The best sounding show yet!

This podcast has become my go-to source for SCOTUS commentary that is anything but blithe. Both Prof. Baude (brainy) and Prof. Epps (fewer plosives per minute) demonstrate facility at thinking about Court-related issues and providing insightful commentary. When I want blithe, I go to the other guys. Not here. Five stars.

While Dan and Will often explain concepts at a level above this science undergraduate, this is most certainly the most rigorous legal podcast available. Even better, both hosts are quite funny and cordial even during complex legal analysis. America would be in a much better place if this podcast was the primary news source over the new anti-establishment social media services. It seems to me that most of the haters of this show are subject to the partisan mind-virus that infects so much of our current political ecosystem. Both hosts may or may not be partisan off the show, but during the show it is non-partisan law professor talk that takes the day.

I’m a law student and this podcast was the first time I’ve ever heard a professor use the word “based” as an adjective. Congratulations.

I appreciate the conversational tone and the indepth analysis. I am especially fond of Professor Baude’s voice as he sounds a great deal like his father who taught me Professional Responsibility at IU in the olden days.

If you’re looking for in-the-weeds legal analysis—and I mean that in the best possible way—this is the podcast for you. Will and Dan are thorough in their analysis and provide insight that you can’t find elsewhere. Perhaps like others, I have a stable of legal podcasts that I follow, but Divided Arguments is always at the top of my list.

I’ve listened to and explored all of the various Supreme Court podcasts out there and some are pretty good, some are just fluff and filler, some are straight up snark, but this one is by far the best, most substantive one of the bunch, while still being reasonably accessible to non professionals. Looking forward to a breakdown of Justice Souter’s papers in 2075.

And I say this as a 60 year old libertarian lawyer, usually more inclined to agree with Baude, but now semi-repulsed by him. I am finding Epps to be the more reasonable one lately. Maude’s blithe assumption of judicial supremacy in all conflicts between article II and article III lacks nuance and exposes a limited ability to think or perceive arguments outside his lane, despite the aura of being the “brainy” one.

On each episode’s initial listen through it’s an entertaining source for a layman to learn about what the supreme court is up to. Listen again at bedtime and Will and Dan’s soporific mild manners will lull you to sleep in a jiffy. Highly recommended!

I am glad the show is back from the hiatus and appreciated the post-Fed Soc convention recap. Looking forward to coverage of the Tik Tok case next year.

The best podcast on the Supreme Court. Will and Dan are amazing hosts. While they have their opinions and perspectives, they do a great job explaining the arguments and assessing the merits of the arguments without being partisan or dogmatic. They are also delightful together; have a great rapport and clearly enjoy themselves and have passion for the subject. A nice alternative to other podcasts on the Supreme Court that can tend to be one-sided and not nearly as enlightening as Divided Argument. Keep up the great work Will and Dan!! One request: can you please explain how it is that Supreme Court justices have the discretion and authority to determine when their work papers are made public. I understand the need for confidentiality for some period of time but don’t understand why these documents that are clearly work related and not personal are subject to disclosure based on each individual justice’s own direction. Maybe there are objective legal limits within which they have some discretion but whenever it is normally described it sounds like they have complete discretion, which again seems at odds with the fact that these are clearly work related and should not be considered personal. Thanks for your thoughts and any clarification — love the podcast!!

Lots of fun, very smart, and keeps getting better. Definitely on team “stop-spending-the-first-twelve-minutes-of-every-episode-on-supreme-court-ethics” though. Keep it up guys!

One of these days, Dan will wake up and realize he too is a Bayesian, rationalist, D&D playing, libertarian-leaning ubermensch. He’ll have his laptop open to SlateStarCodex, a dog-eared Rand under the pillow, and a fourth edition guide on the floor. In other words, Dan will wake up and he will be Will.

I love that they keep the temperature so low. It’s like if the Delicious Dish was about Supreme Court decisions.

Between this podcast and Lawfare’s occasional discussion on SCOTUS, I feel like I’m kept up to date in a balanced way. I do enjoy other SCOTUS podcasts but feel sometimes that they are discussions from inside a bubble in a way that this podcast is not. The only minor gripe that I will air is that because both Dan and Will have low voices, their low whispery mumble sometimes fails to overcome ambient freeway noise regardless of how high one turns the volume, making it more difficult to listen on commutes. Speak up, boys!

Professor Baude, I implore you to remember this five-star review when I send you a clerkship application. Of course, you will have succeeded Justice Thomas to the golden bench (it was a gift). This is a great podcast. I guess people can respectfully disagree and flesh out both sides?

