Business Law
2025 California Lawyers Association Annual Meeting Highlights
The California Lawyers Association held its annual meeting in Universal City on September 11-13, 2025. A heartfelt thank you to everyone who attended this year’s Annual Meeting! Your energy, insights, and participation made it an inspiring and impactful event.
The BLS Executive Committee met in person to discuss countless issues. While we connect regularly throughout the year, it’s always a privilege to gather in person and strengthen the collaboration that drives our work. We had a very productive meeting and, among other things, discussed numerous goals we have for the coming term. We also met for a lengthy long range planning committee meeting to discuss where we want to be in five years and what steps can we take to get there?
Here are some highlights from the conference
Business Law Section’s 2025 Roland E. Brandel Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Business Law Section is proud to announce that Susan H. Mac Cormac has been selected to receive the Business Law Section’s 2025 Roland E. Brandel Lifetime Achievement Award. This prestigious award is given annually to a California lawyer who “over an extended period has made significant contributions to the Business Law Section or to business law generally in the State of California and who has achieved high status in the legal community.” The Roland E Brandel Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to Ms. Mac Cormac (“Suz”) by the Business Law Section at the California Lawyers Association Annual Meeting in Universal City on September 12, 2025.
For the complete article on this award and its amazing recipient, please see the article written by BLS member Paul Pascuzzi.
Presentation: “California Homeowners Insurance — Current State of the Market and Implications of the Los Angeles Wildfires”
During the BLS luncheon, we were thrilled to hear from Zora Law, Senior Consulting Actuary at Milliman, as our guest speaker. Zora provided us with an incredibly well sourced and insightful presentation that covered insurer exits, rising premiums, and the evolving legal landscape in response to wildfire risk.
Thank you to Neil Wertlieb, former Representative to the CLA Board of Representatives
We honored Neil Wertlieb for his time as the BLS representative on the CLA Board of Representatives. Neil, himself a former awardee of the Roland E. Brandel Lifetime Achievement Award, was an inspiring representative for all of us. We are honored by the time he spent advocating for the BLS and working every day to make the CLA better. Incoming representative Everett Green presented Neil with an award, seen below. We are truly grateful for all that Neil did for the BLS!
New officers for the 2025-2026 Board of Representatives
The Hon. Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero (pictured below with Everett Green) swore in new officers for the 2025-2026 Board of Representatives on September 13, 2025.
Everett Green provides us with his thoughts
I am honored to be appointed to the 2025- 2026 Board of Representatives, where I hope to contribute to the efforts of the Business Law Section to provide guidance and resources to practitioners who counsel, start, and form California businesses.
I am excited to work with the Business Law Section’s newly established AI subcommittee, which will explore the latest developments in AI regulation, legal risks, and ethical uses of AI. And as hundreds of new laws and regulations take effect this year, I am looking forward to an experienced analysis of consequential decisions impacting the business community in the Business Law News, and Westlaw’s Commercial Finance Newsletter.
Everett is an assistant U.S. Attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice in its Riverside office.