California Supreme Court
Attorneys should support State Bar's special assessment
By Edward J. Mcintyre
Who wants to receive a dues bill? Honestly, none of us. But unless the California Supreme Court grants the State Bar's petitio...
Law Practice, Ethics/Professional Responsibility
Don't let your firm's digital assets walk out the door
By J. Randolph Evans, Shari L. Klevens
Whether it is a laptop, smartphone, tablet or some combination of those, attorneys' use of and dependency on these items raise...
Law Practice, Judges and Judiciary, Ethics/Professional Responsibility
Walking the thin zealous, ethical advocacy line
By Michele Trausch
Although there are fine ethical lines between the competing responsibilities of zealous advocacy and dishonesty -- fortunately...
Perspective
How to take an effective deposition
Deposition taking is a primary skill of most civil-practice lawyers. On the surface it appears simple and straightfor...
If you live or do business in California, state taxes are a big piece of what you pay. When you add the state's notoriously ag...
Photos of Pokémon alongside Mickey Mouse or Marilyn Monroe will create new and interesting trademark and copyright issues for ...
On Sept. 8, 2015, President Obama nominated Clare Connors, who has served as an assistant U.S. attorney for seven yea...
As we approach the November election, we find ourselves compelled to consider the clowns. And no, not either of the candidates...
If the California Supreme Court orders active California lawyers to fund some State Bar activities during the next year, those...
Lawsuits such as the one filed by Kerrie Campbell against Chadbourne & Park highlight the most important systemic and endu...
Government, Administrative/Regulatory
CFPB ruling ignores decades of Supreme Court precedent
By Erwin Chemerinsky
It was a stunning exercise of conservative judicial activism for the D.C. Circuit to declare unconstitutional a key provision ...
Once again, drone regulation legislation was a hot topic in the California Legislature, but the governor again voiced concerns...
Insurance companies have the right, and indeed the duty, to thoroughly investigate claims. And more and more often these days,...
Entertainment & Sports
A new way to revive a suspended corporation?
By Neville L. Johnson, Douglas L. Johnson
Recently, a 9th Circuit panel allowed a third-party beneficiary to bring an action even though the promisee corporation was su...
Although the court was right to reject the claim that a dreadlock-banning dress code must be discriminatory, the prevalence of...
U.S. Supreme Court, Intellectual Property
Lee v. Tam: a closer look
By Ben M. Davidson
Because refusing to register trademarks based on the message they convey amounts to viewpoint discrimination, it would not be ...
A leading politician recently complained that the laws had grown so numerous and complex that law students could not master th...
The current felony pimping charges leveled by Attorney General Kamala Harris against the CEO of online advertising website Bac...
U.S. Supreme Court
Standing to defend a ballot initiative
Proposition 60 will be on the Nov. 8 ballot in California, and it attempts to give its proponent standing in two ways, though ...
This coming Dec. 1, the word limit for briefs filed in federal appeals courts will be reduced — from 14,000 words down to 13,0...
Riverside County Commissioner Greg Olson makes an effort to relate to drug offenders.
In a move that caught some observers by surprise, Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 1785 last month that will effectively ...
Alternative Dispute Resolution
5 mediation rules you can't do without
By Robert S. Mann
At the risk of sounding like one of those hyperbolic sponsored internet sites "Five Reasons Why Your Body Needs Cottage Cheese...
It is bad enough that you have to pay your own taxes, let alone someone else's! Yet sometimes, the Internal Revenue Service ca...
Labor/Employment
Appeal process for workers' compensation review is broken
By Kenneth Sheppard
There was a time when California workers' compensation system emphasized getting injured workers medical treatment, legislativ...
While these provisions of the Occupational Safety and Health Act do not specifically mention workplace violence or threats of ...
Proposed Rule 10D-1 directs national securities exchanges to prohibit the listing of any security of an issuer that does not h...
The D.C. Circuit's recent ruling, finding part of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's structure was a violation of the ...
Almost 25 years after women began comprising half of law school graduating classes, women lawyers still lag far behind their m...
Here we go again with Wells Fargo as the poster child for plain old fraud, encouraged by a corrosive corporate culture of gree...