While smart, Will is pathetically unable to acknowledge how his views legitimize partisan actors who only care about their own policy goals—including the Republicans on the Court. He is shocked or confused when an “originalist” abandons the methodology because it would not result in those policy ends. He is so caught up in his own illusion that he can’t admit what the Court is actually doing. Dan, on the other hand, is not a serious legal thinker, and he is incapable of providing coherent counterpoints to Will. As a result, his primary role on the podcast is to get Will talking and fill time with jokes. You could replace him with any curious 1L and the substance of the podcast would be the same. Together, the podcast fails to give an accurate picture of what the Court is doing or its impact on the real world. If you are looking for a thoughtful analysis of the Court’s decisions and their effects, move on. But if you want to play word games in fantasyland, maybe this is for you.

An excellent legal podcast that has kept me entertained through long car rides and made me look like slightly less of an idiot when discussing Supreme Court cases with my law school friends. The unscheduled and unpredictable nature of the podcast is great for people (like me) who don't have the time or energy to dedicate hours of their time to a regularly scheduled podcast but also want intelligent and even-keeled commentary. Will and Dan self-consciously balance each other out, and taken together, deliver objective, insightful analysis of major SCOTUS cases. Keep up the good work!

This is the premier supreme court podcast on the whole planet, in my opinion. Somehow even better than Dan’s old show that seemingly must not be named. It is always deeply informative, even when discussing subjects that I think I’m familiar with. Also, Will’s take on the Star Wars sequel trilogy (namely, that they are three fan films with surprisingly high production values) has restored my ability to enjoy Star Wars as I once did as a kid playing Star Wars RPG. For that reason alone, five stars.

This is a little late, but 5 stars just for Dan’s quip about how, perhaps, by virtue of section 3 of the 14th amendment, Trump is not only disqualified but also already magically in prison.

There are several excellent podcasts offering first-rate coverage of SCOTUS, but Divided Argument is the best of the best. The commentary and analysis is intelligent, insightful, thoughtful, civil, and even-keeled. Divided Argument is NPR meets SCOTUSBlog, and it’s delightful. If you’re a law nerd and you’re not already listening to DA, you’re missing out.

On one of the most recent episodes, it was mentioned how many people write-in to leave reviews complaining about how annoying Prof. Baude is and praising Prof. Epps. I respectfully dissent. I won’t trod out my particular annoyances with Prof. Epps (I have more class than that, and they’re done talking about SCOTUS ethics, so moot) but I think it’s appropriate to sing the praise that Prof. Baude deserves because other commenters are so grotesque. (The sort of praise that Prof. Epps would say that Prof. Baude will sheepishly duck from.) Fanboying is embarrassing, but Prof. Baude has a relatively large cult following, especially at Scalia Law School (FWIW), other than those dishonest “conservatives” that love particular political personalities more than the Law. This podcast demonstrates why! There’s no desire to be edgy, or provocative, it’s just honest. Generally, Profs. Baude and Epps are great professors who break down cases simply — without popularizing anything, or *trying* to be entertaining — so well that it’s now my go-to rec for legal podcasts, dethroning another.

One star for the snark about their ratings

182.

I could listen to the hosts discuss SCOTUS cases for hours. Best legal podcast around.

An engaging, thoughtful podcast. The hosts disagree frequently, but their banter is always kind. Listen in if you prefer genuine debates about the law over partisan dribble about a rigged judiciary.

Another great episode, but “Felony-Adjacent” is quite boring. With that in mind, I would ask the hosts to rename the last episode the best phrase from the episode: “The Ten Quid.”

The podcast is great. I listen often for their opinions. The way the don’t care about the hysteria of the other legal minds setting their hair on fire all day is refreshing. Dan Epps is the reasonable more normal one. He seems to be more pleasant than Will who always seems to have an aristocratic air about him. Their voices sound the same at first until you just remember the aristocratic one is Will Baide the rigid originalist. As a non lawyer I listen to this podcast often. Sometimes for legal insight. Often for a sleep aid. Genuinely love it though and listen religiously.

Amazing podcast. My only complaint is that Will is too persuasive, making me suspicious that the conservative Supreme Court’s arguments are weaker than he makes them out to be in ways that Dan is not able to quite tease out. Anyway, as a left-wing non-lawyer, I’m really enjoying it.

Always a delight to hear a new episode. Alas, the discussion is a little too quiet. Both male voices are low and quiet, and hard to hear in a moving car. I had to turn up the treble and down the bass. Maybe watch the VU meter a little more closely?

If you believe accepting millions in gifts from Republicans billionaire donors is not an ethical and judgement lapse, then this is the SCOTUS opinion podcast for you. Listening to a legal scholar who has no problem with that is a little too hard for me to take serious. I actually used to like this podcast. It’s very disappointing

As a libertarian lawyer, I love this show. The hosts disagree with each other constantly, in a way that doesn’t destroy their friendship. I wish these two would do another podcast about a wider-audience topic (sports? Bridgerton?), just to teach people how to disagree. I miss the pre-social media days (or maybe it was just my law school days) when this was the norm. No yelling, no hurtful insults… just two professors explaining their logic and trying to understand the opposing viewpoint.

