of the United States Constitution is that it does not place all the power in a single ruler, but distributes it across three branches – the legislative, which is Congress, the executive, which is the President and federal departments and agencies, and the judicial, which is the federal courts. This is what we call the separation of powers, a fundamental principle of American constitutionalism. And when we talk about checks and b...
Nov 23, 2024
53 min
When you hear the word “lawyer,” what adjectives come to mind? Obnoxious? Over-priced? Untrustworthy? Or maybe skillful? Smart? Respectable? How often when you think of lawyers do you think “loveable?” Danny Karon is a Cleveland-based lawyer who has branded himself as “Your Loveable Lawyer.” To know Danny is to know that that description works. More familiar to some of us as an accomplished class action lawyer who for years ably led the American Bar Association’s national institute on ...
Nov 17, 2024
1 hr 3 min
In some courts, when a judge retires, their law clerks or others get together and pay an artist to paint the judge's official portrait. When the portrait is ready, there is a ceremony at the courthouse attended by the judge and the judge’s family, the judge’s clerks, other courthouse staff, and the judge’s friends and colleagues. After a number of speeches honoring the judge, the portrait is unveiled and guests stay to get a close up look at it, congratulate the honoree, and indulge in light ...
Nov 9, 2024
1 hr 13 min
When a person becomes a lawyer, they take an oath. The oath is often administered in a formal bar admission ceremony. Each year in Massachusetts, many such ceremonies take place at historic Faneuil Hall. The new lawyers and their families hear speeches from judges and bar leaders, and the oath they are required to recite dates back to colonial times. Through it, they pledge to “do no falsehood, nor consent to the doing of any in court”; not to participate in the pursuit of “any false, groundl...
Oct 25, 2024
1 hr 25 min
It’s been almost four years since the last Presidential election and the battle for the future of our democracy is still raging. Much of it is in the spotlight, through national news media, popular podcasts, books, and social media. Large organizations, like the American Bar Association, have devoted a great deal of time and effort in recent years promoting democracy and the rule of law. Much work also is happening through individuals and groups you may never have heard of who are diligently ...
Oct 2, 2024
15 min
What you are about to hear is one of my favorite clips from one of my favorite interviews. It provides a glimpse into events that rapidly unfolded during the evening of Saturday, January 28, 2017, when an Executive Order signed by the new President resulted in the detention of hundreds of travelers who were peacefully and legally entering the United States from several Muslim-majority countries. My guest on the podcast, Boston lawyer Susan Finegan, was one of the attorneys who quickly sp...
Sep 23, 2024
13 min
Welcome to the fourth installment of our series on democracy and the rule of law. In our last installment, retired Massachusetts Supreme Court Justice Robert Cordy described his work advising judges in Russia and Turkey how they could align their judicial systems with the judicial systems of Western countries, an alignment that could have improved those nations’ relationships with the West. He also described how, after years of effort, that work was abruptly shut down by those nati...
Sep 16, 2024
13 min
Welcome to our third special replay episode of Higher Callings. In our first two episodes in this series on Democracy and the Rule of Law, we heard from Elizabeth Andersen and Karen Green of the World Justice Project about the Rule of Law and its downward trend in a majority of countries, including the United States. In this third episode, we’ll hear from Robert Cordy, a former federal prosecutor and civil litigation attorney and a retired Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judic...
Sep 9, 2024
12 min
Because we're now entering election season, we've decided to republish excerpts from some of the past episodes of Higher Callings that listeners may find relevant to their voting decisions. Several of our interviews have focused on Democracy and the Rule of Law, both at home and abroad, with guests who are particularly experienced with and qualified to discuss those topics. So, over the next few weeks, we plan to roll out relevant clips from those episodes. What follows is the second cli...
Sep 3, 2024
17 min
Understanding the Rule of Law: Part 1 of a Special Replay Series About Democracy and the Rule of Law
Because we're now entering election season, we've decided to republish excerpts from some of the past episodes that listeners may find relevant to their voting decisions. Several of our interviews have focused on Democracy and the Rule of Law, both at home and abroad, with guests who are particularly experienced with and qualified to discuss those topics. So, over the next few weeks, we plan to roll out relevant clips from those episodes. What follows is the first clip from one of our mo...
Aug 27, 2024
10 min
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