"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." When Charles Dickens wrote these immortal opening lines in "A Tale of T...

Most judicial appointees bring honor and distinction to the court. But unlike their European counterparts they trained to be l...

Forum column by David A. Lash - In the proposed breakup of any "family," the concerns of the weakest and most vulnerable membe...

In the last two months, two federal Courts of Appeals have split over the issue of the constitutionality of state Interest on ...

Predatory lending is a powerful, silent enemy of low-income homeowners. It results in homelessness and the loss of long-earned...

On Nov. 2, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, for the first time, invalidated a sentence under California's three-strikes ...

Just say the words "class action" and "overtime" in the same sentence, and you strike fear in the hearts - and pocketbooks - o...

A key section of President George W. Bush's anti-terrorism bill drastically expands the criminal penalties for possessing a bi...

An effective introduction is essential to any appellate brief. California's rules do not require a brief to contain a formal s...

I'm not sure. Was it a surfeit of pedestrian cases? Or the anticipation of a hot summer that never materialized? I was about t...

In his column, "Reaching High" (Forum, Sept. 21), professor Erwin Chemerinsky laments the contradictions and confusion prevai...

The reach of terrorist attacks can be frightening. Just ask local legal aid and other charities struggling to survive. ...

The U.S. Supreme Court's new term began on Oct. 1, and the justices already have taken several cases that concern the ability...

Immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. Senate and Attorney General John Ashcroft proposed measures that would expand...

Requests for monetary sanctions are a frequent occurrence in trial courts. Not so at the appellate level, where sanctions are ...

Few issues are as divisive or as important as whether universities may use race as a factor in admission decisions to enhance ...

For parents, this is a very scary and confusing time. As vulnerable as everyone has been made to feel, vulnerability is height...

A careful examination of the court's work reveals a number of patterns that are likely to have significance for attorneys in a...

I hold footnotes in contempt. My colleague Judge Learned Foote loves footnotes. Resting his heels on a footstool, he remarked ...

The topics likely to get the most attention from Gov. Davis and the media, even as his short list of candidates to replace Jus...

Former President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act into law on July 26, 1990, declaring, "Let the sh...

Robert Wendland died of pneumonia recently at age 49, eight years after sustaining profound brain damage in an automobile acci...

There is a movie that tells us more about the joy and power of being an attorney than any other movie any lawyer has ever seen...

'Glastetter' demonstrates just how rigorous an analysis must be employed by federal judges evaluating causation issues in tort...

The case clearly holds that liability cannot be imposed on the media simply because others broke the law in obtaining informat...

No society in the world offers its citizenry access to a legal system comparable to that available in the United States. But i...

Appellate decisions of sister states may have preclusive effect if the same parties and issues are involved. ...

Chicken Little decided, on the basis of an acorn propelled by gravity, that the sky was falling. He found a host of credulous ...

Books are beneficial. They are used as doorstops, paperweights, steps (to reach other books on high shelves), projectiles (to ...

At a time when scandals like Rampart show the need for controlling the police, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Atwater v....