Constitutional Law
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
When I use commas, it’s so the reader can take a break.
Administrative/Regulatory
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
Dissolving legal barriers (Part 2)
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
Patent Office guidance does not adhere to Alice
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
Dissolving legal barriers (Part 1)
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
Heimlich relief for 998 offers
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
Employing veterans in California
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
On bats and rules for writing opinions, which I violate with agonizing regularity.
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
Sexual trauma in the military
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
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...
Law Practice
The Judicial Council has just released for public comment a set of new educational requirements for court-appointed attorneys ...
Environmental & Energy, Administrative/Regulatory
Slaughter-free meat comes with regulatory challenges
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...
Law Practice
When it comes to the movement to reform abusive guardianship and conservatorship systems, there is an advocacy void when it co...
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
The death knell for integrated bars?
Could last summer’s decision in Janus v. AFSCME, forbidding states from allowing unions to garnish wages of nonmember employee...
This, my last column for the year, leans toward the sentimental, but I hope not the maudlin.
California Supreme Court, Judges and Judiciary
Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today announced Joshua Groban as his choice for associate justice of the California Supreme Court.
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 ...
When the doors of this fifth principal courthouse opened six decades ago, it was heralded as the "Dream Courthouse" and the "C...
Law Practice
Step up to represent veteran inmates
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
ICWA is under attack, again
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
Taking back takings lawsuits
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...