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In the battle between desire for public access and environmental preservation, respecting property rights is the best solution


Law Practice, Judges and Judiciary

Take a breath

Mar. 4, 2019

When I use commas, it’s so the reader can take a break.



In September, California became the first state to ban the sale of most cosmetics tested on animals. The passage of Senate Bil...


State Bar & Bar Associations, Law Practice, Judges and Judiciary

On Wednesday, in the first part of this series I urged dissolving barriers among members of the legal profession. Here, I note...



Intellectual Property, U.S. Supreme Court

The Patent Office’s new guidance aims to upend the Supreme Court’s decision in Alice v. CLS Bank on two fronts.


Judges and Judiciary, Law Practice

Congress never intended to allow these fees to be set so high.



Law Practice, Judges and Judiciary, State Bar & Bar Associations

Trial judges and appellate justices rarely interact across their courts. Judges and lawyers have sporadic, desultory contact a...


California Courts of Appeal, Civil Litigation, California Supreme Court, Alternative Dispute Resolution

Attorneys may be surprised to learn that there is no clear roadmap when it comes to employing the cost-shifting mechanisms of ...



This conundrum presents these attorneys with a veritable Sophie's Choice: assert their legal claims and disclose privileged in...


Military Law, Labor/Employment

Lawyers might want to keep in mind that what appears to be a run-of-the-mill employment situation may be anything but. When ve...



Civil Litigation, Law Practice

As of Jan. 1, 2019, a key component of settlement agreements in California — the release of unknown claims and waiver of Civil...


Law Practice, Judges and Judiciary, Appellate Practice

Blind as a Bat

Feb. 4, 2019

On bats and rules for writing opinions, which I violate with agonizing regularity.



Constitutional Law, Civil Rights

Even if Mark Twain never actually said, “Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over,” nowhere is this maxim better il...


U.S. Supreme Court, Military Law, Government

Remedies to the military sexual assault situation require attention by both Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court. Even a presid...



For the past six years (2013-2018), I have counted the number and type of motions that were heard in Department 15. I then pre...


Judges and Judiciary, Law Practice

Bookends

Jan. 7, 2019

This is my first column for the year 2019. It picks up some themes from my last column in 2018. You might consider the two col...



The Judicial Council has just released for public comment a set of new educational requirements for court-appointed attorneys ...


Environmental & Energy, Administrative/Regulatory

It is all but certain that the USDA and FDA will play a role in regulating various aspects of slaughter-free meat, but the det...



When it comes to the movement to reform abusive guardianship and conservatorship systems, there is an advocacy void when it co...


Military Law, Law Practice

Many civilian lawyers in California join the California State Military Reserve to serve and support the people of California.



U.S. Supreme Court, California Supreme Court, State Bar & Bar Associations

Could last summer’s decision in Janus v. AFSCME, forbidding states from allowing unions to garnish wages of nonmember employee...


Law Practice, Judges and Judiciary

Thanks, and I mean it

Dec. 3, 2018

This, my last column for the year, leans toward the sentimental, but I hope not the maudlin.



Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today announced Joshua Groban as his choice for associate justice of the California Supreme Court.


Law Practice

Over the years I have participated in so many panel discussions that I lost count. But the panel I was on last week made an im...



Constitutional Law, Civil Rights

The U.S. government began regulating falconers and falconry practices in the 1970s. In 2008, the regulations were modified to ...


Law Practice, Judges and Judiciary

When the doors of this fifth principal courthouse opened six decades ago, it was heralded as the "Dream Courthouse" and the "C...



Law Practice

As of Jan. 1, 2019, veterans sentenced prior to Jan. 1, 2015 will have an opportunity to go back to court and ask for a senten...


Civil Rights, Family, Native Americans, Constitutional Law

The Indian Child Welfare Act, and potentially tribal sovereignty, suffered a significant setback last week when a federal cour...



U.S. Supreme Court, Constitutional Law

This term the Supreme Court has a chance to overturn a decades-old decision that kept many property owners out of federal courts.


Law Practice, Criminal

October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. For years, law enforcement agencies, social service providers, non-gove...