Legal Pad

Lawmakers Fund Settlements in Five Cases

[Cheryl Miller]

 

California’s legal bills have come due, and today the state Senate voted to appropriate $12.9 million to cover settlement costs in five cases:

• Environmental Protection Information Center v. California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and Steelworkers of America v. California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.  EPIC and the Steelworkers challenged the state’s approval of a Pacific Lumber Co. timber harvest plan in 11-year-long litigation tied to the so-called Headwaters Agreement. As part of two settlements addressing attorneys’ fees, the state will pay EPIC $3.5 million plus interest.  Steelworkers of America will receive $2 million plus interest.
• Mather Development Partners IV v. EdFund. EdFund, a loan-managing auxiliary of the California Student Aid Commission, effectively went out of business in 2010 when its duties were shifted elsewhere. At the time, EdFund was only four years into a 10-year lease at a commercial property. A $4.2 million payment will settle breach of lease litigation.
• Ciccotti v. State of California. The state will pay Aaron Cicotti and his family $1.5 million after he was severely injured by a falling tree at Los Banos Creek Reservoir in 2009.
• Entertainment Merchants Association v. Brown. EMA successfully challenged California’s ban on violent video games to minors all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The state will pay the association $950,000 to settle fee requests stemming from the Supreme Court argument.
• California School Boards Association v. State of California. The state will pay $312,000 to settle CSBA’s costs and attorneys fees in litigation over unfunded mandates.

The appropriation bill must still be approved by the state Assembly before it can be sent to the governor’s desk.

Occupy Movement Comes to Courts

[Hillary Jones-Mixon]

About 100 protesters gathered outside the Ninth Circuit's San Francisco headquarters Friday, part of a national "Occupy the Courts" protest to mark the two-year anniversary of the Citizens United ruling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The San Francisco protesters stood in a light drizzle with signs calling for the reversal of Citizens United and the impeachment of Ninth Circuit Judge Jay Bybee. Later, after the group marched downtown, some were arrested outside a Wells Fargo office.

 

 

Lawyer Humor Meets Bathroom Humor?

[Greg Mitchell]

Our photographer returned from Wilson, Sonsini's Palo Alto office with evidence of either (i) legalese run rampant, or (ii) someone's attempt to lampoon the rampant running of said legalese.

Apparently you shouldn't throw stuff in the urinal.

Herewith, our "commercially reasonable effort" to spread the word.

 

 

As AB 1208 Nears Deadline, Cantil-Sakauye and Calderon Trade Swipes

[Cheryl Miller]

California’s recent spate of unseasonably warm weather has done nothing to thaw the icy relationship between Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye and Assembly Majority Leader Charles Calderon.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times’ editorial board published Wednesday, the chief justice accused the Montebello Democrat of using his Trial Court Rights Act as “a hammer over my head for the last year.”

Cantil-Sakauye said Calderon blind-sided her by introducing AB 1208, the Alliance of California Judges-backed bill that would shift funding control from the Judicial Council to the trial courts.

“But I get 47 days into office and all of a sudden, we need to change and turn around on a dime,” Cantil-Sakauye told the ed board. "Any discussion with me? None. Any warning? None. Any ‘Let's work this out?’ None.”

Calderon, as you might expect, has a different recollection of events. He said he had been approached by the Alliance in 2010 -– before Cantil-Sakauye was chief justice -- to carry the Trial Court Rights Act but, not knowing the group’s members, he declined. When the state auditor published her critical review of the Court Case Management System in February 2011, he changed his mind.

The assemblyman said he talked with the chief justice early last year at a meeting arranged by Allan Zaremberg, the president of the California Chamber of Commerce and a colleague of Cantil-Sakauye in the Deukmejian administration.

“I said to her she should make a very public statement and distance herself from the [Administrative Office of the Courts] and the CCMS project and show that she’s in charge,” Calderon said. “I said, ‘I’ll work with you to try to bring the courts back together.’”

But Cantil-Sakauye was only interested in him dropping AB 1208, Calderon said. He declined.

“She’s been in office for a year now and nothing’s changed,” he said.

The pointed comments reflect the tension that’s built as the Jan. 31 deadline to pass AB 1208 off the Assembly floor approaches. Calderon said he’s got the votes.

