GUEST COLUMNS
Monday, January 5, 2026
Friday, January 2, 2026
Alford and Pena expose a
split over emergency takings: One court says the Fifth Amendment always
requires compensation, the other leans on history, leaving the Supreme Court to
resolve the clash.
As states wage an escalating redistricting arms race, the only way to stop politicians from handpicking their voters is a national ban on partisan gerrymandering that puts independent mapmakers -- not self-interested lawmakers--in charge.
Wednesday, December 31, 2025
Witnesses tell your client's story but mishandling them can write them out of your case entirely. From who you can contact to what documents you can accept, here's what California lawyers need to know about witness communication ethics.
Enlarging the House by 150 members and the Senate by 21 could make Congress more representative, reduce district distortion and restore closer connections between lawmakers and constituents.
Tuesday, December 30, 2025
Understanding the neutral's perspective can help practitioners achieve better outcomes.
Constructive receipt determines when income is considered taxable, focusing on whether you have an unrestricted right to payment, even if you don't actually receive it.
Monday, December 29, 2025
To counterbalance a federal judiciary dominated by former executive branch lawyers who defer to presidential power, the Senate should require that for every judge nominated with senior executive experience, another must have substantive legislative branch experience.
Combat veterans carry invisible battlefields of trauma; while the justice system once punished their symptoms, veteran treatment courts now prioritize healing, restore dignity, reduce recidivism and offer paths to redemption.
Friday, December 26, 2025
In 2025, NIL rights transformed college sports, boosting athlete pay, fueling school revenue and reshaping recruitment--benefiting all divisions while normalizing a market worth more than $2 billion.
As the Supreme Court moves to expand presidential power by subordinating independent agencies to executive prerogatives, a proposed statute would restore congressional authority by creating expert advisory agencies that develop bipartisan legislation for fast-track congressional votes.
Tuesday, December 23, 2025
Trump's new "Gold Card" immigration program offers wealthy foreign nationals an expedited green card in exchange for a $1 million non-refundable payment to the U.S. government, igniting controversy over wealth-based access to residency.
President Trump's executive order is not legalization, but a procedural step that underscores just how far federal cannabis policy remains from meaningful reform.
Monday, December 22, 2025
Two recent federal actions--one administrative, one judicial--highlight the sharp limits of executive and court-based cannabis reform, reinforcing that only Congress can resolve the deep constitutional conflicts at play.
A new Second District Court of Appeal decision dismantles the Patterson exception, easing the burden on defendants and restoring common sense to the workers' comp treatment authorization process.
Friday, December 19, 2025
California has long flirted with a wealth tax, but a new ballot measure targeting the state's billionaires could finally break through where past efforts have failed.
California's housing crisis has become a tale of two cities--with San Francisco charging ahead and Los Angeles backpedaling--offering a stark look at how local leaders navigate state pressure and housing need.
Thursday, December 18, 2025
The Supreme Court's IEEPA tariff cases put a sharp question front and center: Can Congress really give the president a blank check to tax imports? Several swing justices seem doubtful.
A constitutional challenge in Fresno raises an issue faced by cities across the country: Whether municipalities can lawfully criminalize homelessness in the absence of viable alternatives to outdoor living.
Wednesday, December 17, 2025
Government coercion of private platforms to suppress apps like ICEBlock exemplifies "censorship by proxy," raising urgent First Amendment concerns about protecting speech, transparency and public safety against overreach.
When powerful interests redefine accountability through public narratives, perception can begin to outweigh evidence in shaping the law.
Tuesday, December 16, 2025
From fake case citations in court briefs to deepfake audio in custody battles, AI is already reshaping California litigation -- and most judges still don't know when they're relying on an algorithm's judgment instead of a human's.
A $303 million settlement over the NCAA's 31-year ban on compensating volunteer coaches signals that coordinated wage-fixing among employers -- even in college athletics -- will face increasingly stringent antitrust scrutiny.
Monday, December 15, 2025
From grade school lessons on immigrants of every language, faith and skin color forming a "melting pot," to today's U.S. as a global economic and cultural powerhouse, it's clear that diversity and immigration have driven American innovation -- even as some political rhetoric now frames newcomers as a threat.
California's 2026 laws turn slow payments and oversized retentions into legal risks for construction contracts.
Friday, December 12, 2025
Holiday rituals and hard-won lessons in war and peace remind us of what it means to come home.
California's Senate Bill 440 takes effect Jan. 1, imposing new non-waivable dispute resolution rules on private construction contracts, including mandatory timelines for owner responses and the right to stop work for non-compliance.
