Recent Articles

Overview: Enough Snow Already! It's been a heavy winter; yes we need snow but... to give you a little smile during breaks from shoveling snow, here are two cute, not true, but funny lawyer stories.   OMG, we need a break.  Enough Snow Already. To lighten your mood, here are a couple of fictitious but [...]

Overview: Non competition clauses—where an employee or franchisee or anyone else signs an agreement not to compete after leaving—with few exceptions, are  illegal in California, yet many employers and businesses make their employees sign agreements that they will not compete after they leave.  After the case of U-Haul v Robinson, that practice should slow down [...]

Overview: California has some of the strongest gun control laws in the country, no doubt the most rigorous in all the land.  That does not sit well with Second Amendment advocates who challenge almost all new laws regulating buying or owing a gun, as was the case in this Law Review where California’s 10 day [...]

Overview: Our Legislature passed a significant new ADA law mandating that commercial property owners and landlords add new notices to commercial leases, starting January 1, 2017.  The notices are to inform would-be tenants whether the building is ADA compliant; read Civil Code 1938 and know your rights as tenants and duties as landlords.   The [...]

Overview: Pollinating honey bees are in dire straits, suffering Colony Collapse throughout the country.  Many experts believe the problem is frequent use of insecticides and pesticides by growers that has the unintended consequence of killing pollinating bees which is killing fruit growers. Read this week’s Law Review about a case filed against the EPA to [...]

Overview: This Law Review highlights more of California’s 898 new laws for 2017, seems like some kind of record.  Learn about ballot selfies, date rape drugs, cell phones when driving, child safety seats and much more, boring but it is the law. Here are a handful of the 898 new laws passed for 2017.  I [...]

Overview: Californians overwhelmingly passed Prop 2 in 2008, requiring chickens to be confined where they could stand up, fully extend their limbs and turn around freely, all movements one would think a chicken should be allowed to do.  All eggs sold in the Golden State must comply with the Prop 2 standards. ‘Chicken Little’ claimed [...]

Those of you in the real estate world know about dual agency, where a real estate agent represents the buyer and the seller. A dual agent owes a fiduciary duty of utmost care, integrity, honesty and loyalty to both the seller and the buyer. In Hiroshi Horiike v. Coldwell Banker Company, the California Supreme Court [...]

Overview: Jim Porter’s Christmas gift to his readers (of 37 years) is a Lawyer Humor column, better than his usual (self described, but he doesn’t really mean it) boring columns, so don’t miss the latest Courtroom Gaffes, always a hoot. The Christmas season is upon us, and as much as I know you love these [...]