Labor/Employment
October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month
By Areta K. Guthrey
Law schools and bar associations don’t accurately track the numbers of students and lawyers with disabilities, and the stigma ...
U.S. Supreme Court, Environmental & Energy
Bees, fish and the California Endangered Species Act
By Brendan Cummings
Protecting All Species Under the Fish and Game Code
Rarely have Joe Biden and Clarence Thomas agreed upon anything. But their mutual recognition that something must be done to li...
Litigation & Arbitration, Data Privacy
The advantages of arbitrating data breach disputes
By Daniel B. Garrie, Gail A. Andler
Arbitration is a private hearing and has the advantage of keeping the proceedings confidential, which can be crucial when deal...
Law Practice, Health Care & Hospital Law
Healthcare licensing hearings are now almost entirely virtual
By Benjamin J. Fenton
For better or worse virtual hearings have become the norm in administrative and regulatory trials and there are no signs of it...
Real Estate/Development, Civil Litigation
Resolving criminal nuisance properties through civil litigation
By Ryan Griffith
When a drug house burdens a community, an enforcement agency should explore Drug Abatement/Red Light Abatement Actions.
International Law, Government, Constitutional Law
The queen, Colonialism and the reality of America’s own expansionism
By Julie A. Werner-Simon
America treats over 3.5 million American citizens living in its territories as stepchildren – denying them representation in C...
California Supreme Court
California Supreme Court Review: September 2022
By Alexis S. Coll, Ariel E. Rogers
Companies that market expressive works should avoid relying on anti-SLAPP to protect promotional claims and should be mindful ...
The Onion’s brief can fairly be described as a parody of a Supreme Court brief. Reading it raises the interesting question tha...
With backup withholding, when you file your tax return you are trying to get the IRS and the FTB to apply the withheld money t...
California’s Family Law Courts are quietly changing how they serve divorcing couples and their families. Here’s an easy fix.
Technology, Labor/Employment
When does workplace AI cross the line?
By Ronald L. Zambrano
Employees who are monitored at their computers report feeling compelled to hit the keys just to register activity, while wareh...
Labor/Employment, Civil Litigation
Sexual harassment and remote work: a new world with the same standards
By Shannon H.P. Ward
Over the last year, harassers, predators, and thoughtless co-workers alike have found their way into communicating their inapp...
Contracts
This may be the year the Talent Agencies Act is properly enforced
By Rick Siegel
Sending a personal manager to the Labor Commissioner for procuring employment for an artist is like sending someone to traffic...
Letters
There is a jurisdictional split on whether cities are liable for a failure to warn
By Daniel P. Barer
U.S. Supreme Court, Intellectual Property
Warhol, Prince and the future of copyright
By Bennett A. Bigman
As new technology develops, it seems that the requirement of human expression, whether in creating an original work or transfo...
Law Practice, Ethics/Professional Responsibility, Appellate Practice
Modernize your law practice
By Alanna G. Clair, Shari L. Klevens
Automated time entry and billing have replaced old billing techniques like timeslips and repetitive time review with computer-...
Law Practice, Appellate Practice
Presentation of defense evidence at State Court preliminary hearing
By Dmitry Gorin, Alan Eisner
A preliminary hearing provides important tools, sometimes overlooked, for an aggressive defense approach before trial.
At times those techniques seemed counterintuitive to litigators like me, but I can tell you from personal experience, what Mr....
Insurance, Government
Higher auto liability limits are just a start
By Allen Patatanyan
It is too soon to celebrate. Bureaucratic challenges associated with insurance rate changes will delay implementation of the n...
What we don’t know yet is what other birth defects or conditions will develop in the children of parents who were exposed to t...
The legal community has lost another giant.
Civil Litigation, Antitrust & Trade Reg.
Trade secret litigation surges
By Thomas Wallerstein
It’s not over yet, but 2022 already has proven to be another blockbuster year for trade secret litigation. Between big verdict...
U.S. Supreme Court, Law Practice, California Supreme Court, Appellate Practice
Scare(y) Decisis: reversing rights and wrongs
By Benjamin G. Shatz
If stare decisis is too readily discarded, then the Constitution becomes “nothing more than what five Justices say it is” at a...
Tax, Family
Become the beneficiary of your own children’s trust
By Bruce Givner, Owen Kaye
A parent’s ability to become beneficiaries of a trust set up for their children is a powerful tool – and a way to reassure cl...
Torts/Personal Injury, Government, Civil Litigation
Design immunity doesn’t always shield liability from failure to warn
By Garret D. Murai
There is a separate body of law that butts up against government code design immunity protections, which provides that a publi...
Torts/Personal Injury, Insurance
Liability for injuries caused by domestic animals
By Reza Torkzadeh, Allen P. Wilkinson
If the injuries to or death of a person are due to the actions of an animal that had theretofore been of peaceable disposition...
Judges and Judiciary, California Courts of Appeal
Biting the hand – redux
By Myron Moskovitz
Bring in appellate counsel to consult while the case is still in the trial court if your later and ultimate goal is to ...
U.S. Supreme Court, Intellectual Property
The ones to watch: patent cases this Supreme Court term
By Patrick Maloney, Michelle E. Armond
Not a single patent appeal was heard last term. This year, some IP cases may get the golden ticket.
Judges and Judiciary, Civil Litigation
Trending: courts bifurcating trials to resolve legal issues
By Louie H. Castoria, Marrianne Taleghani
Judges have been bifurcating trials sua sponte to dispose of legal issues first, which may encourage settlements as to the rem...