CLA eNews

This year’s graduating law school class faces tremendous uncertainty amidst the unprecedented global COVID-19 pandemic. To support recent law school graduates as they enter the workforce, the California Supreme Court recently handed down new bar exam guidelines and rules, supported by input from California Lawyers Association (CLA). Read more

It is now common knowledge that law students and licensed attorneys suffer from mental health and substance use problems at greater rates than the general population.,, This recognition has prompted the State Bar of California to require all attorneys admitted after February 1, 2018, to undergo 1.5 hours of education on substance use and mental health disorders within their first year of licensure in addition to the long-standing requirement to obtain an additional hour of education on Competency Issues during each subsequent renewal cycle. Read more

In the latest season of Netflix’s intensely entertaining hit Ozark, Jason Bateman’s character, Marty Byrde, is kidnapped by the Navarro drug cartel and taken to Mexico, where he is tortured and beaten for several days before ultimately being allowed to return home to Missouri, and his family. Upon his return, his brother-in-law Ben notes that the ordeal seems to have changed Marty in profound yet barely detectable ways, keenly observing “that looks like Marty, walks like Marty, sounds like Marty, but that is 100% not Marty Byrde.” Read more

May lawyers accept and keep a client retainer payment even if no legal services are ever provided to the client? May they accept flat fees for legal services paid in advance, before any legal services are provided? If so, must the flat fee be deposited into a client trust account, or may it go directly into the lawyer’s operating account? Read more

“Nothing lasts forever.” “This too shall pass.” I know it. You know it. We all know, in our heads, that nothing lasts forever and at some point, many of the changes wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic will end. They will end either because we learn to live with the virus just as we have learned to live with flu, the common cold and HIV, or because there is a vaccine or a cure. Read more

The rapidly changing landscape we face poses opportunities as well as challenges for the CLA community in our work as professionals and in our service of the public. As a result, as attorneys we must make our maintaining norms an even more important and intrinsic part of our entire practice, including such activities as disparate as participating in remote hearings and depositions, integrating new technologies into our practices, or wearing masks and practicing social distancing. Read more

The California Lawyers Association is excited to announce its partnership with Legal Access Alameda on a program to help low-income Californians deal with COVID-19 related legal issues. Read more

The U.S. Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit has appointed Cuauhtemoc Ortega as Federal Public Defender for the Central District of California. Read more

California reportedly is home to the largest marijuana industry in the world, with nearly $3 billion in sales in 2019, according to market researchers. The state legalized medical cannabis in 1996, and then, in 2016, voters passed Proposition 64 and legalized recreational cannabis. Lawyers have been involved with the industry since the beginning, a practice area that only continues to grow. Read more

Here is the setting: A pandemic has changed the way we live and decimated our economy, coupled with protests calling for racial justice. Meanwhile, everyone seems to have a different opinion about how to solve these overwhelming challenges. Read more