Legal Pad

Foreclosure Law Expert Has Volunteer Spirit

[Scott Graham]

When Manjari Chawla put out the call for volunteers to the Federal Pro Bono Project’s monthly housing clinic, she got a good response. Many lawyers have come by at least once to counsel distressed homeowners facing foreclosure.

But San Francisco solo Steven Miyake’s help has been off the charts. “He comes once a month, every single month,” advising homeowners about a fast-changing area of law, said Chawla, the supervising attorney for the project.

For his efforts Miyake has been named the project’s solo practitioner volunteer of the year.

Judges Can't Accept Gifts. Can Branch?

[Cheryl Miller]

"Under no circumstance shall a judge accept a gift, bequest, or favor if the donor is a party whose interests have come or are reasonably likely to come before the judge."--  Judicial Canon 4D(5)

The California Code of Judicial Ethics is pretty clear about judges eschewing gifts. But what if the gift recipient is not a judge but the whole judicial branch? And what if the gift isn't a tchotchke but a much-needed $20 million?

On Thursday, most Judicial Council members seemed pretty giddy about billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong's eight-figure offer of cash and services to help install the Court Case Management System. And who could blame them? The state isn't exactly showering the courts with money these days.

No one questioned, at least not publicly, whether such a generous gift (the council is calling it a "grant") might spawn some ethical dilemmas for the branch. Those who quietly put the preliminary deal together insist there are no strings attached. But Soon-Shiong is, by all accounts, a brilliant, wealthy businessman who has a lot of interests -- financial and otherwise. What happens the next time Soon-Shiong or a company of his winds up in court? (Medical device developers never get sued, do they?)

If, as expected, the Judicial Council approves a letter of intent today, branch negotiators will have 12 weeks to draft a final agreement with Soon-Shiong. Presumably, the two parties could hash out conflict concerns then.

The whole issue is reminiscent of California's on-again off-again dalliance with selling state-owned buildings, including the Supreme Court complex, to private investors. Reporters and judges have joked about imagined corporate sponsorships like Justice by Jack-in-the-Box or Coca-Cola Courthouse. Maybe the state's dire budget cuts have infused those whimsies with a little more reality.

The Judicial Council is scheduled to discuss Soon-Shiong's CCMS offer at approximately 11:20 today.

Monterey Bar Honors Former 6th District Justice Nat Agliano

[Kate Moser]

So many people showed up at a Monterey County Bar Association lunch honoring former Sixth District Justice Nat Agliano on Thursday that more tables and chairs had to be brought in.

Current and former Monterey judges and lawyers, plus a big gathering of Sixth District justices and his current colleagues at the Silicon Valley JAMS office, turned out to see Agliano accept a lifetime achievement award from the bar association. (Pictured here with Agliano are, from left, Justices Nathan Mihara, Patricia Bamattre-Manoukian, and Wendy Clark Duffy). The low-key jurist looked rather uncomfortable amid all the attention, and when Duffy introduced him, she showered him with praise almost apologetically.

“I know you’re almost reluctantly here because you’re so modest,” she said.

Agliano’s former colleagues on both the appellate and trial court benches said he has always been a great person to work with.

Bamattre-Manoukian said Agliano showed her the ropes when she first joined the Sixth District. “He’s a kind, gracious, smart, engaged jurist,” she said.

“You write something really good,” she ordered.

Another one of Agliano’s mentees, retired Judge Richard Silver -- who’s now also at JAMS -- said Agliano was a steadying influence on the Monterey court. He said Agliano helped him as a young judge when he was assigned some high-profile cases involving labor strikes led by Cesar Chavez.

“When you say Nat Agliano, it’s the same as saying ‘gentleman,’” he added.

There was one anecdote about a time that Agliano was not so calm and genteel. As Duffy told the story, Agliano, an avid golfer, had bought a new driver with plans to take it out over the weekend. The following Monday, the court’s veteran clerk and administrator, Michael Yerly, asked him how it went.

“Well, it’s in the lake,” Agliano replied.

Duffy said she wished someone had been there to snap some video of the even-keeled judge losing his cool on the golf course. “I think that would have gone viral on YouTube,” she said.

When the honorary lunch crowd cleared out of the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, Agliano stood, smiling, and said he had a good time. Not so much because of the lifetime achievement award, he said, but because it’s nice to see the legal community get together.

“It’s good for morale,” he said.

 

Minority Justices Feel the Pressure of Being Role Models

[Scott Graham]

For five minority judges who hold leadership positions in the judiciary, one of the great benefits is being a role model. And one of the worst is ... being a role model.

