A Rare Inside Look at the Life of a Harvard Law Professor (w/ Professor Jesse Fried) | ATB #31

The Strange, Sweaty, Totally American Ritual of "DC Summer"

WEEK 34: DC Summer Is Miserable. We Wouldn't Be Anywhere Else. We're coming to you live from a bench in Washington, DC — and before we get into the summer episode, we have some unfinished business. A New York City influencer said something about DC that we can't let slide. We respond. Briefly. But firmly.Then: the DC Summer Episode. We recorded this one outside, in the heat, surrounded by tourists, and we have thoughts. We open with the full DC Summer breakdown — the vibe, the institutions, the intern invasion, and whether any of this is actually enjoyable. We run the DC Summer Power Rankings (best monument, worst Metro experience, most underrated spot in the city) and make our cases. Then we go deep: what makes DC summer genuinely unlike any other American city in summer — 20,000 interns, 24 million Mall visitors a year, 19 free Smithsonian museums, and a political infrastructure so enormous it's almost impossible to wrap your head around. We also build out the official DC Summer Survival Guide for locals and first-timers alike. We close with Girl Problems — the segment where real listener questions get real answers: - Is never having been in a long-term relationship actually a red flag? - At what age should you settle? Submit your questions at approachthebenchquestions@gmail.com, leave a voice memo at https://www.speakpipe.com/approachthebench, or submit anonymously via this Google Form: https://forms.gle/9Zjxzkpwajivx19z8 00:00 Introduction 03:24 Our First Internet Drama 12:14 Claude Reviewed Our Takes on Men vs. Women 14:19 Feedback 15:28 DC SUMMER 44:22 Girl Problems 51:18 Closing Out

Harvard Business School Has a Morality Problem

WEEK 33: Harvard Business School Has a Morality Problem This week, we're joined by Edward Doan — Harvard Business School student and devout Catholic. And we're once again at Harvard Divinity School, just this time, we're discussing the morally questionable nature of some of HBS's recent activities. Here's what happened: HBS's startup competition — one of the most prestigious student startup hotspots in the country — ranked a sex toy company at the top of the field. They brought an OnlyFans star to campus as part of the promotion. They handed out Plan B. And Ashley Madison was hosted on campus.  So we ask the obvious question: what does that say about Harvard Business School? The real problem isn't bad taste. It's the total absence of any moral vocabulary — a framework where the only question worth asking is whether the market will bear it. We walk through what Christian ethics, natural law, and the concept of vocation actually say about economic life: that wealth is a means, not an end, and that a business can be profitable and still be destructive. HBS has no category for that second clause. We also take on the pretense of neutrality. Handing out Plan B isn't a neutral act. Throwing a party for an OnlyFans creator isn't a neutral act. Choosing not to make moral judgments is itself a moral position — one with real consequences, especially when the institution making it sends 85,000 graduates into positions of serious institutional power. In the interlude, we run a rapid-fire "Holy or Unholy?" game — DraftKings, Juul, McKinsey, CoreCivic, Polymarket, OpenAI, and more. Highly recommend. We close with Girl Problems: how do you navigate big career decisions with your wife, and does it actually matter if you make less money than she does? Email approachthebenchquestions@gmail.com with your questions/comments or submit a voice memo at https://www.speakpipe.com/approachthebench for a chance to be featured on the show! You can also submit anonymous comments through this Google Form: https://forms.gle/9Zjxzkpwajivx19z8 00:00 Introduction 01:57 Harvard Business School vs. Morality 29:35 Holy or Unholy Businesses 32:08 Girl Problems

Are Protestants Going to Heaven? | 2 Protestants Debate a Catholic (ATB #32)

WEEK 32: Are Protestants Going to Heaven? Welcome to Harvard Divinity School. This week, we sit down with Edward Doan to take on one of the oldest and most consequential questions in Western Christianity: can Protestants be saved? We start by refusing to treat this as one question when it's really three. Soteriology — can non-Catholics be saved? Ecclesiology — what actually constitutes the Church? And eschatological judgment — can any human being even know who's saved? Keeping those distinct turns out to matter a lot. From there, we walk through the Catholic position in full. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus — "outside the Church, no salvation" — is 1,800 years old and has never been formally repealed. The Council of Trent explicitly condemned sola fide and sola scriptura. Vatican II's Lumen Gentium opened the door to Protestant salvation without walking any of that back. We press into that internal tension directly. Then we take up the Protestant case: Romans 3, Ephesians 2, Galatians 2, Abraham justified before circumcision. We work through the sola scriptura debate — including the Catholic counter that the Church gave you the canon in the first place — and we spend real time on justification, the theological heart of the whole dispute. Infused vs. imputed righteousness. Whether the 1999 Joint Declaration on Justification actually resolved anything. And the doctrine of invincible ignorance — Catholicism's escape hatch, and why it creates some uncomfortable implications for evangelism. We also get into purgatory, indulgences, the Eucharist, and Mary — covering what actually started the Reformation and where the live disagreements still sit today. We're in Boston for this one, which feels appropriate. The interludes: a Catholic-or-Protestant trivia game, and a deep dive into the Penitential of Finnian — 6th-century Irish Christianity's answer to the question of how much bread and water a sinning cleric deserves. We close with Girl Problems: how do you know what flowers to get her, and how do you actually decide how many kids to have? Email approachthebenchquestions@gmail.com [approachthebenchquestions@gmail.com] or submit a voice memo at https://www.speakpipe.com/approachthebench [https://www.speakpipe.com/approachthebench] to be featured on the show. Anonymous submissions: https://forms.gle/9Zjxzkpwajivx19z8 [https://forms.gle/9Zjxzkpwajivx19z8] 00:00 Introduction 2:02 Getting to Know Ed 04:50 Are Protestants Going to Heaven? 34:49 Catholic or Protestant? 37:59 The Penance Game 41:08 Girl Problems

