Law Practice, Judges and Judiciary, State Bar & Bar Associations
Dissolving legal barriers (Part 1)
Trial judges and appellate justices rarely interact across their courts. Judges and lawyers have sporadic, desultory contact a...
Civil Litigation, California Supreme Court, California Courts of Appeal, Alternative Dispute Resolution
Heimlich relief for 998 offers
Attorneys may be surprised to learn that there is no clear roadmap when it comes to employing the cost-shifting mechanisms of ...
This conundrum presents these attorneys with a veritable Sophie's Choice: assert their legal claims and disclose privileged in...
Lawyers might want to keep in mind that what appears to be a run-of-the-mill employment situation may be anything but. When ve...
Civil Litigation, Law Practice
As of Jan. 1, 2019, a key component of settlement agreements in California — the release of unknown claims and waiver of Civil...
On bats and rules for writing opinions, which I violate with agonizing regularity.
Even if Mark Twain never actually said, “Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over,” nowhere is this maxim better il...
Remedies to the military sexual assault situation require attention by both Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court. Even a presid...
For the past six years (2013-2018), I have counted the number and type of motions that were heard in Department 15. I then pre...
This is my first column for the year 2019. It picks up some themes from my last column in 2018. You might consider the two col...
The Judicial Council has just released for public comment a set of new educational requirements for court-appointed attorneys ...
Environmental & Energy, Administrative/Regulatory
Slaughter-free meat comes with regulatory challenges
It is all but certain that the USDA and FDA will play a role in regulating various aspects of slaughter-free meat, but the det...
When it comes to the movement to reform abusive guardianship and conservatorship systems, there is an advocacy void when it co...
Many civilian lawyers in California join the California State Military Reserve to serve and support the people of California.
U.S. Supreme Court, California Supreme Court, State Bar & Bar Associations
The death knell for integrated bars?
Could last summer’s decision in Janus v. AFSCME, forbidding states from allowing unions to garnish wages of nonmember employee...
This, my last column for the year, leans toward the sentimental, but I hope not the maudlin.
Judges and Judiciary, California Supreme Court
Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today announced Joshua Groban as his choice for associate justice of the California Supreme Court.
Over the years I have participated in so many panel discussions that I lost count. But the panel I was on last week made an im...
Constitutional Law, Civil Rights
The U.S. government began regulating falconers and falconry practices in the 1970s. In 2008, the regulations were modified to ...
When the doors of this fifth principal courthouse opened six decades ago, it was heralded as the "Dream Courthouse" and the "C...
As of Jan. 1, 2019, veterans sentenced prior to Jan. 1, 2015 will have an opportunity to go back to court and ask for a senten...
Native Americans, Family, Constitutional Law, Civil Rights
ICWA is under attack, again
The Indian Child Welfare Act, and potentially tribal sovereignty, suffered a significant setback last week when a federal cour...
This term the Supreme Court has a chance to overturn a decades-old decision that kept many property owners out of federal courts.
October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. For years, law enforcement agencies, social service providers, non-gove...
Take a look around you. Consider what is occurring throughout the country. An uneducated citizenry and one predominantly educa...
There are countless reasons why people who are sexually assaulted or abused do not report what happened: It’s painful. It’s em...
This article not a judgment on the merits of capital punishment or its appropriateness in these cases, which include defendant...
Probate, California Supreme Court
Probate court closed to disinherited trust beneficiaries
In a case of first impression, a California Court of Appeal recently held that only trustees and beneficiaries under a current...
Law Practice, Judges and Judiciary
Walking into the inner sanctum of a judge’s chambers, I immediately felt a sense of awe. Sure it was filled with lots of diplo...
Real Estate/Development, Environmental & Energy, Administrative/Regulatory
The affordable housing crisis in California is longstanding and well known. A recent California Court of Appeal decision addre...