Law Practice
Bad and getting worse: homelessness in Los Angeles
In part overshadowed by fears of COVID-19, the homelessness situation in Los Angeles and beyond is far from easing up. Once t...
Law Practice, Judges and Judiciary
A checkerboard of compliance
Courts must fulfill statutory duties while safeguarding the well-being of the public they serve. Some courts in California are...
Legal Education, Law Practice
A conversation with international human rights expert and UC Hastings Professor, on writing about traumatic events to trauma-c...
Law Practice, Constitutional Law
As a public interest legal organization, Pacific Legal Foundation litigates in multiple ways: Primarily, we initiate, defend a...
As fiduciaries, trustees are typically guided by the responsibilities and obligations imposed on them under the law and/or pur...
Law Practice, Immigration
A discussion with a Fresno-based immigration lawyer on the importance of giving clients more control and on the imperative of ...
Judges and Judiciary, Books
Summer reading for our times
This is a good time to re-read — or for some to pick up for the first time — materials on implicit bias, and in particular how...
Immigration
The asylum system is under attack. Over the past few years, we have seen policy after policy, fueled by racism and xenophobia,...
Military Law, Law Practice
Mentors in Veterans Treatment Courts
For nine years, I ran over to the local Veterans Treatment Court, VTC, on Tuesday afternoons to act as a mentor, primarily to ...
Judges and Judiciary
Pandemic pandemonium, part I
It’s all different. More so than any of us can remember. Lesson we all know, but many have stored in the back of a mental clos...
Law Practice
The COVID-19 pandemic and the recent civil unrest are having a disproportionate effect on people in California's low-income co...
Intellectual Property
USPTO cannot handle ‘artificial inventors.’ Now what?
Because current patent laws do not allow artificial inventors, we address two questions: (1) What can we do right now if a dev...
Government, Criminal
Defunding: A structural solution to a structural problem
A society’s budget reveals its moral values, and by that metric, 21st century America barely hovers above bankruptcy. Our budg...
Law Practice
A conversation with a civil rights attorney about how she navigated intersecting traumas and gifts of growing up in Berkeley a...
Tax
Even the best tax planning tends to be complex and unpredictable. Recently, however, planners have become interested in a simp...
Contracts, Constitutional Law
Understanding the contract clause of the US Constitution
There would seem to exist a wide chasm between the constitutional protections afforded by the contract clause to protect again...
Government, Constitutional Law
President Trump and the Rule of Law
It’s a funny thing about the Rule of Law: It’s not a rule, and it’s not a law. It is, rather, a set of principles, a body of n...
Criminal
State Sen. Susan Rubio has a venerable history of authoring legislation addressing the issue of domestic violence. However, un...
U.S. Supreme Court, Government, Constitutional Law
The US Supreme Court’s giant Puerto Rico miss
In a decision issued June 1, the U.S. Supreme Court missed an opportunity to address an important question: Does the abuse of ...
Family
The commonly used methods of valuation are categorized into three primary approaches. The three approaches are the asset, inco...
Judges and Judiciary
A jury trial amidst pandemic and protest
On June 1, the Historic Courthouse in Auburn re-opened for business after being closed for two and one-half months due to the ...
Securities, Government, Corporate
On May 21, the SEC published its final rule regarding Amendments to Financial Disclosures about Acquired and Disposed Business...
Civil Rights
1877 + 1918 + 1929 + 1968 = 2020
Many of my white friends have called to express their disgust at what they are seeing and to see how I am doing. Often the con...
Environmental & Energy, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently handed California local governments a major victory in what is likely the most ...
Law Practice, Civil Litigation
A recent decision from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California serves as a helpful reminder of the imp...
Military Law, Judges and Judiciary
How the military handle another viral disease, HIV
The Pentagon has already issued COVID-19 guidance, and then reversed itself. Before further COVID-19 policies are formulated, ...
Law Practice, Judges and Judiciary
'We are all in this...
…together?’
Government, Administrative/Regulatory
Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order with far-reaching implications for regulatory agency enforcement p...
Law Practice, Judges and Judiciary
Dangerous fictions
Legal fictions are problematic because we’re in the truth-finding business. These fictions are dangerous for judges, because ...
On May 7, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow to prosecutors policing public corruption under federal property fraud statutes ...