Appellate Practice
How trial and appellate attorneys work together for the common good
By Reid Ehrlich
The strongest trial outcomes are built with an appeal in mind; early coordination with appellate counsel is essential to prese...
Books
Law matters: 'The Five Types of Legal Argument' by Wilson Huhn
By Peter S. Bradley
The article analyzes Wilson Huhn's framework of legal reasoning in "The Five Types of Legal Argument," explaining how TIPTAP s...
Family, Ethics/Professional Responsibility
The Wikipedia lawyer: Managing client expectations in an age of constant information
By Noel E. Guth
The rise of AI-informed and data-savvy clients in family law is transforming attorney-client relationships by shifting consult...
Intellectual Property
Copyright silencing: A practitioner's framework
By Amanda Harris
A copyright lawsuit over critical YouTube videos has been cited as part of a growing "copyright silencing" trend, raising conc...
Family, Alternative Dispute Resolution
Divorces are costly: The case for private trials
By Dianna Gould-Saltman, Michèle Bissada
Private divorce proceedings--particularly trials before privately compensated judges--can significantly reduce the monetary, l...
Ethics/Professional Responsibility
John Eastman's disbarment was for misconduct, not advocacy
By Stephen Kaus
Critics say John Eastman was punished for "zealous advocacy," but the State Bar Court found he violated core duties of candor ...
Labor/Employment, Alternative Dispute Resolution
Keys to a successful employment law mediation
By Eli M. Kantor, Jonathan D. Kantor
Effective employment law mediation requires more than meeting in the middle--it demands strategy, preparation and a discipline...
Civil Procedure
Death by rejection: The clerk's office as an unwitting adversary
By Edwin Hong
California's e-filing system can turn minor clerical or formatting errors into dispositive rejections that retroactively jeopa...
Data Privacy
Meta ends encrypted Instagram DMs: Are your messages still private under California law?
By Don R. Dennis Jr.
Meta's removal of end-to-end encrypted Instagram DMs raises a threshold question: whether users' expectation that their messag...
Environmental & Energy, Administrative/Regulatory
Why is CARB giving insurers a pass on climate?
By Clara Vondrich
As CARB implements a first-in-the-nation climate risk disclosure framework, it is giving insurers a pass even as other compani...
Government
New law enforcement tools create opportunities and risks for local agencies
By Toni Otokunrin
As agencies adopt law enforcement technology to improve investigations, these tools also generate vast records, requiring care...
Health Care, Pharmaceuticals, Biotech
California expands nurse practitioner authority; ownership question remains
By Mehdi Sinaki, Nicole Benalcazar
AB 890 expanded nurse practitioner autonomy while leaving ownership unresolved--creating tension between the statute's grant o...
Civil Rights
When the bench has a memory: Prosecutors, the RJA and the limits of neutrality
By K. Chike Odiwe
A recent California appellate decision confronts a question that has quietly shaped early litigation under the California Raci...
Constitutional Law
Why the DOJ's severability argument won't save Trump's law firm executive orders
By John H. Minan
The Justice Department is asking the D.C. Circuit to sever President Trump's executive orders targeting prominent law firms--b...
The rise of "AI-washing" securities litigation shows how courts are applying traditional defenses like puffery, scienter and s...
Consumer Protection Law, Civil Litigation
Why Prop. 65 is coming for food, cosmetics, dietary supplements and wellness products
By Christopher "Smitty" Smith
Prop. 65 has mushroomed from a modest regulatory requirement into one of the most powerful litigation tools in the world--and ...
Torts/Personal Injury, Immigration
The cost of doing business: Death in custody and private contractor liability
By Alina S. Vulic
ICE detention deaths are rising, often preventable and frequently tied to private contractors--yet California plaintiffs' atto...
Entertainment & Sports, Contracts
Litigation lessons for entertainment transactional attorneys: Unexecuted work-for-hire agreements
By Ashlee Difuntorum
Using independent contractors without signed work-for-hire agreements can leave entertainment companies without exclusive copy...
As companies race to signal AI adoption, regulators and plaintiffs' attorneys are scrutinizing those claims more closely than ...
State Bar & Bar Associations, Law Practice, Ethics/Professional Responsibility
Beware attorneys, there be monsters out there (Part 2)
By Ron Mix
Part 2 of a series examines how incremental ethical lapses in legal practice can blur professional boundaries and lead to disc...
Civil Rights, Civil Litigation
Discrimination serves no legitimate military purpose
By William M. Paparian
The reach of the Feres doctrine highlights the urgent need for legal reform to protect service members from discriminat...
Litigation, like many complex pursuits, is a "combo game" of skill and external forces, where success depends not on outcomes ...
Letters
Does the future of judging look like Billings Learned Hand or Learned Hand-AI?
By Michael C. Kelley
AI may improve judicial efficiency, but it cannot replace the inherently human judgment, reasoning and legitimacy of written j...
Railroad versus settlers in 1880: death and consequences
By John S. Caragozian
On May 11, 1880, one of the American West's deadliest shootouts killed seven men at Mussel Slough in a railroad-versus-settler...
Entertainment & Sports, Contracts
Litigation lessons for entertainment transactional attorneys: Influencer marketing
By Ashlee Difuntorum
A wave of class actions over influencer-marketing disclosures has turned compliance with FTC endorsement standards into active...
Mittal v. Unilever frames a threshold question: when do statements made in the ordinary course of corporate governance ...
Insurance
The disappearing right to independent counsel in cyber insurance
By Richard DeNatale
Insurers routinely deny policyholders the right to independent defense counsel under cyber policies, despite longstanding Cali...
Securities
Opaque loans, inflated values and a lawsuit that could crack private credit
By Daniel Barenbaum, Michael Dark
Amid mounting stress in the opaque private credit market, Burnell v. BlackRock TCP Capital Corp. spotlights investor cl...
Constitutional Law, Civil Rights
The right outcome, the wrong conversation: Olympus Spa and the limits of clinical justice
By Chris Erchull
The 9th Circuit correctly upheld Washington's nondiscrimination protections in Olympus Spa v. Armstrong, but the opin...
Ethics/Professional Responsibility, Alternative Dispute Resolution
Mediation lessons from Mister Rogers: What lawyers can relearn
By Greg Derin
Amid rising polarization, declining trust in shared facts, and increasing incivility, lawyers can improve mediation outcomes b...