Reform the Court and Your Love Life (Summer 2026 Mailbag) [TEASER]

The 5-4 team dreams up a bigger, better Supreme Court, gives advice to overachieving undergrads and late-blooming law students, and clears up confusion about Rhiannon’s finances. Thanks for all of your questions, and for being a Premium member! 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. This episode was produced by Alli Rodgers. Leon Neyfakh provides editorial support. Our website was designed by Peter Murphy. Our artwork is by Teddy Blanks at Chips NY, and our theme song is by Spatial Relations. Transcriptions of each episode are available at fivefourpod.com https://fivefourpod.com Follow the show at @fivefourpod on most platforms. On BlueSky, find Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social, Michael @fleerultra.bsky.social, and Rhiannon @aywarhiannon.bsky.social. Our Sponsors: * Check out Mint Mobile and use my code mintmobile.com/fivefour for a great deal: https://www.mintmobile.com * Check out Quince and use my code FIVEFOUR for a great deal: https://www.quince.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Speaker 00

  Hey, everyone. This is Leon from Prolog Projects. On this subscriber-only episode of Five to Four, Peter, Rhiannon, and Michael are answering your questions. And as per usual, you had a lot of them. About everything from court reform and law school social dynamics to sleeping with the enemy and Rhiannon's financial literacy. The hosts have advice for the young and the old, for the gunners and the gooners. Some of you will be praised, many will be scolded. This is Five to Four, a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks.

• 0:43Peter Shamshiri?

  Welcome to Five to Four, where we dissect and analyze the Supreme Court cases that have infringed upon our civil rights, like Patagonia infringing upon Patagonia's trademark. I'm Peter. I'm here with Rhiannon.

• 0:56Speaker 02

  Hey, everybody.

• 0:57Peter Shamshiri?

  And Michael.

• 0:58Michael Liroff?

  Hi. Yeah, if you're not in the know, Patty Gonia is a drag queen who is in a legal battle with Patagonia, the outdoor apparel company.

• 1:11Peter Shamshiri?

  Yeah.

• 1:12Michael Liroff?

  And I think we know who's gonna win this one.

• 1:14Peter Shamshiri?

  Yeah. It's been a little bit of an online drama because she like, she's trying to win in the streets.

• 1:21Michael Liroff?

  Right.

• 1:22Peter Shamshiri?

  She's like, you know, posting videos on Instagram or whatever, takes on Instagram.

• 1:26Speaker 02

  What is she trying to get? She wants a trademark on Patagonia, her drag name.

• 1:32Peter Shamshiri?

  Yes. And she's trying to sell like outdoorsy merch under that name.

• 1:38Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:39Peter Shamshiri?

  And like partner with Patagonia's competitors. It's such a clear loss. The internet has started to turn against her, rightfully.

• 1:48Michael Liroff?

  Right.

• 1:49Peter Shamshiri?

  But yeah, and Patagonia is suing to enforce their trademark. They're suing for a dollar. So like, it's clear the only thing they actually want is enforcement of the trademark. If you look at the suit... There are like past communications from a few years ago where they like agreed mutually to like, here's how I'm going to use the name. Here's what I'm not going to do. And now she's violating the terms of that agreement.

• 2:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:14Peter Shamshiri?

  So we had a few people ask about this, and this is a listener question episode spoiler. I don't really have a ton of thoughts because I don't know a lot about trademark law. Don't let my A minus in trademark fool you. I have no recollection, not even a little bit.

• 2:28Michael Liroff?

  Yeah, I don't know a ton. I've looked into this more than I care to just for this episode. My understanding is that Patty wants to do a collab with North Face.

• 2:42Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 2:42Michael Liroff?

  And North Face has a requirement that their collaborators have a trademark, hence the effort to trademark Patty Gonia and related apparel. But the, the problem is it's just too similar.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:58Michael Liroff?

  There is a Supreme Court case about this because people are saying, well, it's a parody.

• 3:01Peter Shamshiri?

  Trademark parody is not this. It's not, it's not like a copyright issue.

• 3:05Michael Liroff?

  Right.

• 3:05Peter Shamshiri?

  A lot of laypeople in the TikTok comments don't understand the difference between trademark and copyright. And I gotta say, it's driving my lawyer brain a little bit nuts. I'm like, nope, it's not, it's not the same. Actually, I'm almost hopping in there.

• 3:20Michael Liroff?

  This was like with Jack Daniels that remember this, where there people were making like dog toy, Jack Daniels.

• 3:25Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. We talked about that case on the podcast.

• 3:28Michael Liroff?

  Yeah. And so like the, the trademark analysis was basically like, look, if something's a parody, the question is still confusion and whether or not people would believe like Jack Daniels actually produced this. And so the question is, would people believe Patagonia produced these Patty Gonia things with a Patagonia logo on them or something that looks something exactly like the Patagonia logo? And the answer is yeah, people would be like, oh, that looks like a little collab between my favorite outdoor woke apparel brand and.

• 4:00Peter Shamshiri?

  Right.

• 4:00Michael Liroff?

  And a drag queen, right? Like, I think that's such a simple analysis.

• 4:03Peter Shamshiri?

  Small correction, though. She's not using the same logo. There's.

• 4:06Speaker 04

  Hey folks, if you want to hear the rest of this episode, you're going to have to subscribe. This episode is one of our premium Patreon only episodes. Membership starts at just five bucks a month. If you want to hear the rest, join us at patreon.com/54pod. That's 54pod all spelled out. Members get a bunch of stuff, not only. You get access to the premium episodes, but access to subscriber only events, discounts on merch, and at the $10 a month level, you get bigger discounts on merch and membership in the incredibly rowdy 54 Slack. So again, that's patreon.com/54pod, 54pod all spelled out. Become a member today.