Solo & Small Firm Section

The year 2020 caused all of us to embrace a new era of remote Zoom mediations and hearings. We also learned how to electronically sign settlement agreements with geographically diverse participants. Electronic signatures allow convenience and efficiency, but there are specific rules that govern authentication. Bannister v. Marinidence OPCO, LLC (May 21, 2021, A159815) __ Cal.App.5th __ [2021 WL 2036529] applied those standards, and found that an employee did not electronically sign an arbitration agreement with her employer. Read more

It is June, Summer is officially here this weekend and the world is back in full swing …well just about. Read more

Practitioners Ashod Mooradian and Erin Joyce will explain recent changes in the ethics rules on competence and fee sharing and COPRAC opinions which may impact solo and small firm practices. Read more

On May 7 the State Bar released results of the February 2021 California Bar Exam and announced that 1,151 people (37.2 percent of applicants) passed the General Bar Exam. Read more

Before filing a motion to compel discovery responses, the parties must engage in a "reasonable and good faith attempt at an informal resolution of each issue presented by the motion." (Code Civ. Proc., § 2016.040.) What constitutes a good faith meet-and-confer effort depends on a variety of factors. Read more

Code of Civil Procedure section 998 was enacted to encourage settlement of lawsuits before trial. The statute provides a cost shifting financial disincentive to a party who fails to achieve a better result at trial than that party could have achieved by accepting his or her opponent’s settlement offer. Read more

It is May which means it is Mental Health Awareness Month. Mental Health is a critical issue for everyone, but it’s hard to ignore the impact of mental health conditions on attorneys and especially solo and small firm attorneys who have to juggle so much in our lives on the daily. Read more

This webinar will demonstrate specific legal-writing techniques that will help attorneys make their writing more concise and direct, and therefore more persuasive. Read more

On March 15, the State Bar published its second biennial report to the Legislature on its efforts to further diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in California’s legal profession. The report documents the significant progress the State Bar has made in the last two years in fulfillment of this aspect of its statutory mission. Read more

A court may sanction attorneys for engaging in meritless actions or tactics with the intent to harass or cause unnecessary delay. (Cal. Code Civ. Proc., § 128.5.) But what is meritless to one person may be a rational extension of the law to another. Luckily, there's a safe harbor provision in the statute for that. Read more