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Alternative Dispute Resolution

Welcome to mediation, let's get started

Sep. 5, 2015
By James P. Gray

Good morning, my name is Jim Gray and I am your mediator to try to help you resolve your dispute. I'd like to share some thoug...


Law Practice

Suing a lawyer? The clock is ticking

Sep. 5, 2015
By Theodore W. Frank

The state Supreme Court recently provided a useful analytic framework to determine whether non-legal malpractice cases brought...


Health Care & Hospital Law, Civil Rights

A recent human interest story featured Dylan Lauren, daughter of Ralph Lauren, who spoke of her decision to hire another woman...


Labor/Employment, Alternative Dispute Resolution

Arbitration agreements must be fair to employees

Sep. 3, 2015
By Gene F. Williams

A Court of Appeal recently held that an agreement to arbitrate that an employee was required to sign on her first day of work ...


Intellectual Property

Review proposed USPTO rules

Sep. 3, 2015
By Jennifer R. Bush

Recently, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office released a package of proposed procedural revisions affecting post-grant procee...


Labor/Employment

California employees increasingly are turning to the Private Attorneys General Act for mass wage and hour actions, but should ...


U.S. Supreme Court, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

Circuit reversals portend new term

Sep. 2, 2015
By Lawrence Waddington

As summer yields to autumn, and a U.S. Supreme Court 2015-2016 emerges in October, lawyers and judges can expect another round...


Law Practice, Judges and Judiciary, Criminal

Review a court's duty to instruct a jury

MCLE
Aug. 31, 2015
By Henry J. Hall

Learn the basics of a court's duty to instruct a jury in a criminal case in this month's MCLE column. ...


Civil Litigation, Alternative Dispute Resolution

Plan will force us to desert mediation

Sep. 1, 2015
By A. Marco Turk

The California Law Revision Commission wants to amend state law to pierce the veil of mediation confidentiality in cases where...


Insurance

Insurance coverage for successors

Aug. 25, 2015
By Kirk A. Pasich

In a recent case, the state high court fell in line with most of the rest of the country when it comes to the enforceability o...


Criminal, California Supreme Court

Brady's self-help exception

Aug. 25, 2015
By Brian M. Hoffstadt

The sooner the courts can help themselves to a clearer "self-help" doctrine under Brady, the better off prosecutors and...


Judges and Judiciary, Civil Litigation

To the dictionary ... and beyond!

Aug. 21, 2015
By Michael J. Raphael

Is there a way for a judge to "look up" the ordinary meaning of a word in a statute other than by using a dictionary? The acad...


Civil Rights

Does California, for all its pride in our supposedly progressive legal history, have much to boast about? By Dan Lawton ...


Insurance, California Supreme Court

Last week, the state high court issued a long-awaited decision involving independent counsel in insurance litigation - and com...


Constitutional Law, Administrative/Regulatory

Go Fourth! Cell location data needs a warrant

Aug. 20, 2015
By Mary Ellen Callahan, Jarrell A. Cook

Judge Lucy Koh recently issued a ruling finding the Fourth Amendment requires a warrant prior to collecting cell data. A week ...


U.S. Supreme Court, Constitutional Law

Majority shuns Scalia's approach

Aug. 19, 2015
By Erwin Chemerinsky

This last term, the U.S. Supreme Court decisively rejected Justice Antonin Scalia's restrictive approach to interpreting the C...


Judges and Judiciary

Court legal services program appears to violate ADA

Aug. 18, 2015
By Thomas F. Coleman

Adults with developmental disabilities are receiving deficient legal services in limited conservatorship proceedings. By Thoma...


Constitutional Law

If it's on the Web, it's true, right?

Aug. 18, 2015
By Julie L. Kessler

Is the price we pay for the privilege of free speech that we have no control whatsoever over our Internet presence? ...


Tax

Asserting tax merely based on the law license wasn't allowed in one recent case, but it may not be a stretch to consider the a...


Civil Litigation, Constitutional Law, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

Data holders must prepare for lawsuit wave after ruling

Aug. 14, 2015
By Erik S. Syverson, Scott M. Lesowitz

A federal Court of Appeals recently said victims of data breaches need not allege that their money or their identity were stol...


Insurance

Two recent decisions embrace the "pro-insurer" trend in connection with "what is an accident." ...


Securities, Corporate, Constitutional Law, Administrative/Regulatory

Is SEC's home court advantage legal?

Aug. 14, 2015
By Thomas A. Zaccaro, Nicolas Morgan

Recent federal court challenges to SEC administrative proceedings have had mixed results. ...


Insurance, California Supreme Court

Curb your Cumis counsel

Aug. 14, 2015
By Stephen L. Raucher

This week, the state high court said that an insurance company can sue independent counsel directly for reimbursement of "unre...


Civil Litigation, Alternative Dispute Resolution

Relax, it was part of mediation

Aug. 13, 2015
By A. Marco Turk

Last week, the California Law Revision Commission voted to draft a recommendation removing our current confidentiality protec...


Weighing the pros and cons of multidistrict litigation

Aug. 12, 2015
By Brian S. Kabateck, Lina B. Melidonian

There is no doubt that the MDL promotes efficiency. It allows hundreds of related cases to proceed smoothly by avoiding duplic...


Litigation & Arbitration, Alternative Dispute Resolution

Walk through the evolution of arbitration jurisprudence

Aug. 11, 2015
By Lawrence Waddington

Enacted in 1926 when federal courts could develop federal common law, Congress assumed the Federal Arbitration Act's scope of ...


Civil Litigation

Death of the death knell doctrine?

Aug. 11, 2015
By James C. Martin, Anne M. Grignon

A recent ruling added a significant limitation on the doctrine in class cases. ...


Alternative Dispute Resolution

Every litigated case needs optimists

Aug. 8, 2015
By Jan Frankel Schau

When the pessimist and optimist meet at mediation, the parties and their lawyers may bring a host of biases to the negotiation...


Law Practice

Breaking up (with clients) is hard to do

Aug. 8, 2015
By Louie H. Castoria

Or so observer Neil Sedaka tunefully commented, but sometimes it's better than allowing a failed attorney-client relationship ...


U.S. Supreme Court, Labor/Employment, California Supreme Court

Once more unto the FAA... again

Aug. 8, 2015
By Steven B. Katz

It is beyond rational debate that California's Assembly Bill 465 is preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act. ...