According to State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Campbell , 538 U.S. 408 (2003), an award of punitive damages "more ...
Appellate Practice
In California, Appellate Jurists Judge Their Own Bias, Recusal
By Robert C. Cohen, Christopher Pelham
Focus Column - By Christopher K. Pelham and Ronald C. Cohen - The Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution protects parties...
Administrative/Regulatory
Federal Courts Need to Command Prisons to Care
By Robert L. Bastian Jr.
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Historically, American rates were essentially stable until ...
Forum Column - By Judith Daar - Civil disobedience is on the march, and its charging foot soldier is none other than the Catho...
Corporate, Securities
Corporations Can Diminish SEC Penalties by Cooperating
By Thomas A. Zaccaro
Then a company is targeted with a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, one of its first and most important decisi...
Administrative/Regulatory
Protecting Police at the Expense of Public Good
By Robert L. Bastian Jr.
There should be a rule. Every time a dissenting opinion predicts, Cassandra-like, that a majority's holding will "open the flo...
Forum Column - By Erwin Chemerinsky ...
Administrative/Regulatory, Letters
Don't Welcome Gangs Into the Political Process
By Ira L. Shafiroff
In his op-ed piece, "To Care for Society, Gangs Need a Say in Its Politics" (March 2 Daily Journal), R. Konrad Moore states th...
In Wilson v. 21st Century Ins. Co. , 2006 DJDAR 1290 (Jan. 30), the 2nd District Court of Appeal reversed the trial court's gr...
The present response to combating gangs and gang violence is ineffectual. Hiring more police officers and stiffening criminal ...
Forum Column - By Charles Patterson and Stephen Rohde - Roger Keith Coleman was convicted in 1982 of the rape and murder of hi...
Judges and Judiciary
Roberts Court Nips a Little at Sovereign Immunity
By Erwin Chemerinsky
Forum Column - By Erwin Chemerinsky - One of the most dramatic changes in constitutional law during the Rehnquist court was th...
You know the story about the patient relating a terrible nightmare he had the previous night. "Doctor, it was horrendous. I dr...
Administrative/Regulatory
It's Too Fine a Line Between Sexy and Sexist in Workplace
By Elena E. Smith
Forum column - By Elena E. Smith - Apparently, some people would like to live in Rod Stewart's world - a place where, if you t...
Asking "fact or fiction?" is not the same as asking whether a memoir - or, for that matter a legal argument or a justification...
As I sleepily read The New York Times over my morning coffee two weeks ago, I was startled into wakefulness by a passionate ed...
Judges and Judiciary
Nod to Scholar-Advocates Could Be Justice Breyer's Duck Hunt
By Hirbod Rashidi
Forum Column - By Hirbod Rashidi - Much has been written about U.S. Supreme Court Justice Steven Breyer's recent book "Active ...
Criminal
Routine Pretrial Request May Assure Compliance With Disclosure Rules
By Konrad Moore
Several years ago while prosecuting a DUI case, the judge quizzed me about the police report. Trying to see if the case could ...
Insurance
Court Keeps Focus on Reprehensibility In Reviewing Punitive-Damages Awards
By Rex Heeseman
For a while, the state Supreme Court did not substantively address the issue of punitive damages until its important decisions...
By Erwin Chemerinsky - The U.S. Senate should refuse to confirm Samuel A. Alito Jr. for the Supreme Court because of his almos...
Alternative Dispute Resolution
Arbitration Maze Left Courts With Plenty to Decide in '05
By Lawrence Waddington
State and federal courts continue to shape the course of alternative dispute resolution in all its formats. Issues of contract...
Appellate Practice
Courts' Response to Shoddy Appellate Practice? Pony Up!
By Benjamin G. Shatz, Michael M. Berger
Foucs Column - By Benjamin Shatz and Michael M. Berger - Once upon a time conventional wisdom held that appellate courts were ...
Constitutional Law, U.S. Supreme Court
Law Schools Have Right to Bar Military Recruiters
By Erwin Chemerinsky
Forum Column - By Erwin Chemerinsky - No one should be forced to discriminate or to facilitate discrimination based on race, g...
Forum Column - By Wayne R. Terry - The so-called Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act - the reform of the B...
Judges and Judiciary
Case Furthers Trend Limiting Post-Appeal Judge Challenges
By Jens B. Koepke
Focus Column - By Jens B. Koepke - Section 170.6(a)(2) of the Code of Civil Procedure provides that a peremptory challenge "ma...
"Sounds like!" I said. Screamed, really. That's what I said, but what I did was - scream. Maybe shriek is what I did. Whatever...
Corporate, Civil Litigation
Private Plaintiffs Smell Blood In Section of Sarbanes-Oxley
By William F. Sullivan, Susie Yoo
With corporations still reeling from the expansive ramifications of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, another complication may b...
Intellectual Property
Copyright Registration Issue Widens Split Among Circuits
By Benjamin G. Shatz
Focus Column - By Benjamin G. Shatz and Monica Youn - Under the 1976 Copyright Act, copyright protection automatically attache...
Judges and Judiciary
Splitting 9th Circuit Is Costly, Conservative Ploy
By Erwin Chemerinsky
Forum Column - By Erwin Chemerinsky - The proposal to split the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is a politically motivated a...
Judges and Judiciary
'Strict Construction' Criterion Doesn't Hold Water
By Robert L. Bastian Jr.
University of Chicago Law School professor Cass R. Sunstein's recent work "Radicals in Robes," published by Basic Books in Sep...