Civil Litigation, Insurance, California Courts of Appeal
Bad faith conduct, managing agent decisions justify punitive damages
By Shaun H. Crosner
Recently, the California Court of Appeal held that there was ample evidence to support a finding that an insurer’s regional li...
By the end of August, more than 10,000 taxpayers will receive letters, targets the IRS says it obtained through various ongoin...
Immigration, Government
The US risks abandoning legacy of refugee protection
By Robyn Barnard
Our country can uphold both national security and its commitment to refugee protection. Indeed, it's done exactly that for dec...
Entertainment & Sports, Corporate
Investing in films: Strategies to minimize risk
By Sara L. Terheggen
While Hollywood certainly has a way with appearances making it seem that every movie made is a smashing success, the reality i...
Civil Litigation, Labor/Employment, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
High court may examine arbitrator modification of CBA
By Monica Guizar
Last year, a split panel of the 9th Circuit partially affirmed an Arizona district court’s opinion upholding an arbitrator’s a...
Corporate
Leveraging corporate structure for impact
By Susan H. Mac Cormac, Jesse Finfrock
For-profit social enterprises can now choose from a variety of forms that enable them to balance social and environmental bene...
Labor/Employment
Dear fellow employment attorneys: Let’s not choose sides
By Gerald L. Sauer
Recently, I was taken to task by a defense-side employment attorney who assumed that my firm only did defense work but learned...
Government, Constitutional Law
Facial recognition ban shows legislation can protect privacy, too
By Daniel Woislaw
Last month, the San Francisco City Council voted to prohibit city agencies from using facial recognition software on municipal...
Tax
Exchanging California for out-of-state property creates extra 1031 hurdles
By Robert W. Wood
Section 1031 is one of the few tax Code sections everyone seems to know. It is even routinely used as a verb. It says that if ...
Currently pending before the California Supreme Court is an issue that calls into question the motivations of California offic...
Securities, Criminal, Corporate
Census case teaches us that facts still matter, at least in the courts
By Cody S. Harris
This year’s showdown over the Trump administration’s efforts to add a citizenship question to the census highlights an attorne...
Civil Litigation, Judges and Judiciary, Criminal
Excusing jurors for cause during jury selection
By Gregory L. Prickett
The objective of this article and self-study test is to review the law regarding excusing jurors for cause during jury selecti...
Alternative Dispute Resolution
Best practices for mediating cyber insurance claim disputes
By Daniel B. Garrie
Insurers have not settled on precedent policy language and there has been little case law on coverage disputes, creating an a...
Civil Litigation, Labor/Employment, Intellectual Property
California, Washington and Oregon agree UTSA applies to memory
By Dylan W. Wiseman, David Adams
Now that Oregon has joined California and Washington in holding that employees may misappropriate trade secret customer lists ...
Law Practice, Alternative Dispute Resolution
How to kustomize your next arbitration
By Robert S. Mann
If you read my columns on mediation and arbitration you know that I like cars. All kinds of cars, including what the car world...
State Bar & Bar Associations, Ethics/Professional Responsibility
Under the new ethics rules, are lawyers ever off the clock?
By Wendy L. Patrick
Now that California has adopted its own version of ABA rule 8.4, Misconduct, it is increasingly apparent that an attorney´s of...
Corporate, Contracts
Rise of the cloud gamer: legal and business considerations
By Rusty G. Weiss, Maria A. Abesa
Judging from this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, 2019 might be the year cloud gaming surges to the forefront because ma...
Armed with our law licenses and our laptops we flew to El Paso, Texas, and on Thursday morning we were greeted by a lawyer fro...
Ethics/Professional Responsibility, State Bar & Bar Associations
Technology, it is a-changin'
By David M. Majchrzak, Heather L. Rosing
The recently released report from the State Bar Task Force on Access Through Innovation of Legal Services provides a window in...
State Bar & Bar Associations, Ethics/Professional Responsibility
Bar offers opinions on ethically advising cannabis clients
By Wendy L. Patrick
The California State Bar Ethics Committee recently joined the discussion regarding legal services to cannabis clients in a pro...
As an interested observer, I have made two claims about the legal profession. They both have, as any description should, a bas...
Insurance
The new Restatement of the Law, Liability Insurance: a primer
By Kirk A. Pasich
After a years-long drafting process, for the first time, the American Law Institute has spoken on the subject of liability ins...
Haw probate become somewhat of an historical artifact like the horse and buggy? Hear me out.
U.S. Supreme Court, Government
High court decision is a game changer for land use litigation
By Derek P. Cole
Now that takings plaintiffs can immediately sue in federal court, many will no doubt choose to do so. Rightly or wrongly, supe...
Civil Litigation, Corporate
Legislation would create strict liability for some data breaches
By Anita Taff-Rice
One of the reasons major corporations don’t seem to prioritize preventing data breaches is the lack of long-term consequences....
Corporate, Civil Litigation, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Will the ban on restrictive covenants get even broader?
By Anne Cherry Barnett, Michele Haydel Gehrke
In what could be an important first step to further expand the already broad reach of Section 16600, the 9th U.S. Circuit Cour...
Transportation
Accident shows need for e-scooter companies to do better
By Michael E. Rubinstein
On July 12, British Youtube star Emily Hartridge was killed while riding an electric scooter on the streets of London.
Government, Banking
Navigating cannabis banking legislation: more questions than answers
By Nicole S. Phillis, Heather F. Canner
Without traditional banking services, cannabis businesses are forced to operate in all cash — maintaining piles of bills at th...
Tax
When it comes to the tax laws, ‘willfulness’ is quite broad
By Robert W. Wood, Joshua D. Smeltzer
In taxes, willful and non-willful are different. Innocent tax mistakes can often be forgiven, maybe with no penalty. When ther...
International Law
Billionaires join forces in unlikely anti-war partnership
By Ali Batmanghelidj
Liberal financier George Soros and libertarian industrialist Charles Koch are joining together to finance a new foreign-policy...