U.S. Supreme Court
If we don't look to original meaning, what else is there?
By Eric C. Tung
Justice Scalia adheres to "originalism," a method of interpretation that looks to the commonly understood meaning of the Const...
Constitutional Law, U.S. Supreme Court
Speech isn't so free in DC
By Erwin Chemerinsky
The D.C. Circuit was wrong in a recent decision upholding a ban on speech activities in the plaza in front of the Supreme Court.
Labor/Employment, Civil Litigation
Does Chipotle GMO suit go too far?
By Gene F. Williams
As Americans become more health conscious, they have demanded more transparency regarding ingredients. But Gene Williams says ...
Alternative Dispute Resolution
Mediation is a tale of two unlikely stories
By Robert S. Mann
The mediation process often requires each party's original "story" to be extensively rewritten. ...
Earlier this month, the IRS decided not to provide Yahoo with an opinion letter on the proper tax treatment of Yahoo's spinoff...
Constitutional Law, Criminal, U.S. Supreme Court
Call to decriminalize sex work is correct
By Jerald Mosley
Prostitutes have human rights. In recognition of those rights, Amnesty International has called on all nations to decriminaliz...
California's own state court have secretly narrowed privacy guarrantees under the California Constitution. ...
A Court of Appeal recently wrote an important opinion in family law regarding a community's interest in a separater property b...
Yesterday, Labor Day, was my 40th anniversary. Labor Day 1975. Four decades ago. That is when it happened. Could have been fou...
Alternative Dispute Resolution
Welcome to mediation, let's get started
By James P. Gray
Good morning, my name is Jim Gray and I am your mediator to try to help you resolve your dispute. I'd like to share some thoug...
The state Supreme Court recently provided a useful analytic framework to determine whether non-legal malpractice cases brought...
Civil Rights, Health Care & Hospital Law
Reproductive liberty extends to 'social surrogacy'
By Judith Daar
A recent human interest story featured Dylan Lauren, daughter of Ralph Lauren, who spoke of her decision to hire another woman...
Alternative Dispute Resolution, Labor/Employment
Arbitration agreements must be fair to employees
By Gene F. Williams
A Court of Appeal recently held that an agreement to arbitrate that an employee was required to sign on her first day of work ...
Recently, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office released a package of proposed procedural revisions affecting post-grant procee...
Labor/Employment
Has PAGA really saved the wage and hour mass action?
By Gene F. Williams
California employees increasingly are turning to the Private Attorneys General Act for mass wage and hour actions, but should ...
9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, U.S. Supreme Court
Circuit reversals portend new term
By Lawrence Waddington
As summer yields to autumn, and a U.S. Supreme Court 2015-2016 emerges in October, lawyers and judges can expect another round...
Criminal, Judges and Judiciary, Law Practice
Review a court's duty to instruct a jury
By Henry J. Hall
Learn the basics of a court's duty to instruct a jury in a criminal case in this month's MCLE column. ...
Alternative Dispute Resolution, Civil Litigation
Plan will force us to desert mediation
By A. Marco Turk
The California Law Revision Commission wants to amend state law to pierce the veil of mediation confidentiality in cases where...
In a recent case, the state high court fell in line with most of the rest of the country when it comes to the enforceability o...
The sooner the courts can help themselves to a clearer "self-help" doctrine under Brady, the better off prosecutors and...
Civil Litigation, Judges and Judiciary
To the dictionary ... and beyond!
By Michael J. Raphael
Is there a way for a judge to "look up" the ordinary meaning of a word in a statute other than by using a dictionary? The acad...
Does California, for all its pride in our supposedly progressive legal history, have much to boast about? By Dan Lawton ...
California Supreme Court, Insurance
Despite what you've read, this was good for insureds
By Kirk A. Pasich
Last week, the state high court issued a long-awaited decision involving independent counsel in insurance litigation - and com...
Administrative/Regulatory, Constitutional Law
Go Fourth! Cell location data needs a warrant
By Mary Ellen Callahan, Jarrell A. Cook
Judge Lucy Koh recently issued a ruling finding the Fourth Amendment requires a warrant prior to collecting cell data. A week ...
Constitutional Law, U.S. Supreme Court
Majority shuns Scalia's approach
By Erwin Chemerinsky
This last term, the U.S. Supreme Court decisively rejected Justice Antonin Scalia's restrictive approach to interpreting the C...
Judges and Judiciary
Court legal services program appears to violate ADA
By Thomas F. Coleman
Adults with developmental disabilities are receiving deficient legal services in limited conservatorship proceedings. By Thoma...
Is the price we pay for the privilege of free speech that we have no control whatsoever over our Internet presence? ...
Asserting tax merely based on the law license wasn't allowed in one recent case, but it may not be a stretch to consider the a...
9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Constitutional Law, Civil Litigation
Data holders must prepare for lawsuit wave after ruling
By Erik S. Syverson, Scott M. Lesowitz
A federal Court of Appeals recently said victims of data breaches need not allege that their money or their identity were stol...
Two recent decisions embrace the "pro-insurer" trend in connection with "what is an accident." ...