A Hard Look

Administrative Law Review

A Hard Look is an administrative law podcast produced in conjunction with the Administrative Law Review at American University's Washington College of Law. On the podcast, we dive into some of the new developments shaping the current landscape of administrative law and regulatory policy and we discuss some of the ways that administrative law impacts attorneys, industries, and people.

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A Hard Look

Episodes (59)

Feb 20th Finley “No-Merit” Letters: An Ethical Lawyering Dilemma
Jan 31st Is Social Media Safe for Our Kids?
Dec 21, 2025 The State of Environmental Law

A Hard Look

Feb 20, 2026
1¼ hours
71 MB

On this episode, we take a profoundly hard look at the ethical landscape of criminal defense lawyering through the lens of a Pennsylvania-specific criminal post-conviction procedure called the Finley “No-Merit” letter. With us for this discussion is an esteemed group of individuals from Phillips Black, a nonprofit public interest law practice dedicated to providing the highest quality of legal representation to incarcerated individuals in the United States sentenced to the severest penalties under law. Joining us are two Phillips Black staff attorneys, Thomas Roberts and Elie Kirshner, both HarvardLaw graduates, as well as their colleagues, Yahya...

A Hard Look

Finley “No-Merit” Letters: An Ethical Lawyering Dilemma

Administrative Law Review

00:00 -01:16:19