That was the takeaway from a Golden Gate University law school panel Tuesday featuring California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, San Francisco Chief U.S. District Judge James Ware, and three other state Supreme Court justices from around the country.

For Ware, who became chief judge eight months ago, he's had the opportunity to introduce his law clerks to civil rights hero Melba Patillo Beals, something the Birmingham, Ala.-born judge took deep pride in. "On the other hand," he said, the chief judge role is "quite burdensome." For one thing, "as chief judge, I'm being a little more careful about the decisions I make. In the back of my mind, now I'm Chief Judge James Ware making the decision." Ware joked that with the responsibilities of chief he sleeps like a baby -- "I sleep for an hour and then I wake up and cry."

Hastings Staff Say They're Nearing Pay Impasse

[Petra Pasternak]

Staff at UC-Hastings law school are tired of feeling undervalued.

Outside the school on McAllister Street this afternoon, 30 to 50 staff, students and alumni gathered to protest the school’s pay practices. It’s the second time they've come together in the past month.

Hastings has frozen salaries for its non-professional staff for almost the last four years, union organizers said, even as $200,000 has gone to cover salary increases for the top 10 administrators, managers and faculty in the past year alone.

Hastings United -- which includes facilities, IT, records, admissions, financial aid and other workers -- got recognition a year ago. But contract negotiations that started in April haven’t been going well, said Mark Farrier, an employee in the admissions office. “We’re about to go into impasse.”

Sanjay Garla, the chief negotiator for the union, said he wasn’t ready to unveil publicly what union members were asking for, but that staffers would need a 9 percent pay increase just to break even over the last few years, given the estimated 3 percent increases in benefit costs and the 6 percent cost-of-living increase in the Bay Area. “We’ve proposed a contract that just allows staff to keep their heads above the water, so they can stay in their homes.”

Mike Trevino, Hastings' communications director, said the last offer from management that he was aware of was a 5.1 percent increase, with the first half coming in January and the second half in July 2012. Management also offered two extra paid holidays, bringing the total to 15 paid holidays a year. The pay increases have been the big sticking point, he agreed, adding that the 5.1 percent management was offering was generous given the economy and the fact that Hastings staff haven’t been furloughed like all other state school employees and many workers in government and the private sector. “I don’t know any public employers that are offering this level of a salary increase in this economy,” he said.

Courts Won't Get Much from Traffic Amnesty Plan

[Cynthia Foster]

A new plan to generate revenue by offering amnesty on unpaid traffic violations won’t generate much revenue for local trial courts.

The amnesty program announced yesterday by the Administrative Office of the Courts gives those with old traffic tickets a chance to pay them off at a 50 percent discount during a six-month window that opens Jan. 1.

Donna Hershkowitz, assistant director of the office of governmental affairs at the AOC, says the agency can’t predict exactly how much money the program will generate, but state finance officials estimate the take at around $46 million. Hershkowitz said only 4 percent, or $1.8 million, of that will make its way into the trial court trust fund, to be distributed to the 58 county courts according to the AOC’s funding algorithm. The rest will go to the state general fund and funds for cities and counties. That's the same formula used to divvy up other court-collected fines and fees, Hershkowitz said.

In 2010, the state legislature passed a bill co-sponsored by the Judicial Council and the California State Association of Counties making such an amnesty program mandatory for traffic infractions, like running a red light, due to be paid before Jan 1., 2009. This year, legislators passed Assembly Bill 1358, sponsored by the California Public Defenders Association, which gives counties the option of offering amnesty on unpaid traffic misdemeanors, like driving without a license. According to an AOC press release, up to 6 million tickets are eligible for amnesty.

The Judicial Council decided to sponsor the legislation after a “working group of court and county collections people” weighed in, said Hershkowitz.

Panel on Gene Patents Gets Emotional

[Amy Miller]

Gene patenting is a touchy subject -- even for lawyers.

On Monday night, dozens of students, faculty, attorneys, venture capitalists and business owners gathered at Stanford Law School for a panel discussion about the gene patenting case Association for Molecular Pathology v. U.S., better known as Myriad, and two related cases, Prometheus v. Mayo (now pending for the second time before the Supreme Court) and Classen v. Biogen.

Speaking for critics who believe patenting DNA is immoral and hurts patients was panelist Daniel Ravicher, the executive director of the Public Patent Foundation, who represents AMP. For the proponents, Edward Reines, a patent litigator at Weil Gotshal & Manges, argued patent protection promotes innovation and the large capital investments needed to develop drugs and diagnostic tools.

