Law Practice, Alternative Dispute Resolution
Before you decide to settle your case, you should ‘try’ your case
By Robert S. Mann
Our cognitive bias prevents us from learning the lessons that experience can teach us -- this is the point: bias clouds our ab...
Civil Litigation, Entertainment & Sports, Constitutional Law
Will the high court hear de Havilland’s case?
By Kevin L. Vick
Actress Olivia de Havilland has an enviable resume. Now 102 years old, de Havilland seeks to leave yet another mark on the ent...
U.S. Supreme Court, Civil Litigation, Labor/Employment
Dueling proposals signal 2019 will be the year of Dynamex
By Benjamin M. Ebbink
It is clear that the dominant policy issue in California will focus on the ramifications of the California’s Supreme Court’s l...
Employing an increasingly endangered species known as “bipartisan compromise,” the U.S. Senate this week passed legislation de...
Law Practice
‘But isn’t it all online?’ Why you still need the law library
By Ryan Metheny
In today’s interconnected, online world, public law libraries have evolved with the times. They are much more than that place ...
Government, Administrative/Regulatory
A new year means new avant garde and offbeat laws for California
By Richard H. Lee, Glenn R. Coffman
While many new and important laws go into effect on Jan. 1, there are also those that showcase our quirky, trendsetting and di...
Government, Environmental & Energy, Administrative/Regulatory
Brown will leave office having set ambitious climate goals
By Rosanna Carvacho, Teresa Cooke
Taken together, Senate Bill 100 and Executive Order B-55-18 to Achieve Carbon Neutrality set California — one of the world’s l...
Government, Corporate, Administrative/Regulatory
Marriott bought a hotel... and a massive data breach
By Anita Taff-Rice
When Marriott International purchased Starwood in 2016, it became the world’s largest hotel chain. Unbeknownst to Marriott, it...
Law Practice, Ethics/Professional Responsibility
Zealous advocacy doesn’t mean you have to be a jerk
By Michael H. Leb
I recently defended a deposition for the first time in many years, having become a full-time neutral about 10 years ago. My ex...
Law Practice
Looking beyond new training requirements for conservatorship attorneys
By Thomas F. Coleman
The Judicial Council has just released for public comment a set of new educational requirements for court-appointed attorneys ...
The Constitution states only two limits on the pardon power: It only applies to federal offenses, and that it cannot be used t...
Labor/Employment, Government
Public Agencies interviewing represented witness employees: use caution
By David G. Ritchie
Public sector employers generally have the ability to interview their own employees in furtherance of conducting workplace inv...
Civil Litigation, Labor/Employment
Long-term disability and ‘un-retirement’
By Bob Blum
An eligible employee may take an early pension without regard to disability. But early retirement often comes with a substanti...
Criminal
Essential step towards reforming mental health care in our prisons
By Jeffrey A. Aaron
Last week, U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller made a bold and much needed ruling.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., famously declared that the life of law has not been logic but experience. Yet logic improves advoc...
Civil Litigation, Labor/Employment
The coming battle over ‘implicit bias’ in employment discrimination cases
By Anthony J. Oncidi
Enterprising plaintiffs’ lawyers are increasingly trying to fill the gap by relying upon evidence of purported “implicit bias”...
Tax, Civil Litigation, Health Care & Hospital Law, Constitutional Law
ACA ruling won’t hold up
By Erwin Chemerinsky
Civil Litigation, Administrative/Regulatory, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
En banc 9th Circuit should reconsider FTC Act case
By Blaine H. Evanson
9th Circuit Judges Diarmuid O'Scannlain and Carlos Bea have called on the en banc court to reconsider precedent approving of b...
Criminal, California Supreme Court, Appellate Practice
A rarity: Success on habeas
By David Aram Kaiser
Last March, the California Supreme Court vacated the conviction and sentence of a death row inmate. This rarely happens.
Civil Litigation, Intellectual Property
A potential source of claims construction disharmony
By Jim Glass, Samuel Jacobs
The PTO's recent rule change specifies that the Phillips standard will apply to both America Invents Act proceedings involving...
U.S. Supreme Court, Government, Constitutional Law
To indict or not to indict? The high court should answer
By Gary Schons
I've reviewed the DOJ's memo from 2000, titled "A Sitting President's Amenability to Indictment and Criminal Prosecution." It ...
You don’t need to include every little detail, but you want to be able to point to the basic provisions and show that indeed, ...
Richard Wirick reviews Ramachandra Guna’s latest book, “Gandhi: The Years that Changed the World.”
Environmental & Energy, Administrative/Regulatory
Slaughter-free meat comes with regulatory challenges
By Elizabeth Holtz
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
HELP WANTED: Brave lawyers to challenge state guardianship systems
By Thomas F. Coleman
When it comes to the movement to reform abusive guardianship and conservatorship systems, there is an advocacy void when it co...
Internal Revenue Service Forms 1099 usually arrive in January, and serve to kick off the tax season. If you receive them, they...
Education Law, Civil Litigation, California Supreme Court, California Courts of Appeal
A college’s duty to protect its students from foreseeable violence
By Alan Charles Dell'Ario
With its recent opinion, the Court of Appeal fully implemented the policy considerations behind the duty colleges and univers...
Labor/Employment
Does CBS still have to pay $120M severance package to Moonves?
By Gerald L. Sauer
It’s time to rethink and redraft executive contracts. Management should not have to wait for a legal verdict in order to do th...
U.S. Supreme Court, Constitutional Law, Administrative/Regulatory
High court accepts Scalia’s invitation
By John C. Eastman
If even Antonin Scalia was willing to abandon the so-called Auer v. Robbins doctrine, it must be on very thin ice indeed.
U.S. Supreme Court, Government, Constitutional Law
The scope of executive privilege
By John H. Minan
Absent Supreme Court clarification, uncertainty exists on the proper scope of executive privilege in response to congressional...