Everybody is Wrong About Men | ATB #31

WEEK 31: Are Men Useless? (REUPLOAD) Welcome to Harvard Stadium. This week, we bring in Daniel Nivens and take on one of the most charged questions in modern culture: are men actually useless? We walk through Olivia Barbulescu's viral Substack piece/IG post arguing that men are no longer needed — only wanted — and that they're struggling to adapt to the difference. We engage the comment section, which is exactly what you'd expect. We briefly address AnaMarte's viral claim that marriage is statistically the worst thing a woman can do. Then we turn to the right — Tate's thesis that male self-optimization is the answer, and Fuentes's argument that the whole problem is women were never supposed to be deciding what they want in the first place. We flag the internal contradictions in both. Then we ask the question nobody in this conversation is asking: not what men do — but who men are. We wrap that in the Gospel, and it gets deep. In the interludes: the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is now blue. We have thoughts. Also — Trump's 250-foot triumphal arch modeled on the Arc de Triomphe. We have more thoughts. We close with Girl Problems. - Should relationships ever have breaks? - How liberal is too liberal? And we're officially on a mission to find Dan a girlfriend. Email approachthebenchquestions@gmail.com or submit a voice memo at https://www.speakpipe.com/approachthebench to be featured on the show. Anonymous submissions: https://forms.gle/9Zjxzkpwajivx19z8 00:00 Introduction 07:09 Are Men Useless? 53:03 DC is Getting a Makeover - good or bad? 1:06:23 Influencer vs. Influencer 1:14:54 Girl Problems

A Rare Inside Look at the Life of a Harvard Law Professor (w/ Professor Jesse Fried) | ATB #31

WEEK 31: Inside the Life of a Harvard Law Professor. Welcome to Newton, MA. This week, we sit down with Professor Jesse Fried — William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, author of Pay Without Performance, expert witness in major corporate litigation, and a man who has been associated with this institution in some form for nearly four decades. Then we get into the main event: what does a Harvard Law professor actually do all day? We walk through Professor Fried's path step by step — Harvard undergrad, economics master's, HLS, a brief stop at a law firm, an Olin Fellowship, Berkeley, and finally back to Cambridge. Was academia always the plan? What made him leave practice? What did the Harvard hiring process actually look like — and did they take him out to dinner? From there, we press into some more fine-tuned questions. Most law professors have barely practiced law — is that a problem? What does a scholar bring to the classroom that a practitioner can't? We dig into what the job actually looks like: how much time goes into prepping a four-credit class with 100 students, how long grading takes, how he divides his time between teaching and research, and what it feels like to take academic work into a real courtroom as an expert witness. We also get into faculty governance — which we've heard can be quite the mess. Then we pull back for the big picture. Harvard is always in the news. Does it affect the day-to-day? What actually makes this place work — and would Professor Fried encourage students to come here? We close with the classics. An AI interlude — corporate law is one of the fields people think AI will hit hardest. Does Professor Fried buy that? Also, what class should be cut from the 1L courses, and which class should be added? And then Girl Problems: should you start a business with your significant other? Do HBS students really need prenups? And what has studying corporate law taught him about romance? Email approachthebenchquestions@gmail.com with your questions/comments or submit a voice memo at https://www.speakpipe.com/approachthebench for a chance to be featured on the show! You can also submit anonymous comments through this Google Form: https://forms.gle/9Zjxzkpwajivx19z8 00:00 Introduction 04:57 The Professor’s Backstory 11:58 Starting at Harvard Law 18:35 The day-to-day at Harvard Law (and some advice) 48:55 Should the Podcast be a Partnership or LLC? 50:46 AI in Corporate Law 1:03:18 1L Classes 1:05:52 Girl Problems