Much of their discussion centered on Myriad. In July, a federal appeals court affirmed the right of Myriad Genetics to patent two genes linked to breast cancer, overturning a lower court ruling that threatened a key element of the biotech business. Ravicher announced that he was planning to file a cert. petition with the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday. 

But things got heated when Reines argued that Prometheus, not Myriad, is the best case to hash out some of the legal ambiguities related to patenting genes because, he said, it was less emotional. Rather than getting caught up in emotional debates, Reines said, the focus should be on improving personalized medicine so that more people can be effectively treated for diseases such as cancer.

“That’s the future of medicine,” Reines said.

Ravicher countered that there wasn't enough emotion involved in the debate over gene patenting. He then held up photographs of women he claimed had been denied cancer treatment because Myriad Genetics, which had obtained patents on genes that are markers of increased risk for breast and ovarian cancers, refused to license the technology to other laboratories. That made the tests too expensive for many women.

“We’ve lost our moral compass,” Ravicher said.

Worried Ravicher was inciting too much emotion, moderator Mark Lemley, director of Stanford University's program in law, science, and technology and a partner at Durie Tangri, told Ravicher to put the photos down. He refused, and defiantly continued to show several photographs of women. 

Meanwhile, Reines sat stone faced, reluctant to enter the fray. And after a few tense moments, the discussion over patenting genes continued without further outburst. 

 

Bock Readies TV Ad for S.F. DA Race

[Cynthia Foster]

Sharmin Bock, candidate for San Francisco district attorney, wants you to know just how serious she is. 

In a new television ad, the first of the campaign to run for any candidate, Bock appears amid footage of underage prostitutes and police tape to tell you that she’s the only prosecutor in the race. Not only that, she’s the only no-nonsense prosecutor in the race. The ad also touts her 22 years of experience and her 95 percent conviction rate. A recent piece of campaign marketing from rival and former S.F. prosecutor Bill Fazio touts a 97% conviction rate in domestic violence and child sexual assault cases.

Fazio, who said he hasn’t decided yet whether or not he’ll run a TV ad, congratulated Bock on her move into TV and said he thought it was probably a good idea, given that he has more name-recognition than her.

“[Bock and Onek] have to spend a lot of money to get where I’m at,” he said. “It’s not as important to me as it is to [them] because they have to get their names out there.”

Bock lead the other four candidates in fundraising in the last quarter. Bock’s campaign manager, Jon Gollinger, said the ad cost about $5,000 to produce.

Both Bock and Fazio market their prosecutorial experience with very serious faces. Fazio’s got a bit of a smile in the flyer given to me by a Contra Costa County private investigator volunteering for the campaign, but check out those eyes. In Bock’s ad, there’s a lot of purposeful striding but no smiling. In the battle of intense gazes, I’d have to say that Bock comes out with a win.

You can see both Bock’s ad and Fazio’s flyer below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apple GC Sewell Cashes in $10.2 Million in Stock

[Amy Miller]

Apple Inc.’s general counsel can afford to buy a lot of new iPhones for himself, and tens of thousands of his closest friends and family.

D. Bruce Sewell made almost $10.2 million on Sept. 23 when he sold 25,000 restricted units of Apple stock, according to a recent a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He’d been granted 100,000 restricted stock units on Sept. 21, 2009, a few days after he was hired, and they vest in annual installments over four years. The sale was made pursuant to a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan that Sewell adopted last year and amended in August, according to the filing.

Sewell made $7.1 million when he sold the first 25,000 units after they vested last year.

These probably won’t be his last stock sales, either. In addition to his base salary of $650,012 and bonus of $700,000, Sewell  was awarded another 100,000 restricted stock units last year, which will vest entirely in 2014 if he’s still at Apple then.

Saratoga Lawyer Convicted in Investment Scheme

[Ginny LaRoe]

A Saratoga lawyer was convicted Wednesday of wire fraud for defrauding 30 people of just over $1 million in an investment scheme.

Federal prosecutors secured a five-count verdict against David Prince, 49, who lost money through risk options trading and used investor money to make his own credit card payments and to lease a Mercedes Benz. Prosecutors also said he he used his position as a lawyer to assure investors about the legality of what he was doing.  

The jury deadlocked on another another two counts after asking U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer on Tuesday for further guidance on the meaning of "intent." The judge reminded them of past jury instructions and sent them back for more deliberations.

San Jose-based Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joseph Fazioli and Allison Danner handled the three-week trial.

Prince's current status with the California bar is active. He previously had been disciplined for misconduct involving two clients. In 2007 the State Bar placed him on probation for two years and ordered him to pay several thousand dollars in restitution for his conduct in two different matters.