5-4

The 5-4 podcast believes that the judges of the US Supreme Court are not the most clever people. They are in charge of decisions that make the lives of Americans a little bit worse every single day. But they might not be the most impartial and appropriate people to make those judgments. Rhiannon Hamam, Michael Liroff, and Peter Shamshiri believe that they might be smarter than those judges. The hosts plan to showcase that by dissecting the most controversial rulings. It's all in good humor, of course, with a good dose of criticism and objection. The title comes from the votes in the nine-member court on many hard decisions.

The hosts of 5-4 refer to themselves as ticked-off lawyers (that's the cleaned-up version). First, there's Peter. People may know him from X (formerly Twitter) as the Law Boy, the world's "daintiest lawyer." He goes to work every day, and instead of working, he comes up with tweets related to law and politics. Michael is a rehabilitated corporate attorney. Nowadays, he's doing bigger things, like podcasts. Rhiannon is the only one of the three using her degree to make the world a better place. She practices in the South as a public defense attorney, which might even make her angrier at times.

The three decided to start 5-4 as a way to make Supreme Court decisions more accessible to the layman. Right now, it's almost impossible for a regular person to read and understand a ruling. With the amount of jargon and Latin involved, these writings are a mystery. This also makes them appear important and valid when that's not always the case.

The 5-4 hosts wish to dispel the illusion that this institution is apolitical and independent. They want to expose how unobjective it is and the many contradictions it contains. While the discussion is intellectual, it often veers into outrageous. The hosts treat the podcast as their own bar talk. They address the listeners as they would their fellow lawyers after hours. This is sometimes lewd, often angry, and always entertaining.