Credit: Jack O'Rourke
What’s this all about?
Welcome and thank you for reading! This blog aims to use the iconic television show "The Simpsons" as a fun medium to explain the US legal system both to Simpsons fans interested in any interesting content about the Simpsons and to individuals interested in learning more about the law in a lighthearted way.
Certainly, there are many parts of the law that are incredibly boring and make every law student question their life choices and reflect why they did not study something like computer science or medicine instead.
However, studying the law can also be fascinating and all absorbing since it allows you to see the previously invisible structure of rules that determine how we lead our daily lives. What can I legally say in school? When can the government take my property? What if I wish to organize a knife fight in international waters?
Well, perhaps the last question is less relevant, but in general this blog will try to focus on those very foundational areas of law such as constitutional law, property law, criminal law, and contracts that make up the invisible structure of rules and are the subjects that all students study in law school. The blog will also cover other areas such as national security, animal law, and family law, since certain episodes serve as wonderful jumping off-points to understand the law.
Whether you are a Simpson fan curious about the law or a future law student, you will be introduced in the same straightforward way to these areas of the law through “cases”, which is how law students learn about the law in US law schools. The cases in this blog though are just situations from the show framed as a dispute between two parties, like "The City of Springfield v. Homer Simpson", or "Ned Flanders v. Marge Simpson".
So that the blog is of use to the greatest number of people, the blog will analyze the legal issue at-hand based on how the legal fact would be handled in the majority of jurisdictions in the United States.
Don’t worry, I’ll provide any necessary background information on the law in the blog articles themselves.
Why do you care about The Simpsons so much?
Me, Age 8. I had already developed circles under my eyes from watching The Simpsons every day.
Credit: Mark Thompson, Saturn Elementary School
When I arrived as an 8-year old from Yugoslavia to the United States and would come back home from my ESL classroom in Minneapolis, I would mindlessly watch at least two episodes of the Simpsons. The show definitely played a key role in helping me learn English. When I tell friends this, several have responded “that explains a lot.” Anyway, over the years, I continued to watch the episodes of the show and rewatched a number of episodes in college.
When I arrived at Harvard Law School to do my JD in 2019 and was learning about how the US legal system functions, my mind often drifted to how the US legal system would resolve the issues that came up in the Simpsons episodes. At that point, I had the idea that fans of the show might also be interested in getting answers to how these situations would be resolved.
Disclaimer
It would not be a true legal blog without a disclaimer. That said, it is said with full seriousness that the legal analysis in this blog should not be relied upon for any legal issue you may have. It is a general description of legal issues and, for any specific legal issue you have, you should consult relevant counsel.
How often do you plan to post?
I’ll try to make a post every Sunday. If you like what you have read, I’d very much appreciate it if you could subscribe below.
My goals for the substack
Make content people like! If you have any feedback (positive/negative), I’d love to hear it!
Get to a 100 subscribers. If you like what you have read, I’d really appreciate it if you could subscribe or share it with any other friends who are fans of the Simpsons and/or the law.
Eventually, it would be great to monetize the substack in some way. I will probably create the paid subscription feature at some point, but it’s still early I think.
It’d be great to publish a short book with nice illustrations that has a mix of these cases and new ones. However, I don’t want to get ahead of myself.
