Readers of this blog know that it isn't just about the law, it is about the language of the law. As I've mentioned, many of our legal terms are derived from Norman French courtesy of William the Conqueror. Recently, I began to wonder about the use...
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Last Friday, I wrote about a new California law that provides that a contract or proposed contract for the sale or lease of consumer goods or services may not include a provision waiving the consumer’s right to make any statement regarding the...
Some words seem to exist only in the negative. One such word is "uncouth", which means lacking refinement. For example, the Court of Appeal in People v. Williamson, 207 Cal. App. 2d 839 (1962) upheld a conviction for selling an obscene book, which...
Last week, the North American Securities Administrators Association withdrew its support for S. 1923 which, if enacted, would exempt "M&A brokers" from the broker registration requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. In this letter to...
The advent of social media has dramatically lowered the cost to consumers of acquiring and disseminating information. Formerly, only a handful of people might hear about a bad experience with a retailer or service provider. Now, it's possible for a...
Yesterday, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced "charges" against 28 officers, directors, or major shareholders for failing to report timely ownership and transactions as required by Section 16(a) and Section 13 of the Securities and...
Technology continues to challenge the law. For example, what does it mean for someone to have an address? Is that where a person is physically located or where that person can be found in cyberspace? Such were the questions confronting the Appellate...
In the recent California gubernatorial debate, Governor Jerry Brown defended his decision to appeal Judge Rolf M. True's ruling in Vergara v. California, Cal. Super. Ct. Case No. BC484642 (June 10, 2014). The case has attracted widespread attention...
The title of this recent law review article frames the problem well, At the Whim of Your Adversaries: California's Hazards in Sell-Side Representation and Waiver of Attorney-Client Privilege, 54 Santa Clara L. Rev. 651 (2014). In this article, the...