“There’s heavy labor support for it, and that’s going to make a difference,” he said.

Calderon added that he still plans to launch a subcommittee that will review judicial branch spending, although he declined to discuss its scope or to give a timeline for its first meeting. “Just say it’s alive,” he said.

In the meantime, Yolo County Superior Court Judge David Rosenberg, chair of the Judicial Council’s Trial Court Presiding Judges Advisory Committee, said in a Wednesday newsletter to fellow jurists that he has obtained the signatures of 43 presiding judges opposed to AB 1208.

“As I see it, AB 1208 is a chimera, no more and no less,” Rosenberg wrote.

 

Big Names Come Out for Gascon's Swearing-In

The political ponies were trotting out in full force at S.F. District Attorney George Gascon’s swearing in Thursday night.

Former state Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno, Attorney General Kamala Harris, Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and former Mayor Willie Brown were all on stage for a 90 minute program that included a poetry reading, Chinese lion dance routine, an operatic rendition of the national anthem, two prayers, and the S.F. Gay Men’s Chorus’ take on ‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco.’

“I am a San Franciscan by choice,” said the Cuban-born Gascon, who left Arizona in 2009 to be S.F.'s chief of police. The crowd included district attorneys from as far as Sonoma County and city attorneys from as far as Los Angeles, along with Craigslist founder Craig Newmark and Chinatown activist Rose Pak.

During his introduction of Feinstein, the mistress of ceremonies, Newsom said that it took him about 15 minutes to decide to appoint Gascon to fill the vacancy left by departing-DA Harris a year ago, but he wasn’t sure if Gascon was a lawyer. He joked that he’d checked with his chief of staff to see if you had to pass the bar. (Gascon did.) Brown, during his introduction of Gascon, laughed that he hadn’t known Gascon was an attorney, either.

But Gascon wasn’t shy about the influence his career as a cop has on his approach to being DA.

“There is much more to being a DA than being a tough person in the courtroom,” he told a packed auditorium at Mission High School.

Federal Courts Getting In on 'Occupy' Action

[Cheryl Miller]

Forget city hall and civic plazas. Angry citizens will be airing their beefs at federal courthouses on Jan. 20 –- but not through litigation.

Occupy the Courts, organized by a group called Move to Amend http://movetoamend.org/, is being billed as a “one day occupation of federal courthouses across the country.” The protestors are mad as hell about the Citizens United decision and they’re marking the second anniversary with a nationwide courts confab. The Move to Amend Web site says protests are planned at courthouses from Eureka to San Diego in California.

Now, anyone who’s been through a security screening at a federal building recently knows they aren’t exactly warm and welcoming places for “occupations.” But Occupy organizers are supplying public building use applications for those interested along with instructions for contacting facilities managers. No word on how courthouse security folks are handling those protest plans.

Organizers have also provided handy templates for creating posters, handbills and a “Corporate Personhood Costume” for the event.

Dermody to Keep Court Funding on Front Burner

[Scott Graham]

Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein partner Kelly Dermody was sworn in as the Bar Association of San Francisco's 99th president Thursday, vowing to continue BASF's efforts to support court funding while emphasizing diversity in the profession and legal services for the poor.

"California is regrettably part of a national trend of defunding state courts," Dermody told about 500 lawyers and judges at the Four Seasons Hotel. "I can assure you that right now people are standing in long clerk's lines around the state" seeking critical orders to block evictions or restrain perpetrators of domestic violence.

BASF formed three task forces last year to support San Francisco Superior Court as it faced laying off 175 employees and closing 25 courtrooms. The court eventually negotiated a $2.5 million loan from the Administrative Office of the Courts that saved 100 jobs and 14 courtrooms. It was "a viable short-term solution, but this work is not done," Dermody said.

Council Asked to Stay Neutral on AB 1208

[Cheryl Miller]

Is a Judicial Council brouhaha brewing over AB 1208? Could be.

The council on Monday will consider its legislative priorities for 2012. On the list is a proposal to “continue” opposing AB 1208, Alliance of California Judges-sponsored legislation to curb the council’s role in doling out trial court money.

The council’s Policy Coordination and Liaison Committee, chaired by Supreme Court Justice Marvin Baxter, has long opposed AB 1208 on behalf of the council. Now the committee is asking the council to endorse continued opposition to the bill.

