Torts/Personal Injury, Health Care, Pharmaceuticals, Biotech, Civil Litigation
AB 35: Too little, too late
By Allen P. Wilkinson
AB 35 appears to be an attempt to mollify plaintiffs’ attorneys and victims’ advocates by giving them one small piece of the pie.
Law Practice, Ethics/Professional Responsibility, Appellate Practice
California courts sanction attorney misconduct
By Jeffrey P. Blum
In a stinging opinion, the Court of Appeals noted that letting the Court know you believe it is wrong, even forcefully, is acc...
Real Estate/Development, Land Use, Contracts
Job order contracting and public works projects
By Garret D. Murai
JOC contracting is a project delivery method used on public works projects and has been authorized to be used by California K-...
Concurrent with the 1971 State Bar Convention, the group hosted a cocktail party and was able to corral a number of sitting ju...
Labor/Employment, Corporate
California Board of Directors Diversity Law violates equal protection
By Leigh A. White, Ryan P. Snyder
In its ruling, the court recognized that while having a heterogenous board may be a valid goal, the Equal Protection Clause pr...
Judges and Judiciary
It’s Time to End Contested Superior Court Judicial Elections
By Michael L. Stern
It is believed that one veteran judge was defeated because she listed herself on the ballot as an “incumbent” and voters may n...
Law Practice, Criminal
School Refusal Is Not Truancy
By Mary-Kate Kelledy, Adam Wasserman
Although multiple calls were made to the district to ask for help, nothing was done. Days, weeks, and months eventually passed...
U.S. Supreme Court, Torts/Personal Injury
Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza decision is helpful for looted art claimants, but is not a silver bullet
By Wendy Dickieson
The Cassirer case will be remanded to the lower court, which will decide the heirs’ claims based on the property laws of Calif...
Tax lawyers look to George M. Cohan for a different kind of legacy – an “I’ll take you to court” audacity that is as American ...
Legal Education, Government
Fact or fiction? Reopening 1860 investigation could clear Hastings’ name
By Kris Whitten
We have developed a process in our legal system which is designed to find the truth through the painstaking, often tedious and...
Law Practice, Judges and Judiciary, Appellate Practice
Biting the hand that feeds me Part 2: Calendar memos?
By Myron Moskovitz
Believe the Presiding Justice’s speech at your peril. It might be so, and it probably is so. But I’ve seen and participated in...
U.S. Supreme Court, Ethics/Professional Responsibility
The justices’ ethical lapses? We’re talking about more than Clarence Thomas
By Gabe Roth
We should be embarrassed that the institution as a whole isn’t doing enough to maintain the public’s trust – at a time the Cou...
Law Practice, Appellate Practice
I’m just asking or the fear of offense
By Arthur Gilbert
Sensitivity to the legitimate feelings and sensibilities of others is a necessity and a moral obligation as we become aware of...
Torts/Personal Injury, California Courts of Appeal
Appeals court overturns ruling shielding third-party vendor from duty of care to customers
By Logan Quirk
The Court found there was no reason based on any special foreseeability concerns to depart from the usual duty to exercise rea...
Government, Contracts, Constitutional Law
Florida flirts with fascism
By Eric B. Kingsley
The marketplace of ideas is supposed to flourish and the antidote to speech you disagree with is more speech to counter it. Li...
U.S. Supreme Court, Government, Civil Rights, California Courts of Appeal
Voting rights – The California and U.S. Supreme courts are on a collision course
By Bruce A. Wessel
Vote dilution under state law is the issue before the California Supreme Court, specifically what a plaintiff must prove “to e...
Government
Stop paying attention to the Mayor’s race, the City Attorney has the real power
By Marissa Roy
With less than 5% of the Office’s 500 attorneys devoted to affirmative litigation, the next City Attorney is poised to dramati...
Legal Education, Law Practice, Appellate Practice
Passim, and its abolition
By Michael J. Raphael
When that rule change goes into effect, it will terminate the use of passim in the nation’s highest court. But there is someth...
Litigation & Arbitration, Ethics/Professional Responsibility
The most important question
By Fred Bennett
Intelligence, of course, is power, which in the choosing of arbitrators, comes down to intelligence ethically obtained - espec...
Judges and Judiciary, Government
A just society: No person, government official, or governmental entity is above the law…most of the time
By A. Marco Turk
Trump appointed fifty-four federal appellate judges in his four years in office, one short of the fifty-five nominated by form...
A battle seemed inevitable until, by happenstance, a column of 50 U.S. Cavalrymen on a routine march from San Diego arrived in...
Litigation & Arbitration
When the Show Must Go Online, Revisited: Some Things We’ve Learned from Two Years of Arbitration by Videoconference
By Christopher David Ruiz Cameron
When proceedings move online, they become less formal. With less formality comes less worry about everything from performance ...
Litigation & Arbitration
Arbitration Angle: Judicial Review of Arbitration Injunctions
By Gary A. Watt
The parties bargained for arbitration, and, in turn, a different set of rules.
Labor/Employment
California Women Lawyers support board diversity laws
By Ana M. Storey
When SB 826 was enacted, 29 percent of California public companies had no women on their boards. By March 2021, the percentage...
State Bar & Bar Associations
Towards a Tougher State Bar Audit
By Antonio R. Sarabia II
It seems the audit is more likely to lead to agency bloat than improved efficiency.
Real Estate/Development, Land Use, Government
Someday your price will come? Really?
By Michael M. Berger
The government got its project. In the process, private property was taken. After a trial, that property was valued, and the g...
Law Practice, Appellate Practice
Demystifying Conservatorship
By Matthew D. Kanin
Current conservatorship law neither implies nor requires a finding that a person is wholly incompetent. Eligibility for conser...
Litigation & Arbitration, Environmental & Energy
Groundwater adjudication cases are best resolved through mediation
By Patrick J. Walsh
Just last year, the Fifth District Court of Appeal issued a decision in Antelope Valley Groundwater Cases v. Los Angeles Count...