On July 17, 1944, a ship being loaded with bombs and ammunition near San Francisco Bay exploded, instantly killing 320 men and...
Understanding your client’s expectations, learning more about your client’s perceptions of the legal system and your client’s ...
Law Practice, Alternative Dispute Resolution
Managing the mayhem of multiparty mediation
By Robert S. Mann
Mutliparty cases present special challenges for not only the mediator, but also the lawyers, their clients and the insurance c...
Law Practice, Government
Bounties for enforcing public values are hardly novel
By Richard A. Schulman
What might be novel is that a state with opposing politics, i.e., Texas, decided to use the same system.
Government, Environmental & Energy
California must use authority to accelerate clean car future
By Scott Hochberg
California has its clean car authority back. Now the question is how aggressively it will wield that newly restored power to p...
Alternative Dispute Resolution
Exchanging mediation briefs: The simplest path to success
By Robert M. Cohen
Had Vince Lombardi coached mediators and not football players, his famous proverb might sound something like this: “Great comm...
Law Practice, Alternative Dispute Resolution
Small and solo firms: Level the playing field through mediation
By Alice M. Graham, Jan Frankel Schau
By harnessing the power of mediation, the sole or small firm practitioner can drive home the options if an agreement is not re...
Insurance, Civil Litigation, California Supreme Court
High court declines to review whether COVID can cause property damage
By Rani Gupta, David B. Goodwin
On March 10, the California Supreme Court announced that it has declined to weigh in — for now — on the biggest brewing insura...
The Los Angeles DA’s epiphany that his blanket Youth Justice Policy was a mistake is little solace to the families of murder v...
Technology, Data Privacy
CPRA will give consumers tools needed to enforce privacy rights
By Anita Taff-Rice
The California Consumer Privacy Act, widely hailed as the most stringent consumer privacy law in the country, has produced a m...
U.S. Supreme Court, Criminal, Constitutional Law
You Complete Me
By Brian M. Hoffstadt
In a recent ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court penned the latest chapter in what might be called “The Chronicles of Crawford.”
Law Practice, Civil Litigation
Man plans, and God laughs: The emotions of litigation
By Scott J. Nord
Over the past year, I have written about myriad litigation-related topics — yet, I have never written about the litigants them...
For countless law enforcement agencies, the scope of disclosures they are legally required to make often turns on what constit...
Law Practice, Criminal, Constitutional Law
Can journalists remain after declaration of an unlawful assembly?
By Daniel S. Roberts
When Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the Senate Bill 98, media groups hailed its passage and reported that it “exempts media professi...
Law Practice, Appellate Practice
Trial court winners can become appellate court losers
By Myron Moskovitz
Trial lawyers juggle many balls at once — and the balls keep changing as the case moves along. Appellants’ lawyers are on a di...
Law Practice, Covid Columns
How the pandemic changed the legal landscape
By Brian S. Kabateck
With the threat of COVID not entirely behind us yet, it’s crucial now more than ever to embrace the changes the pandemic has b...
Tax audits are unnerving and can be expensive. Even if you end up with the coveted “no change” letter that is the stuff of leg...
U.S. Supreme Court, Judges and Judiciary
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in the arc of history
By Jay Koh
Last month, President Joe Biden nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court. On Monday, the Senate Judicia...
Torts/Personal Injury, Law Practice, Covid Columns, Civil Litigation
COVID-19 negligent exposure cases: Not a plaintiff’s paradise
By J. Kevin Morrison, Noah A. Phillips
While the factual circumstances underlying COVID-19 negligence lawsuits may be as novel as the virus itself and often present ...
Labor/Employment
Employment law’s future in the remote-controlled workplace
By Robert J. Hudock
Along with all the other social impacts, the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly reshaped the workplace and much of employment...
Legal Education, Constitutional Law
Legislature cannot constitutionally remove 'Hastings' name
By Kris Whitten
Under Article IX, section 9, the Legislature has no authority to rename the college, and that constitutional provision more br...
Environmental & Energy, Administrative/Regulatory
NEM 3.0 final design will determine fate of California’s solar market
By Addison Berry, Elizabeth Levin
Though a fair amount of uncertainty remains about the timing and final design of NEM 3.0, the critical question is whether sta...
Government, Criminal
Our public defender offices must be fully funded and staffed
By Christine Rodriguez Tyler
Nearly 60 years after the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Gideon v. Wainwright, we still see public defender offices across t...
Labor/Employment
Sexual harassment and FEHA: The shrinking scope of arbitration and confidentiality clauses
By Steven H. Kruis
Recent changes in federal and state law that shrink the scope of arbitration and confidentiality clauses will affect how cases...
Labor/Employment
Courts should dismiss PAGA suits when plaintiff isn’t competent
By Chet Kronenberg, Jacob Waschak
Let’s say a PAGA plaintiff has a past felony conviction for armed robbery or is going to be incarcerated during the pendency o...
I wish I could name two or three factors to look for, but alas, there isn’t a checklist or litmus test for identifying wrongfu...
Consumer Law, California Supreme Court, California Courts of Appeal
Subrogated guarantors should get all the fruits of underlying obligations
By Suzanne Span
Subrogation is commonly described as a legal device that allows one person to "step into the shoes" of another in relation to ...
U.S. Supreme Court, Government
Supreme Court unanimously bolsters the state-secrets doctrine
By Elizabeth M. Pipkin
Since 9/11, the circumstances in which agencies have wielded this doctrine have become increasingly less exceptional. A recent...
Data Privacy, Criminal, Constitutional Law
California’s feeble privacy right is cold comfort
By Brandon V. Stracener, David A. Carrillo
San Francisco’s District Attorney Chesa Boudin recently revealed that the city’s police department has a practice of saving DN...