Thursday, December 11, 2025
California's infrastructure boom is delivering new bike lanes and roadways at record speed -- but oversight hasn't kept pace. When facilities open with unlit sections, unmarked hazards, or unclear design changes, a troubling question emerges: Who's actually responsible?
When the SEC comes knocking, corporate counsel must call in reinforcements, guard confidences, spot conflicts and tread carefully to protect both the company and themselves.
Wednesday, December 10, 2025
From Halloween to New Year's, America's four major holidays form a deliberate cultural scaffold that lifts a diverse nation from welcoming strangers to honoring survival, strengthening intimate bonds, and finally embracing future possibility.
Liability insurers' use of catch-all language in Intellectual Property and Habitability exclusions -- designed to eliminate coverage for entire mixed lawsuits -- may conflict with California Insurance Code section 530.
Tuesday, December 9, 2025
President Trump's pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted of trafficking over 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S., has drawn widespread criticism as contradictory to his simultaneous military escalation against drug traffickers.
A $10,000 sanctions case revealed how deeply generative AI unsettles the legal system. The passion it inspires isn't new. Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics wrestled with the same anxieties about imitation, untrained power, and institutional fragility. Their wisdom offers a roadmap.
Monday, December 8, 2025
California's legal market presents complex risks, and some firms explore international insurers, such as Lloyd's of London, as an alternative to domestic coverage.
Business cases turn on getting documents into evidence, so trial lawyers must beat hearsay objections by knowing what counts as operative documents, party admissions, or admissible business records -- and laying the foundation early.
Marc Metrick, who then was undertaking a Saks 5th Avenue revival, at the store in New York, Nov. 5, 2015. (Sasha Maslov/The New York Times)
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NEWS
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General News
Monday, January 5, 2026 |
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| Elon Musk's xAI sued the state of California, arguing AB 2013 forces disclosure of proprietary AI training data, violating trade secret protections, free speech rights and the Fifth Amendment. | |
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General News
Monday, January 5, 2026 |
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| Legal analysts warn the initiative could face challenges under U.S. and California Constitutions. | |
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General News
Monday, January 5, 2026 |
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| Millions of borrowers have fallen behind on their federal student loans, and the government is preparing to take aggressive steps to collect in 2026. | |
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General News
Friday, January 2, 2026 |
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| Parents allege the school, Campbell Hall, ignored repeated warnings about pickup-area design, leading to a 15-year-old's death. | |
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General News
Friday, January 2, 2026 |
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| Few life milestones are as emotionally and financially transformative as becoming a parent. While this chapter is often filled with deep joy, it can also bring new worries as each stage of parenthood can present fresh challenges. | |
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General News
Friday, January 2, 2026 |
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| Company says that claims implicate military firefighting foam made under federal contracts. | |
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General News
Wednesday, December 31, 2025 |
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| The artificial intelligence boom has turned high-profile billionaires into even richer billionaires. | |
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General News
Wednesday, December 31, 2025 |
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| Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass staked her political future on a promise: As a candidate in 2022, she vowed to make homelessness her top priority and to make dramatic reductions in the city's population of unhoused people. | |
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General News
Wednesday, December 31, 2025 |
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| Government attempts to break up large Silicon Valley tech giants Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc.-owned Google LLC hit significant hurdles this year, as one lawsuit was defeated and a request for a major divestiture was blocked in another. | |
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General News
Tuesday, December 30, 2025 |
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| America is closing its doors to the world, sealing the border, squeezing the legal avenues to entry and sending new arrivals and longtime residents to the exits. | |
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General News
Tuesday, December 30, 2025 |
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| Gov. Gavin Newsom's choice to replace retiring Justice Martin J. Jenkins could determine whether the California Supreme Court maintains its resistance to challenges of convictions and sentences or strengthens a dissenting bloc pushing for greater scrutiny under the Racial Justice Act and death penalty jurisprudence. | |
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General News
Tuesday, December 30, 2025 |
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| Six authors who opted out of a $1.5 billion class action settlement against Anthropic PBC filed a new lawsuit against the company and five other tech giants, alleging they used pirated copies of copyrighted books to train AI models. | |
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General News
Monday, December 29, 2025 |
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| Jury sides with former behavioral health medical director who was fired after reporting alleged misconduct. | |
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General News
Monday, December 29, 2025 |
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| The United States routinely tops the list of foreign travelers' dream destinations. | |
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General News
Monday, December 29, 2025 |
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| Eaton and Palisades wildfire lawsuits involve tens of thousands of plaintiffs, novel immunity defenses, utility liability disputes, and unprecedented strain on California courts and coordinated litigation systems. | |
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General News
Friday, December 26, 2025 |
