States are increasingly recognizing that lives can be saved by Extreme Risk Protection laws, which enable people who exhibit ...
Are we in the midst of a similar trend in formal legal writing, relaxing the use of contractions? Are the few judicial contrac...
August — the month that many of my readers are on vacation. So why write an August column? Other columnists take off a month o...
We send them there. We break them. Then we take away their benefits.
Our country can uphold both national security and its commitment to refugee protection. Indeed, it's done exactly that for dec...
Government, Constitutional Law
Last month, the San Francisco City Council voted to prohibit city agencies from using facial recognition software on municipal...
Currently pending before the California Supreme Court is an issue that calls into question the motivations of California offic...
There may now be three justices open to moving away from substantive due process as the basis for incorporating the rights the...
In May 2015, The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board asked readers, “Could you live in L.A. on $221 a month?” The answer then, a...
Government, Environmental & Energy, Administrative/Regulatory
Will the wave of PFAS litigation hit California?
In the last year, litigation involving per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances has spiked across the nation. To date this litigati...
They profoundly influence our lives. They can be found all over the world. When not fulfilling their mission, they blend in wi...
Tax, Law Practice
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed at the end of 2017 doubled the estate and gift tax exemption. With much aplomb, it was announ...
U.S. Supreme Court, Government, Constitutional Law
Supreme Court’s nondelegation ruling settled nothing
On the morning of September 28 last year, Sen. Jeff Flake announced he would be voting to confirm Brett Kavanaugh. A few hours...
Military Law, Health Care & Hospital Law, Government, Family
Many veterans believe that government benefits are only available if they were wounded in combat or suffer from a disability r...
You won't find a better close-up audience experience to hone your trial skills than by watching and hearing the state's very b...
For 30 years -- since Avis Ridley-Thomas founded it in 1989 -- the Dispute Resolution Program has been providing free mediatio...
Last month, the Department of Housing and Urban Development published a proposed rule which would terminate housing assistance...
Judges and Judiciary, Constitutional Law
An insightful look at state constitutional law
I recently attended a talk by Judge Jeffrey Sutton who sits on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The subject was a book h...
Julian Assange. Bryan Carmody. Each incident is a troubling incursion on First Amendment freedoms. One is a flat-out violation...
Civil Litigation, Law Practice, Government
Does California value public interest litigation?
In the past few years, private advocacy groups that intervene to defend challenged laws have successfully sought hundreds of t...
Corporate, Contracts
As the asset-light business model for hotel companies has become de rigueur, long-term management contracts have taken on incr...
“What am I supposed to do, just die in prison?” I was seated just outside the dilapidated holding cell adjacent to the courtro...
So am I going to go ahead with my novel? I’m thinking about it.
Environmental & Energy, Administrative/Regulatory
To produce sufficient food and fiber to feed California, the nation and the world, Central Valley farmers use synthetic and o...
From ancient times, people have erected statues celebrating significant figures of their eras. As times change, such monuments...
Imagine being a teenage girl and locked up in a juvenile detention facility. Now imagine being sexually assaulted up to 10 tim...
Alternative Dispute Resolution
Mediators persist in efforts to rebuild and renew. The destroyers and innovative creators of the last 856 years in the evolvin...
There’s a legitimate debate about how best to balance public coastal access with private property rights. But there should be ...
Law Practice, State Bar & Bar Associations
California lawyers married to a military spouse
Yet another example of the sacrifices military families make
Judges and Judiciary, State Bar & Bar Associations
On April 17, the Southern California Chinese Lawyers Association will celebrate its Forty Fourth Anniversary at a dinner at th...