How would you answer these questions?
By Frank H. Wu
Like many teachers, I regularly tell my students there are no “stupid” questions; yet like many of my peers, I am not always s...
Government, Constitutional Law
Coastal Commission: Talk to the Dutch
By Michael M. Berger
In a nutshell, if you like living in the 21st century, watch your back. There is a movement afoot to reverse the steady march ...
The Founders understood bribery as dealing with the abuse of official power to secure a personal benefit. Because no federal c...
Bankruptcy
Thinking out loud about the new Small Business Chapter 11
By M. Jonathan Hayes
I haven’t had occasion to discuss the new Small Business Chapter 11 with a potential client so far. I’ve read several summarie...
Family, Entertainment & Sports
‘Marriage Story’: Checking the facts
By Lawrence P. Riff
Judge Lawrence Riff of the Los Angeles County Superior Court’s Family Law Division Baumbach got a lot right but a few things w...
Ethics/Professional Responsibility, Entertainment & Sports
‘Marriage Story’: Checking the legal ethics
By A. Marco Turk
Lawyers as a profession take unfair heat in many instances, but not in other examples. One of the areas where they are portray...
Government, Constitutional Law
Too difficult for our elected officials to work together?
By Kris Whitten
It was reported some years ago that, when they entered office, the Secret Service took away then-President Barack Obama’s Blac...
Private fund secondaries: Your end, my beginning
By Sara L. Terheggen
Historically, the market viewed secondary transactions as a sign of distress where sellers were pressured for liquidity and fo...
Why we watch
By Jeffrey Wolf, Carolyn Kraft
It was a Thursday night, on an otherwise uneventful news day with only presidential impeachment hearings as a backdrop, when n...
Five years ago, the IRS announced that bitcoin and other cryptocurrency was property. More recently, the IRS addressed hard fo...
Civil Litigation, Intellectual Property, Appellate Practice, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Litigation is just stuff people do
By Charles M. Kagay
John Steinbeck is an American literary icon, and the recipient of the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and...
Ethics/Professional Responsibility, State Bar & Bar Associations
Ethics: Dos and don’ts for lawyers managing online profiles
By Shawn Shaffie
The professional and ethical obligations which arise from attorneys use of online profiles is the subject of the recently publ...
Government, Education Law
New laws acknowledge bullying for what it is: a life-and-death matter
By Christa H. Ramey
In a move of critical importance, the California Legislature has acknowledged this reality by passing three new laws at the in...
Government
Changes to the notice requirements for H&S Code receiverships
By Samuel Emerson
California Assembly Bill 957 has amended language in Health and Safety Code Section 17980.7 changing the pre-litigation notice...
As a law professor, my favorite doctrines to teach are those that are most confusing and demanding because they allow for disc...
Securities, Corporate, Administrative/Regulatory
SEC rule aims to expand use of ‘test-the-waters’ communications
By Michael L. Lawhead
The Securities and Exchange Commission recently adopted previously proposed Rule 163B under the Securities Act of 1933, as ame...
Labor/Employment, Corporate
Drafting enforceable employment arbitration agreements
By Arthur F. Silbergeld, Kacey R. Riccomini
Drafting an employment arbitration agreement that complies with California law has never been a simple task: Assembly Bill 51,...
Alternative Dispute Resolution
Understanding: An alternative approach to mediation
By Mark Powell
The prevailing model in California is caucus-based, but there is another model gaining popularity called the “understanding mo...
Family
Study shows paid leave costs women more than men
By Lauren Mayo-Abrams, Patricia Mitchell
When a woman takes paid leave she will lose on average 8% of her wages annually over the next 10 years compared to her counter...
Now that mediation has been broadly accepted and practiced for more than 25 years, there are present trends that may be cause ...
Tax
California tips from Donald Trump’s move from New York to Florida
By Robert W. Wood
Long before he became president, Donald Trump was known as an aggressive taxpayer who pushed the envelope. In that sense, his ...
In the Nov. 14 Daily Journal article, “Critics leery Gascon could import SF ideas to sprawling LA,” Los Angeles County distric...
Labor/Employment, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
While Dorman is a victory for employers, it may also be the death of class litigation as they know it
By Michelle L. Roberts
The Dorman decision comes at a time when plan sponsors are unhappy about the spate of ERISA class actions that they believe ar...
Government, Administrative/Regulatory
AT&T data throttling settlement was a consumer 'win'
By Anita Taff-Rice
Earlier this month, AT&T stipulated to a $60 million judgment to settle the case. The money will be distributed as a parti...
Corporate, Banking
The $200 trillion question: What’s happening to LIBOR?
By Simran S. Bindra
The financial world has begun to prepare for life without LIBOR, as it is anticipated that the index will cease to be widely r...
Law Practice, Judges and Judiciary
Crafting better legal services in conservatorship cases
By Thomas F. Coleman
“This call may be monitored for quality assurance purposes.” We have all heard this statement when we are on the phone with pr...
Law Practice, Ethics/Professional Responsibility
Legal ethics: Is law practice ‘just a capitalist enterprise’?
By A. Marco Turk
According to an Oct. 4 Law 360 Legal Ethics release, a New Jersey state superior court judge questioned whether the practice o...
Labor/Employment, Insurance
Leveling the field between insurers and disability claimants
By Robert J. McKennon
Every year, millions of Americans seek and obtain individual or group disability insurance, hoping to buy a safety net in case...
Civil Litigation, Intellectual Property
The fate of patent invalidity challenges post-Arthrex: much ado about nothing?
By Sasha Rao, Erin Gaddes
Following the Federal Circuit decision in Arthrex, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., et al., significant attention has been pa...
Intellectual Property
Color me mine: Trademarking a color
By Peter Harvey, Caitlin C. Conway
What kind of showing does the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office require to register color trademarks? And what evidence do cour...