Business Law eNews

In Diamond v Schweitzer (2025) 110 CA5th 866, the court enforced a general release signed by a plaintiff injured at a sports event, finding that it satisfied the requirements for enforceable releases. The release barred negligence claims because it clearly expressed the intent to release all liability, and the injury-producing act (a third party punch during a dispute over a race) was reasonably related to the purpose for which the release was signed. See §5.95. Read more

Melissa is a practicing attorney licensed in California (2005), Oregon (2007) and Washington (2011), and she anticipates entry to the Hawai’i Bar in 2026. Melissa is the owner and principal attorney of the boutique intellectual property and business transactional firm: The Law Offices of Melissa B. Jaffe, PC. Melissa is deeply committed to serving her legal communities and currently holds the following leadership positions: Chair, Washington State Bar Association’s Business Law Section; Chair-Elect, Oregon State Bar Intellectual Property Law Section; and California Lawyers Association Business Law Section Executive Committee. Melissa is also an elected member of the Oregon State Bar House of Delegates, and served as an appointed member of the Washington State Bar Wellbeing Taskforce in 2024-2025. Melissa began her legal career in-house with LucasArts in their Presidio campus, and continued her IP-focused practice as in-house counsel with Genentech, Inc.  Melissa then moved to Portland, Oregon to join the Adidas America legal team in Portland, Oregon. After her service with Adidas, Melissa decided to hang her own shingle and assist artists and creatives in pursuing meaningful entrepreneurial endeavors.  Melissa currently serves as pro bono counsel for the Portland-based theater company Third Rail Reparatory Theater. Read more

The American Dream is the aspirational ethos of the unalienable rights enshrined in our Declaration of Independence.  The pursuit of happiness; the right to life and liberty.  These are foundational promises of a society built on the proposition that every person, regardless of origin or station, deserves a fair and just system in which to live, raise a family, establish community, and build a future. Read more

Courtesy of CEB, we are bringing you selected legal developments in areas of California business law that are covered by CEB’s publications. This month’s feature is from the forthcoming April 2026 update to Debt Collection Practice in California. Read more

David has been a devoted and hardworking member of the CLA and the BLS, following in the footsteps of Suzanne Weakley and her legacy of service to CLA and to the California business law community.   Read more

For centuries, our profession has consistently stepped up to help low-income, underserved, and vulnerable populations gain access to the justice system.  We do it for the public good.  Read more

We are pleased to be able to alert you to author opportunities for the Continuing Education of the Bar (“CEB”) book series.  Below is a list of the titles and chapters in need of authors. If you have any questions, please reach out to David Muellenhoff  at David.Muellenhoff@ceb.ucla.edu.  Read more

The State and Local Tax (SALT) cap initially applied only through the 2025 tax year, and the Small Business Relief Act provided that the SALT cap workaround was effective for tax years 2021–2025. In July 2025, SB 132 (Stats 2025, ch 17) was signed into law, which provides that that the SALT cap workaround would be extended to include tax years 2026–2030 in the event that the SALT cap was extended (Rev & T C §17052.11). The SALT cap was subsequently extended by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) in 2025, triggering the extension of the SALT cap workaround. See §1.99A. Read more

Jerome A. (Jerry) Grossman has been a member of the Business Law Section  for over 30 years.   He is a former member of the Executive Committee of the Business Law Section and currently serves as an advisor to that Committee.  He is a member of the Steering Committee of the Section’s Opinions  Committee, a member of the Business Law News Editorial Board, and a member of the Commercial Transactions Committee (formerly the UCC Committee).  He was a member of the UCC Committee from 1995 to 2000, serving as Chair during his last year, and coordinating the writing and publication of an article for the Business Law News analyzing certain aspects of the 1998 major revision of UCC Article 9.  Jerry joined the newly formed Opinions Task Force (now the Opinions Committee) in 2001.  He was the reporter for Appendix 10 to its first publication, the 2004 Report on Third-Party Remedies Opinions, analyzing more than 30 of the most commonly taken qualifications to such opinions, and is currently working on an update to that Appendix.  He has been active in the Working Group on Legal Opinions (https://www.wglo.net/) since its inception in 2005.  Jerry was inducted into the American College of Commercial Finance Lawyers in 2010.  He is a coauthor, with Edith R. Warkentine (retired Professor at the Western State College of Law), of Secured Transactions: A Context and Practice Casebook (2d ed. 2024). Read more

Welcome to 2026.  This year opens with challenges that underscore the importance of the rule of law.  The U.S. Constitution was once the radical proposition that wrested governance from a monarch and placed it within this great nation to rule itself.  Today, it is the oldest codified constitution still in operation and it has led to unimagined achievements in our civil society.  The  Constitution is the antecedent to all governance affecting our lives.  Read more