Brown appointed judges to the following counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, El Dorado, Humboldt, Los Angeles, Orange, Plumas, Riverside, San Diego, Santa Cruz, Shasta and Sonoma.
Our latest Featured Speakers are Ian Samson and Paul Traina of Stalwart Law Group!
Ian Samson is an experienced litigator and trial lawyer who will speak at our upcoming Mastering the Deposition seminar in Los Angeles, on February 23rd, 2018.
Ian first spoke for us back in 2016 for Federal Court Boot Camp and has been a repeat speaker for both federal and superior court boot camps since. Seminar attendees rave about his insight, clear examples, and knowledgeability.
Ian represents clients in catastrophic injury matters, whistleblower litigation, class actions, professional liability cases, and commercial litigation. Innovative, tireless, and always willing to go the extra mile for his clients, he has gone toe-to-toe with some of the most highly-regarded law firms in the nation.
Equally comfortable arguing a specific point of law to a federal court judge as he is explaining the big picture to a state court jury, he uses every aspect of his experience to get the best possible result for his clients. Ian is a member of the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles, Consumer Attorneys of California, and Public Justice.
And Paul Traina, an experienced, fiercely competitive litigator and trial lawyer, will also speak at our upcoming Mastering the Deposition seminar.
Paul first spoke for us a while back at our Wage & Hour Class Action seminar, and has returned to speak at many of our litigation related seminars year after year, due to his great evaluations.
Paul has practiced law for the past 25 years. He spent his first five years representing automobile manufacturers and insurance companies, and the last twenty years representing consumers on a pure contingency basis. Paul has obtained verdicts and recoveries for his clients totaling over 3 billion dollars. He has, and continues to represent clients in matters involving catastrophic injuries, defective products, whistleblower litigation, class actions, professional liability cases, and business/commercial litigation.
Paul is a frequent guest lecturer at Loyola Law School’s Trial Advocacy Class. He has lectured around the country about class actions, conflicts of interest, opening and closing arguments, and direct and cross examinations of both lay and expert witnesses. Paul is a member of the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles and Consumer Attorneys of California.
Companies are also prepping for the inevitable regulations that will come with legalized marijuana and marijuana is about to become big business. That comes with large legal departments and legal services provided by attorneys at all sizes of firms and in a variety of legal specialties, as we have said before.
You can get the latest story from The Recorder here.
Nearly half of all prospective lawyers who took the California Bar Exam in July passed this year. 49.6% of test-takers passed the exam, up from 43% last year, which was the lowest pass rate in about 30 years, according to The Recorder. 62% of first-time applicants and 28% of repeat applicants passed the exam.
In total, 8,545 people took the exam and 63.2% were first-time applicants. The July 2017 exam was the first time the test has been administered in a two-day format. Exams are held in February and July each year.
A pass list from the exam was published on the CA Bar’s website yesterday. More detailed statistics about examination results will be available in approximately three weeks. If you’d like more information about the passage rates and statistics of this year’s exam, please CLICK HERE to see the published results from the California Bar.
Congratulations to the 4,236 applicants who passed the exam this year!!
January 1st will mark the first day of legal adult use of recreational cannabis in California. With an Instagram account and new website the Bureau of Cannabis Control in California will re-focus its purpose from regulating the medical industry to regulating the legal market for adult use. Read more from The Recorder here.
With changing laws and regulations in California, and across the nation, it is more important than ever to stay up to date on the expanding area of law. Recently, we held a cannabis law program in California which focused on advising clients in the new legal marijuana industry. This program is currently available as an audio program. You can find more information or purchase that here.
A few days ago we posted a blog about the possibility of the California State Bar lowering the minimum passing score on the California Bar Exam. Now it looks like they have shifted the decision to the California Supreme Court to handle.
The California State Bar committee, which includes deans from several law schools in the state, have offered the justices a range of choices on the topic from leaving the score as is – 144 – to lowering it to 139.
A Bar commissioned study came to the conclusion that the score could be lowered to 141 and still ensure that those who have passed will have the minimum standards of competency to practice law. This is still a hotly issued debate and the California Supreme Court has not made any comment on the topic.
Read the full story from The Recorder here.
Currently the score for a “pass” on the California State Bar exam is 144 but a California State Bar committee, which included deans from many California law schools, recommended that it be lowered to 135. The Law School Counsel, which includes many California law school officials and California State Bar Examiners, also endorsed lowering the score.
135 is the most common cut score in other states. Many deans feel that the higher pass score in California puts California test takers at a disadvantage compared to students in other states, while others argue that the higher pass score produces top-notch attorneys who are more likely to adhere to ethical guidelines.
You can read more from The Recorder here.
Three California State Appellate judges were appointed to the bench by Gov. Jerry Brown and confirmed February 9th. San Diego Superior Court Judge Willilam Dato and Riverside County Superior Court Judge Richard Fields were approved to and are now on the Fourth District Court of Appeals. Judge Kathleen Meehan of Fresno County Superior Court was appointed to the Fifth District Court of Appeals. Read more here from The Recorder.
Former Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Alex Kozinski has been a long-time advocate for court room transparency and has been a behind efforts to get court audio and video available online.
He recently did an interview with the recorder on this topic.
Every year recent law school graduates head out into the world, but first they must pass the California Bar Exam. According to The Recorder, only five of 21 California law schools accredited by the American Bar Association had at least 75% of their graduates pass the Bar Exam in July. This is a benchmark rate – not meeting it could spell trouble for law schools.
The overall pass rate of this summer’s exam was actually the lowest for a July sitting in 32 years.
Unfortunately, only 43% of California Bar exam takers passed. Exam takers who attended an ABA accredited school did better as a group with 62% passing the exam. Test takers from UC Irvine, UCLA, Stanford University, USC and UC Berkeley were the only group that met the 75% passage benchmark.
