D. Todd Smith makes a good point at Texas Appellate Law Blog in the context of explaining why he likes oral argument: [O]ne of my favorite aspects of oral argument is that it forces you to distill your case down to the barest elements. As the appellant, if you can’t persuade the court based on your best two or three points—which should all be covered thoroughly in your brief—you’re probably going to lose. Hear, hear. I think the same approach pays off in briefing. Rarely do you read an... Read Full Story

Image via Wikipedia There’s an important legal point in Torres v. City of Madera, case no. 05-16762 (9th Cir. May 7, 2008). But before I could get to it, I had to get by my amazement at the facts, which are horrifying. This Section 1983 action was brought by survivors of an arrestee who, while handcuffed and in the rear seat of a patrol car (and screaming and kicking at the back window), was shot and killed by a police officer who mistakenly unholstered and fired her Glock semi-automatic... Read Full Story

Welcome to all first-time visitors led here from the mention of me and the blog in the May 2008 California Lawyer article, Debate Heats Up Over Unpublished Opinions. (For those who haven’t seen the piece, it highlights the recent case of Hild v. California Supreme Court (No. C-07-5107-JCS (N.D. Cal. filed Oct. 4, 2007)), which the article describes as arguing “that the state’s publication rules violate Californians’ due-process and equal-protection rights by creating ‘a de facto policy... Read Full Story

Most lawyers are familiar with the general rule that a trial court loses jurisdiction to act in a case upon the filing of a notice of appeal. There are actually a surprising number of exceptions to that rule . . . but the amended judgment in People v. Bhakta, case no. B190437 (2d Dist. May 6, 2008) is not one of them. This was a public nuisance case brought by the People against the owners of a downtown motel under the “Red Light Abatement Law” to abate prostitution activity at the motel... Read Full Story

Redlines, spell checking, auto-numbering, auto-capitalization, auto-page numbering . . . has high-tech document creation made us lazy proofreaders?  For some great low-tech proofreading tips, see Beyond Redlines and Spell-Check: Proofreading Tips from the Dark Ages (PDF Download) from Delaware attorney John J. Paschetto, published in the February 2008 issue of The Practical Lawyer magazine Hat Tip: Legal Writing Prof Blog. Read Full Story

“Tower of Babel” Image via Wikipedia The law is a profession where words really, really matter. Sometimes, ensuring the same meaning across languages can be difficult, especially in the absence of an available literal translation. Attorneys who find themselves dealing with witnesses who don’t speak English at all or not well enough to communicate in court will want to to check out How to Work with Court Interpreters at Winning Trial Techniques. The post provides a 21-item checklist. both... Read Full Story

Sometimes a decision just makes no sense, at least to someone looking at it from the outside. Such is the case with Profit Concepts Management, Inc. v. Griffith, case no. G039077 (4th Dist. May 5, 2008). Oh, the merits make sense. California-based Profit Concepts sued former employee Griffith in California under an employment agreement that contained an attorney fee provision. But Griffith lived in Oklahoma and successfully moved to quash service for lack of personal jurisdiction. The... Read Full Story

Time to upgrade Wordpress again, this time to version 2.5.1.  I’ll be doing that this weekend, so the blog may be unavailable briefly on Saturday or Sunday.  I tend to do these things in the wee hours, when there’s less traffic, to minimize the disruption.  But you never know. Read Full Story

I was searching for an old post at Wayne Scheiss’s legal-writring blog and accidentally ran across this nugget from 2005 on use of the word “blatant”: I’m starting to put it in the same category as “clearly” and “obviously.” It does not persuade. It only draws attention to itself as an effort to sound persuasive. Anytime a word draws attention to itself, it’s not good. And the attention it draws is therefore usually negative attention. I won’t use it in my writing... Read Full Story

From Ray Ward at the (new) legal writer: Thanks to Legal Writing Prof Blog, I learned that the entire Journal of the Association of Legal Writing Directors is on-line—every issue, every article, in both HTML and PDF. If you’ve never read the JALWD, do yourself a favor and pay a visit. He directs you to Legal Writing Prof Blog for instructions on how to submit to JALWD “[i]f you’re brave enough to actually want to write an article” for them. One should be prepared, I assume, for some... Read Full Story