Real Estate/Development, Land Use
Vacant commercial spaces hold the answer to affordable housing
By Sheri L. Bonstelle
Can the new state and local adaptive reuse laws incentivize residential conversion of underutilized office buildings and retai...
Criminal
Introduction to money laundering: What it is, how to spot it
By William Tolin Gay
Money laundering turns illegal proceeds into seemingly legitimate funds through financial sleight of hand.
9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Gopher Media and the withering of anti-SLAPP in federal court
By Jessica N. Meyers
The 9th Circuit's confirmation that anti-SLAPP denials are not immediately appealable in federal court continues a line of cas...
Labor/Employment
No ghost in the machine: Employers responsible for AI tools
By Kacey R. Riccomini
The California Legislature has enacted a slew of AI regulations for employers to contend with, increasing litigation risks and...
Retirement plan disclosures are about to get less digital and more complicated, as the Labor Department's proposal would requi...
California divorce used to be about houses and bank accounts--now it's crypto wallets, equity grants and digital empires.
Letters
Ethics and evidence guided the dismissal of the Riley-Robicheaux case
By Shawn C. Holley
District Attorney Todd Spitzer did his job: justice, not conviction, won in the Riley-Robicheaux case.
Sometimes the strongest litigation strategy is staying silent--strategically choosing not to respond to weak, irrelevant, or l...
Labor/Employment
Agreements chilling employee mobility continue to face scrutiny
By Melanie L. Ronen
California law now bars noncompetes and "stay or pay" clauses that restrict employee mobility, reinforcing its strong public p...
Technology, Judges and Judiciary
AI's impact in California courts and why judges and the legislature are at odds
By Mark S. Adams, Sharon R. Klein
California's judiciary and legislature are in a high-stakes dispute over the use of AI in courts, balancing judges' independen...
Using examples from tennis, fly-fishing, and other games, the piece explores how understanding a game's rules, goals, and metr...
Technology, Labor/Employment
When AI touches employment decisions, California will want receipts
By Mark Meyerhoff, Chase Booth
As AI takes on a bigger role in the workplace, California is sending a clear warning: when it comes to hiring, firing, and dis...
Reliance on algorithmic decision-making risks eroding human judgment, judicial integrity and the intellectual craftsmanship th...
Torts/Personal Injury, Ethics/Professional Responsibility
ChatGPT on trial: A landmark test of AI liability in the practice of law
By Courtney Curtis-Ives
In Nippon Life Insurance Company of America v. OpenAI, Nippon alleges that after settling her claim and dismissing he...
Space Law/Aviation/Aerospace
Advanced Air Mobility's potential for litigation - Part 5
By Robert Ehling
AAM takes flight, and so does litigation--from IP skirmishes to vertiport battles, the next aviation revolution comes with leg...
Judges and Judiciary, Criminal
A second look at sentencing should not be a coin toss
By Orly Ahrony
To resentence or not to resentence: The question courts face under amended Penal Code Section 1172.1.
Evidence, Ethics/Professional Responsibility
The illusion of the confidant: When the chat window feels like privilege but isn't
By James Mixon
Bradley Heppner typed his defense strategy into a chat window. Thirty-one documents later, the prosecution had them. A federal...
Illinois v. Trump highlights the clash between federal power and state control over the National Guard, showing how t...
Wills, Estates & Trusts
When trustees engage in untrustworthy acts
By Clifford L. Klein
Trustees have a legal duty to manage trusts carefully, loyally, and in accordance with the governing document and applicable l...
U.S. Supreme Court, Immigration
No president should have the power to rewrite birthright citizenship
By Allan Lee Dollison
The Supreme Court is considering whether President Trump can use an executive order to reinterpret the 14th Amendment and unde...
Ethics/Professional Responsibility
Generative AI prompts create risk of waving privilege
By Anita Taff-Rice
An emerging split in the courts raises questions about whether AI prompts are subject to discovery.
Banking
Here we go again: Market woes foretell of forthcoming defaults
By Marianne Martin, Bennett G. Young
With mounting economic pressure ahead of Q1 2026 reporting, lenders and borrowers should act now to manage covenant risk and p...
Ethics/Professional Responsibility
COPRAC's AI warning highlights legal industry's accountability gap
By Christian Puzder
California's bar ethics committee has a new warning for attorneys using AI -- but the real problem isn't hallucinations, it's ...
Torts/Personal Injury, Ethics/Professional Responsibility
Who's liable when ChatGPT gives bad legal advice?
By Nathaniel S. Brown III
As AI becomes part of routine legal practice, the Nippon Life suit squarely presents whether AI-generated legal advice can exp...
Immigration, Constitutional Law
The misuse of federal Indian law in the birthright citizenship debate
By Jack Duran
The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, guarantees that anyone born or naturalized in the United States is a citizen and ensures...
Labor/Employment, Constitutional Law, Administrative/Regulatory, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
9th Circuit rejects Uber and Instacart's free speech challenge to worker deactivation law
By Roland M. Juarez, Andrea Oguntula
The court upheld Seattle's App-Based Worker Deactivation Rights Ordinance, rejecting Uber and Instacart's constitutional chall...
The second wave of AI litigation will focus on agentic software and bot battles, raising novel legal issues across CFAA, copyr...
Technology
Personalized pricing lawsuits face uphill battle for class certification
By Joanna Rosen Forster
Consumer Law, Class Action
Statutory damages and enforcement fuel growth in privacy, consumer class actions
By John A. Vogt, Ryan D. Ball
Data Privacy
Why privacy law needs specialized courts in California
By Jennifer L. Keller, Akhil Sheth