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| Bipartisan lawmakers cite the Zachary Scrivner case as evidence the 2018 statute needs tighter limits. | |
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General News
Friday, December 26, 2025 |
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| It's natural for parents to want to lend a hand as their children make the sometimes-bumpy transition to adulthood, especially for those whose educational or early-career trajectories were disrupted by the pandemic. | |
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General News
Friday, December 26, 2025 |
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| Once a flowing river through Bakersfield, the Kern now runs dry for most of the year. A case now before the California Supreme Court asks whether state law requires it to flow again--and what that answer could mean for water users statewide. | |
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General News
Tuesday, December 23, 2025 |
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| A Los Angeles judge fast-tracked and consolidated UCLA's arbitration and discovery motions regarding Pasadena's lawsuit seeking to block any early move of Bruins football games from the Rose Bowl Stadium. | |
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General News
Tuesday, December 23, 2025 |
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| A former Instacart executive aide alleges she was fired for running for Congress and her policy views, while Instacart contends conflicts of interest made her job incompatible with a federal campaign. | |
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General News
Tuesday, December 23, 2025 |
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| So much of what is wrong with the college application process comes down to this: You often don't know what a school will ask you to pay until you get in. | |
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General News
Monday, December 22, 2025 |
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| A decade-long patent fight against GoPro faces uncertainty after an inconsistent jury verdict, prompting both sides to seek judgment or a new trial before a federal judge. | |
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General News
Monday, December 22, 2025 |
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| A tech entrepreneur countersued his mansion manager, claiming he seized control of AGI House in San Francisco, stole trademarks and domains, and froze him out, while the manager claims abandonment and infringement occurred. | |
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General News
Monday, December 22, 2025 |
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| Freeway expansion isn't just a transportation issue; it's one of the most overlooked drivers of California's housing crisis. | |
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General News
Friday, December 19, 2025 |
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| Two appellate cases could shape how far cities may go to approve development without environmental review, as Vallejo challenges American Canyon's water supply disclosures and voter-backed Measure K. | |
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General News
Friday, December 19, 2025 |
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| A $5 billion class action alleges Google secretly used AI to monitor Verizon customer service calls in Arizona, violating state privacy law and prompting removal to federal court in California. | |
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General News
Friday, December 19, 2025 |
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| The year is already rapidly coming to a close, making it peak season for assessing (and, in many cases, reassessing) contribution options related to retirement savings accounts. | |
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General News
Monday, January 5, 2026 |
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| Saks Global said Friday that its CEO, Marc Metrick, had stepped down after the beleaguered luxury department store group missed a loan payment and as it weighed filing for bankruptcy protection. | |
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General News
Friday, January 2, 2026 |
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| President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he would abandon, for now, efforts to deploy the National Guard in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland, Oregon. | |
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General News
Wednesday, December 31, 2025 |
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| Housing First provides chronically homeless people long-term subsidized housing and offers, but does not require, treatment for mental illness or addiction. | |
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General News
Tuesday, December 30, 2025 |
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| The California High-Speed Rail Authority has dropped its lawsuit against the Trump administration over the termination of $4 billion in federal grants for the state's high-speed rail project, opting instead to pursue private investment. | |
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General News
Monday, December 29, 2025 |
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| Attorneys say Tesla's aggressive litigation tactics, intense discovery disputes and frequent counsel changes strain Alameda County courts, while the court disputes overload claims as major employment, injury and discrimination cases against the automaker continue. | |
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General News
Friday, December 26, 2025 |
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| Housing discrimination is on the rise in the United States, according to a new report, but fair housing advocates say the figures understate the scope of the problem. | |
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General News
Tuesday, December 23, 2025 |
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| A pilot program assigning discovery and other law and motion matters in unlimited civil cases to a single courtroom is showing dramatic reductions in delays, early resolutions, and a culture shift toward cooperation. Judges hope the model will soon expand across Orange County's entire civil bench. | |
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General News
Monday, December 22, 2025 |
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| As Gov. Gavin Newsom prepares a deficit-year budget, prosecutors tout new numbers under the tough on crime initiative. | |
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General News
Friday, December 19, 2025 |
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| An appeals court reversed an arbitration order, holding BMW could not enforce a dealership arbitration clause against a consumer's Song-Beverly warranty claims, vacating the arbitration award and judgment, and remanding the case for further trial court proceedings. | |