In a statement issued Friday, the Alliance of California Judges warned that a vote of opposition “will only further erode the Council's relationship with the local trial courts.” The Alliance noted that the California Judges Association declined to take a position on the bill after a survey of its members found that 48 percent of respondents backed the bill and 45 percent did not.

“We ask that the Judicial Council itself abstain, request that its governmental affairs office take no position, as did the California Judges Association, and allow the legislative process to go forward in a manner where all judges and courts can state their views on the bill directly to the Legislature, without the Judicial Council taking sides in the matter,” the alliance wrote.

Among those who will be asked to endorse the council’s legislative agenda-- and oppose AB 1208 -- is state Sen. Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, who is a voting council member and chairwoman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. If AB 1208 passes out of the Assembly next month, the bill will likely go to her committee for a vote. An Evans spokeswoman confirmed that the senator will attend Monday’s meeting in San Francisco, where the council will honor her with the Stanley Mosk Defender of Justice Award.

The public portion of Monday’s Judicial Council meeting starts at 12:30 p.m.

AOC Officials Could Probably Use a Martini

[Cheryl Miller]

It’s probably not in the budget, but it sure seems like the Administrative Office of the Courts could use some top-notch PR help right about now.

On Thursday night, San Diego television station KGTV slammed former Administrative Director of the Courts Bill Vickrey and current interim director Ron Overholt for allegedly spending lavishly on taxpayer-funded flights, hotels, fine dining and even alcohol.

The report, citing expense reimbursement claims from 2009 to this year, suggests Vickrey and Overholt traveled to posh resorts around the country, dined at swank eateries and swilled Grey Goose martinis -- all on the public dime. And when he wasn’t jet-setting, Overholt was billing taxpayers for stays and $51-a-night parking at a San Francisco hotel just blocks away from AOC headquarters, according to the piece.

The AOC refused to grant an on-camera interview, according to the reporter, but local assemblyman and mayoral candidate Nathan Fletcher had plenty to say.

“The AOC is going to have a lot of tough questions to answer,” Fletcher said, adding that such profligate spending is one of the reasons the public “has lost faith in its government.”

The AOC, as you might expect, has a different take on the expenses. Trips to places like Vail, Colo., Washington, D.C., and Indian Wells were all business-related, according to AOC spokesman Philip Carrizosa. Although the men’s receipts note alcohol purchases, none of those costs were submitted for reimbursement, he said.

As for the pricey dinners -- $1,976 at L’Olivier in San Francisco in August 2010, for instance -- those meals were shared by groups of up to 40 attendees and were only reimbursed at the state’s travel meal rate of $18 a person, Carrizosa said.

Overholt did bill the AOC in 2010 for some overnights at the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco, to be closer to a Judicial Council meeting in San Francisco. Carrizosa said Overholt lives 30 miles outside the city and the meetings started early and ended late.

Whatever the reasoning or justification of the expenses, the report is sure to attract more scrutiny that the branch doesn’t need or want right now.

 

For Google GC, Job Just Gets Bigger

[Amy Miller]

Google employs 600 people in its legal department. Once it swallows Motorola Mobility, that number will jump to 800, General Counsel Kent Walker told an audience gathered Wednesday for his keynote address at Corporate Counsel’s 9th Annual GC Conference West Coast in San Francisco.

And while he waxed eloquent about the role lawyers have played in the information revolution that Google helped set in motion, he said his sizable legal staff faces serious challenges. “We’re the heat shield and the diplomats trying to pave the way for the next new technology,” Walker said.

For example, just about every country defines privacy differently, and Google’s lawyers have to understand and navigate all their rules and restrictions. And then there’s the inevitable legal wrangling that results when Google introduces a new product, with Google Books being a prime example.

It was no surprise when Walker complained about the U.S. patent system, pointing out that there are about 250,000 patents covering various functions and features on most smartphones these days.

“That’s a sign of a broken system,” he said.

But the legal team’s most important job is supporting the work of Google’s engineers, and that means learning how to be more than gatekeepers who just say what is and isn’t legal. It means offering insight, too.  “Lawyers can and should be innovation facilitators,” Walker said.