The American Bar Foundation (ABF) premiered the Whose Law Is It Anyway? podcast on Tuesday, April 27, 2021. The podcast explores U.S. and international social issues and legal challenges through exclusive interviews with ABF scholars, experts, and legal practitioners.
Whose Law Is It Anyway? goes beyond the headlines and into classrooms, courtrooms, and homes, illustrating how empirical and interdisciplinary research matters in everyday life. Echoing the ABF’s motto, “Expanding Knowledge and Advancing Justice,” the podcast offers an in-depth exploration of sociolegal subjects such as access to justice, rent and housing, civil rights, and sexual consent on college campuses.
In each episode, host Matthew Martinez Hannon interviews the ABF’s researchers and other top scholars to learn how they seek the uncompromising truth through interdisciplinary and empirical research. Rounding out this long-form, in-depth interview is a conversation with experts and legal practitioners that provide insight into the real-world impact of these topics.
As the ABF’s Database and Gift Processing Specialist, Hannon is new to sociolegal research, but that makes him an ideal podcast host. His intellectual journey, and the questions he asks, will offer new insights as he learns alongside listeners about the rules and laws that govern our lives.
“We’re excited to debut the ABF’s new podcast and share our research with intellectually curious listeners throughout the world,” said ABF Executive Director Ajay K. Mehrotra. “With each episode of this podcast, the audience will have the opportunity to hear compelling, in-depth conversations with a diverse range of voices.”
The first episode of Whose Law Is It Anyway? highlights access to justice in the United States. Hannon interviews ABF Faculty Fellow and Arizona State University Professor Rebecca Sandefur about her work studying how everyday people view and contend with their justice problems. Salvador Mungia, a partner at Gordon Thomas Honeywell and ABF Life Fellow, discusses his view of justice in the United States and the lessons he learned from serving on the Washington State Access to Justice Board.
New podcast episodes will be released monthly and available to stream or download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast streaming platform. Find links to all platforms on the Anchor.fm show page.
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About the American Bar Foundation
The American Bar Foundation (ABF) is the world’s leading research institute for the empirical and interdisciplinary study of law. The ABF seeks to expand knowledge and advance justice through innovative, interdisciplinary, and rigorous empirical research on law, legal processes, and legal institutions. To further this mission the ABF will produce timely, cutting-edge research of the highest quality to inform and guide the legal profession, the academy, and society in the United States and internationally. The ABF’s primary funding is provided by the American Bar Endowment and the Fellows of The American Bar Foundation.