After so many episodes on Supreme Court ethics scandals, I am throwing in the towel on this podcast. It is maddening to hear Baude devote his impressive mental firepower to so much evasive equivocating. His every sentence on the topic is mealy-mouthed B.S. and yet, incredibly, he believes this makes him a reasonable, meticulous, or charitable thinker. Just terrible.

I usually like the show but can’t even give it four stars because of the bullying of Prof. Baude over his eminently reasonable position on the Justice Alito stuff. Also, the apparent failure by the listener and Prof. Epps to consider that their evidence tying the Justice to “stop the steal” is pretty weak. I.e., as the recent secret recordings proved, Mrs. Alito makes the flag flying decisions and uses flags in neighborhood disputes. AO did much a better analysis on this. Finally, working for Sen. Whitehouse on judicial confirmations might categorically make one not a reasonable person when it comes to recusal Qs.

I’m Dan Epps Fan 2. Will doesn’t follow me back on Twitter, so if/when that happens, I’ll become Will Baude Fan 1(?). Or maybe Will Baude Fan 2-800… In seriousness, this podcast is fantastic. One suggestion: each of you should give us a book/article recommendation each episode. Pat Sobkowski

Ok. Bump Stocks. While I pull the trigger once, there is an internal "finger" pulling each shot... about 800 a minute towards loved ones and families and such. But! All those internal decisions really had nothing to do with me. How about a drone with a machine gun? Not sure how it works.. drop it on the ground.. suddenly it's just firing shots into a crowd but I can't say why, why so many shots? Why so much death? Who knows? I didn't even put a finger to a trigger! Whew, good thing for me.

*if you can tolerate their VERY non- predicable cadence between shows (HINT HINT Dan and Will). Anyway, they (along with Akhil Amar) are what you need. I love their mutual respect and camaraderie. All the stars.

Dan’s whiny requests for reviews have finally gotten to me. This is one of the best SCOTUS podcasts out there - both in terms of quality of analysis and listenability.

I love this podcast, even though it’s somewhat outside my specialty. In addition to interesting breakdowns of the latest cases and orders, you also get useful but obscure trivia like what a “dinkus” is. Dan Epps and Will Baude disagree enough to make it interesting, but not so much that they’re constantly at loggerheads. One of my favorite listens

I’m a liberal who discovered Will Baude through his Force and Sweep article. The podcast is great even if you’re not a conservative or an originalist. There is nuanced and intelligent discussion and the dynamic between the hosts is great. This is not culture war stuff—it’s dialogue for the intellectually curious.

This is the place to go for consistently high quality discussions of the Supreme Court’s decisions and actions. Dan and Will don’t trade in partisan takes, but think about the cases, trade ideas, and talk about the more interesting things going on.

Easily the best SCOTUS podcast out there. And it’s not close.

This is my favorite legal podcast, and easily one of my favorite podcast of any category. The hosts manage a nice balance of depth of legal insights while still having some levity and rapport with each other. They both pull on experiences clerking for the court and their continued legal scholarship as professors of law. I particularly like that Professor Baude values being able to recite an argument well enough such that a proponent of the argument would agree with the characterization. This makes his discussions of legal opinions of which he disagrees with far more insightful. I’ve enjoyed Professor Epps on previous podcasts and am glad that he continues with Professor Baude.

I’ve reached the point in life where I don’t need podcasts to tell me what to think. I appreciate it when they ask the right questions, provide helpful context, and model dialogue over diatribe. This one works. From UVA, thanks Will and Dan!

This is (to my knowledge) the only forum for intellectually rigorous analysis of everything the Supreme Court does. You have some places with comparable quality but less quantity (e.g. Adam Unikowsky substack) and others with comparable quantity but less rigor (e.g. SCOTUSBlog, AO), but not both. Makes it essential listening.

Took a break from chanting Justice Scalia’s Morrison dissent to leave a review: this podcast is the best place for Supreme Court analysis. Unscheduled and unpredictable, as advertised.

Will is sliiiightly more partisan than he’d like to admit but it’s all good because his analysis is very solid. And he’s a mostly consistent originalist, which is rare. But the depth of knowledge about historical cases and the interestingness of the takeaways from current cases are unmatched in the legal pod world.

The best law podcast for people who want to get deep into stuff. I learn from it every time.

You already do a service with your analysis. More 5 stars where this one came from if you’ll publish a recording of the Section 3 article being read in full. :)

Will *Baude lives in an alternate reality