Family, Contracts
Waiving spousal support in a premarital agreement
By Franklin R. Garfield
Last v. The Superior Court of Orange County offers little solace to a party attempting to enforce a spousal support wai...
Government
LA public defender Ricardo García has a crisis of his own making
By Garrett Miller
It’s not hyperbole to question whether LA’s public defenders will be able to meet their obligations in the coming months witho...
Government, Environmental & Energy, Construction
GODOT arrives: CEQA reform at last?
By Jeffrey P. Carlin, Megan E. Ault
Though years-long in the making, reforms to expedite judicial review of certain infrastructure projects has finally arrived.
Despite 245 years of slavery and 100 years of Jim Crow -- which ended officially in 1964 -- as well as institutional bias agai...
The challenge for the Riverside prosecutors will be whether they can convince a jury of the defendant’s intent to kill – that ...
Constitutional Law
The First Amendment guarantee of free speech is tolerant of lying, but not criminal conspiracies
By John H. Minan
Donald Trump has not been indicted for lying or falsely claiming the election was stolen. The indictment alleges that he “purs...
Law Practice, Appellate Practice
Hard work, sometimes late into the night, is what makes a trial lawyer a good one
By Michael H. Brody
Being a trial attorney does not mean you are in some exclusive club reserved only for certain persons who possess or, better, ...
Judges and Judiciary, Government
Cameras in the courtroom may be the only way to shine light on the truth
By Allan Parachini
With the impending trials of former president Donald Trump, the legitimacy of our legal institutions balances on a knife’s edg...
Health Care & Hospital Law, Civil Rights
The Henrietta Lacks settlement: A step towards rectifying historical medical injustices
By K. Chike Odiwe
Lacks’ cells were harvested in 1951, when it was not illegal to do so without a patient’s consent. However, lawyers for Lacks’...
Law Practice, Constitutional Law
An opposing party’s payment of jury fees doesn’t guarantee a right to trial
By Garret D. Murai
Constitutional issues can be thorny given the importance of constitutional rights. The lesson here though is simple: Always, a...
Torts/Personal Injury, Government, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Ninth Circuit provides a new look at “state-created danger” doctrine
By V. James DeSimone
Federal circuits have come up with a variety of interpretations of the state-created danger doctrine, but the Ninth Circuit re...
Labor/Employment
Social media influencers empathize, but are largely untouched by the Hollywood strikes
By Parag L. Amin
The stark contrast between the world of influencers and traditional Hollywood lies in their varying content creation and monet...
U.S. Supreme Court, Intellectual Property
Can copyright infringement damages be recovered beyond three years?
By Greg Derin
On its face, the petition for certiorari with the United States Supreme Court in Nealy v. Warner Chappell Music ...
Technology, Judges and Judiciary
Can artificial intelligence replace human judges?
By Rafael Chodos
An emotional commitment and shared aspiration is central to the law. That is something that AI cannot replace.
Alternative Dispute Resolution
The value of an appellate perspective in mediation
By Cynthia G. Aaron
Post-judgment mediations are more common than most attorneys might guess, given that one party has a victory in hand; they are...
Government, Constitutional Law
Moore v. Harper will exonerate Trump
By Richard A. Nixon
Mr. Trump was simply following advice given to him by his attorneys. He was following their advice and the text of his positio...
Law Practice, Appellate Practice
Retroactivity of appellate court decisions: The truth is out there
By David M. Axelrad
Is the “truth” revealed in an appellate court decision always applied retroactively? No. Courts refuse to apply decisions retr...
Civil Rights, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Ninth Circuit lectures the district courts on ADA access, again
By Bob Blum
Judges, like most of us, like to clear out cases that are time-consuming and aren't going anywhere. In Jones, the distr...
Insurance, Contracts, Civil Procedure
Insurance bad faith litigation: Pre-suit and time-limited demands
By Reza Torkzadeh, Allen P. Wilkinson
On Jan. 1, 2023, Code of Civil Procedure (CCP) sections 999 - 999.5 took effect for all pre-suit and pre-arbitration time-limi...
The federal government paid almost $1 million to settle a military sexual assault lawsuit even though it is immune from being ...
Law Practice, Immigration
Solo practice for the virtual immigration lawyer
By Paola I. Neri-Michel
What makes virtual law practice so appealing is its efficiency. You are more productive when you can manage your law practice ...
Labor/Employment, Civil Rights
San Francisco's 1934 general strike: The fall and rise of organized labor
By John S. Caragozian
During the early 1900s, sporadic violence had erupted between west coast shipping companies and longshoremen, but the companie...
Best Practice for using AI in your practice, Vol. 2.
Paul Kiesel and Jeffrey Koncius of Kiesel Law LLP discover that generative artificial intelligence responds better to polite r...
Judges and Judiciary, Government
Sylvia White-Irby quietly ensures that the LA County court's judicial and executive officers are ready to perform
By Lawrence P. Riff
Sylvia White-Irby oversees a 47-member team whose primary purpose is to make sure that the judicial and executive officers at ...
Make the brief short, even though it takes a longer time to write. Use Ockham’s razor and cut, cut, and then cut some more. If...
Labor/Employment
LA independent contractors move closer to employee-type treatment
By Landon R. Schwob
The Freelance Worker Protections Ordinance went into effect a little over a month ago. Businesses should pay the Ordinance the...
It was now almost 4 a.m. the next morning! If we didn’t come to an agreement by 5 a.m. at the latest, no workers would appear ...
Culturally, annulment is an action to make right a societal wrong. A spouse may start it, the government, or any affected part...
Technology, Corporate, Administrative/Regulatory
Directors beware: How the SEC cybersecurity regulations are reshaping and re-risking corporate governance
By John D’Agostino, Jennifer Deutsch
Historically companies have underestimated the magnitude of cybersecurity risks. It’s not just ‘another risk variable’; it’s a...
From crime to climate change to COVID, the U.S. Supreme Court is rejecting the view that the public must defer to expert weigh...