This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm Adam Howard, filling in for David Remnick.

In the last few years, a rash of conservative decisions have come out of the U.S. Supreme Court.

But this rightward turn didn't happen overnight, nor was it inevitable.

WNYC's On the Media is taking a closer look at one of the chief architects of the modern judiciary, Leonard Leo,

and a three-part series called We Don't Talk About Leonard.

On the media's Brook Gladstone has more.

The court has ruled that states can decide whether abortion should be legal or illegal.

Roe versus Wade is history.

The conservative majority on today's Supreme Court has been redefining Americans'

constitutional rights in one decision after another, and one largely unknown man has played

an outsized role in making it so.

Leonard Leo has single-handedly changed to the face of the judiciary. This is on the media.

I'm Brooke Gladstone. This week, an investigation into the man who spent decades working toward

a conservative takeover of America's courts, because this is about way more than just the U.S. Supreme Court.

The rights revolution in the United States didn't happen just because you magically got

five justices on the court who agreed with you.

It's all coming up after this.

From WNYC in New York, this is on the media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

Oh, yay, oh, yay, oh, yay. Next week, on the first Monday in October, the Supreme Court will be open for business.

God save the United States and this honorable court. Whatever the court decides in the

upcoming term, the body led by Chief Justice John Roberts has already radically changed American life.

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