Lawyering Without Law

About Lawyering Without Law

We often frame authoritarianism as lawless, marked by constitutional rupture or institutional breakdown. But some of the most effective assaults on democracy have operated through law itself. Around the world, leaders like Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey and the former prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, have used legal systems, rules of law, and institutional practices to consolidate power, restrict dissent, and hollow out democratic accountability from within. That pattern is becoming more visible in the United States, where mounting political pressure on courts, lawyers, and legal institutions is raising urgent questions about the role of the legal profession in moments of democratic crisis. “Lawyering Without Law,” a bi-weekly podcast from the Knight Institute, interrogates the unique and important role that lawyers play in defending democracy, or in facilitating the slide into authoritarianism. Hosted by Knight Institute Senior Fellow and Columbia Law Professor Madhav Khosla (https://knightcolumbia.org/bios/view/madhav-khosla) and the Knight Institute’s Research Director Katy Glenn Bass (https://knightcolumbia.org/bios/view/katherine-glenn-bass), the series brings together scholars, litigators, and practitioners to explore these dynamics across historical and contemporary contexts. Drawing on global examples of democratic backsliding, each episode connects these developments to the United States and outlines what is at stake for the legal profession and for democracy itself. Read more about Khosla’s research project with the Knight Institute examining the crucial role that lawyers can play in preserving democratic freedoms and institutions here (https://knightcolumbia.org/research/lawyering-without-law-the-legal-profession-in-an-age-of-authoritarianism). “Lawyering Without Law” is available on Apple, Spotify, and wherever you get podcasts. Listen, subscribe, and leave a review. We'd love to know what you think.

Publisher

Knight First Amendment Institute

Category

news

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

22 Apr 2026

Latest episode

10 Jul 2026

Latest episodes

2 of 7 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   10 Jul 2026TRANSCRIPT

   International Law, Crimes, and Accountability

   International law is often imagined as a mechanism of accountability—a way to hold states and individuals responsible for criminal acts. But what if the system was never built to do that? In this final episode of “Lawyering Without Law,” hosts Madhav Khosla and Katy Glenn Bass are joined by Tom Dannenbaum, professor of law at Stanford, and Aslı Bâli, professor of law at Yale, to discuss what international law can and cannot do in a moment of mounting global crises. They examine why accountabi...

2. 

   26 Jun 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Lawyering Under 20th Century Authoritarianism

   We often imagine authoritarianism as the abandonment of law, a moment of rupture when constitutions are torn up and courts are shut down. But some of history’s most effective assaults on democracy have worked through law rather than against it. In this episode, host Madhav Khosla is joined by David Dyzenhaus, professor of law and philosophy at the University of Toronto, and Jan-Werner Müller, professor of politics at Princeton University, to examine how repressive regimes from Nazi Germany to...

3. 

   12 Jun 2026

   From Torture to Trump: How the Expansion of Executive Power after 9/11 Eroded Accountability and the Rule of Law

   The Bush administration’s use of torture after 9/11 was aided by government lawyers who provided contorted legal justifications for its use against detainees. In this episode, Alberto Mora, who served as General Counsel of the Navy during the George W. Bush administration, joins hosts Katy Glenn Bass and Madhav Khosla to recount how he discovered that interrogators at Guantánamo Bay detention facility had been authorized to use techniques that he believed qualified as torture. He explains how...

4. 

   29 May 2026

   When Lawyers Stop Following the Rules: How Politics Became Law

   What happens when lawyers stop believing that law and politics are different things? Constitutional law scholar Deborah Pearlstein joins host Katy Glenn Bass to discuss legal ethics, the rule of law, and how decades of erosion of norms within the legal profession have fueled the democratic backsliding we’re witnessing in America today. Pearlstein’s scholarship and her forthcoming book, Losing the Law, map the forces that have weakened the ethical foundations of American law—from the Reagan-er...

5. 

   15 May 2026

   Principle vs. Profit: How Institutions Lose Their Way

   Bribery is the corruption we prosecute. But according to Lawrence Lessig, it's institutional corruption that poses the most danger to American democracy. Hosts Katy Glenn Bass and Madhav Khosla speak with the Harvard Law professor who makes a pointed distinction: the corruption hollowing out American institutions isn’t about bribes, it’s structural—the capture of courts, law firms, corporations, and Congress by economic dependencies pull each away from its founding purpose and leave them vuln...

6. 

   1 May 2026

   What Does Legal Authoritarianism Look Like?

   What does authoritarianism look like when it operates through law? In the first episode of “Lawyer Without Law,” hosts Katy Glenn Bass and Madhav Khosla speak with Princeton University Professor Kim Lane Scheppele. They explore historic examples of the legal profession’s role in democratic backsliding around the world and in the United States. They examine how legal systems can consolidate power while maintaining the appearance of legitimacy—and what that means for lawyers and legal instituti...

7. 

   22 Apr 2026

   "Lawyering Without Law," a New Podcast from the Knight First Amendment Institute

   What happens when law becomes a tool of democratic decline? Authoritarianism is often framed as lawless. But many of the most effective assaults on democracy operate through law itself. “Lawyering Without Law” is a biweekly podcast examining the role lawyers play in defending democracy or facilitating the slide into authoritarianism. Across six episodes, the series brings together scholars, litigators, and practitioners to explore how legal systems are used, bent, and contested as democratic ...

Inside a recent episode

International Law, Crimes, and Accountability

Published 10 Jul 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] But with the rule of international law more fragile than ever, will the Rohingya see justice and will future cases against genocide see their day in court? So there are these high profile instances that present the possibility at least of some measure of accountability. […]

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

23 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

4 ratings

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Books guests

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