U.S. Supreme Court, Constitutional Law, Civil Rights
Another take on Cake at the US high court
By Julie A. Werner-Simon
So here’s where we are in Masterpiece Cakeshop: The lineup of eight of the justices is pretty clear, 4-to-4.
Civil Litigation, Law Practice, Appellate Practice
Some rulings show the lighter side of the law
By Gary A. Watt
Much of our lives as litigators is lived in a stressful place somewhere between dread and desire regarding client vindication....
Civil Litigation, Law Practice, California Supreme Court
Testing extension statutes in the age of PACER
By Charles A. Bird
Are they needed after the advent of PACER and electronic service? Many would argue they are not. But if they are obsolete, the...
Health Care & Hospital Law, Corporate, Constitutional Law, Administrative/Regulatory, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Sugar-sweetened drinks & the First Amendment
By Amy P. Lally
From coast to coast, cities have responded to products raising public health concerns with laws that are intended to compel co...
Tax, Government, Corporate
A closer look at the new Republican tax framework
By Phil Jelsma
Who will benefit from the Trump administration and congressional Republicans’ recently proposed overhaul of the tax code? That...
Government, California Supreme Court, Administrative/Regulatory
Next steps for agencies after public-private email decision
By Derek P. Cole, Dennis M. Cota
A city manager’s personal cellphone buzzes in the early morning hours with notice of a string of urgent texts advising about t...
The Fair Punishment Project, a group affiliated with HLS, supposedly reviewed over 150 court decisions from 2010 to 2015 invol...
Law Practice, California Supreme Court, State Bar & Bar Associations, Antitrust & Trade Reg.
State Bar on antitrust: Close but no cigar
By Robert C. Fellmeth
The California Supreme Court just issued an extraordinary en banc “Administrative Order” imposing a new “State Bar Antitrust P...
U.S. Supreme Court, Securities, Corporate
Justices should recognize that silence IS golden
By Jordan Eth, Amani S. Floyd
For more than two decades, the Supreme Court has been emphasizing that the implied private right of action under Section 10(b)...
Securities, Government, Corporate, Administrative/Regulatory
SEC announces creation of new ‘Cyber Unit’
By Nicolas Morgan, Robert Silvers
Chairman Jay Clayton of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has reaffirmed that “[c]ybersecurity is an area that is vi...
Law Practice, Immigration
Rapid response from solo immigration attorneys
By Hamid Yazdan Panah
The Northern California Rapid Response Network is one of a number of collaboratives in California, focused on bringing togeth...
Tax, Securities, Corporate
Tax exclusions and gains from sale of emerging company stock
By David Strong
The Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015, aka the PATH Act, amended Section 1202 of the Internal Revenue Code to pe...
U.S. Supreme Court, Criminal, Constitutional Law
Guilty pleas and defendant rights
By David W. Fermino, Lyn R. Agre
The Supreme Court should take the opportunity in Class v. United States to resolve the question of what rights remain to chall...
U.S. Supreme Court, Civil Litigation, Constitutional Law
When is it not a constitutional taking case?
By Michael M. Berger
This month’s column will take a little detour and will analyze some misbegotten cases that lawyers sought to frame as takings ...
U.S. Supreme Court, Labor/Employment, Corporate
NLRB shouldn’t invalidate facially neutral work rules
By Mark S. Ross
The Supreme Court should abandon the “reasonably construe” test and find that the NLRA does not reach facially neutral work ru...
U.S. Supreme Court, Labor/Employment, Corporate
Justices should clarify joint employment rules
By Thomas O'Connell, Tristan R. Kirk
To say that there is lack of uniformity across the various circuit courts would be a vast understatement, as nearly every circ...
U.S. Supreme Court, Intellectual Property, Corporate, Constitutional Law
Inter partes reviews and property rights
By Kenneth M. Goldman
The Supreme Court will likely have to affirmatively decide this key public vs. private rights issue in Oil States v. Greene's ...
When high-tech cryptocurrencies meet low-tech scammers
By Justin Wales
Because the blockchain — the public ledger that keeps track of the history of each coin — is decentralized and requires so muc...
Law Practice
The collision of VR, big data and the law
By Shannon Yavorsky, Kimberly Culp
Right now, as far as I know, robots are not taxed. However, that could change, and California seems likely to be the state wit...
Administrative/Regulatory
We need an agreed upon set of rules for artificial intelligence
By James Cooper
U.S. Supreme Court, Immigration, Criminal, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Precision in immigration law is paramount
By Jeffrey L. Bornstein, Andrew G. Spore
This term, the U.S. Supreme Court will rehear argument in the case of James Garcia Dimaya. Briefed and argued in the 2016 term...
U.S. Supreme Court, Civil Litigation, Appellate Practice
Filing deadlines and jurisdictional consequences
By Kenneth M. Trujillo-Jamison
Hamer v. Neighborhood Housing Services asks: If a party files a notice of appeal within an extended time period set forth in a...
U.S. Supreme Court, Criminal
High court should clarify scope of CFAA
By Jamie Lee Williams
The justices should take up U.S. v. Nosal to clarify the scope of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act -- the statute was intended...
U.S. Supreme Court, Securities, Civil Litigation, Corporate, Administrative/Regulatory, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Justices can clarify meaning of ‘whistleblower’
By Daniel A. Saunders, Brittany J. Shugart
In Somers v. Digital Realty Trust, the Supreme Court will address whether Dodd-Frank provides a cause of action to employees w...
U.S. Supreme Court, Intellectual Property, Corporate, Constitutional Law
Could court bring dead patents back to life?
By Andrew Grossman
There is the possibility that chaos and turmoil will reign if the Supreme Court finds inter partes reviews unconstitutional in...
U.S. Supreme Court, Government, Criminal, Administrative/Regulatory
How the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is being misused
By Jason S. Leiderman
Last month I discussed how the CFAA has strayed from its roots. This month, I want to discuss examples of how the act is being...
In the wake of increasing financial volatility, internal company scandals and difficulties associated with meeting performance...
Insurance
Questions of satisfying ‘self-insured retention’ keep coming up
By Dominic Nesbitt
Many liability policies require the satisfaction of a designated dollar amount, usually described as a “self-insured retention...
U.S. Supreme Court, Immigration, Constitutional Law
Supreme insights from the travel ban
By Anna-Rose Mathieson
The fast-paced litigation surrounding the travel ban provides some takeaways about Supreme Court practice.