California

Boalt Hall Law School Gets New Name

The University of California at Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law has settled on a new name. In January it will officially become the UC Berkeley School of Law, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. School officials paid a consulting firm $25,000 for a branding consultant to interview students and others…

Oct 16, 2007 1:39 PM CDT

Judge Allows Some Thrombosis Suits Against Airlines

Airlines that fail to act properly in response to a passenger complaint may be sued if the person develops deep vein thrombosis as a result, a federal judge has ruled. Judge Vaughn Walker of San Francisco decided Friday that claims for the potentially fatal blood clot are permitted in cases…

Oct 16, 2007 10:26 AM CDT

Sanctions Will Deter Discovery Abuse, Qualcomm Magistrate Says

U.S. Magistrate Barbara Major made no ruling at the end of a five-hour hearing on Friday on whether to impose sanctions against lawyers for Qualcomm for discovery abuse. But her comments made clear she’s not happy with the lawyers’ failure to produce more than 200,000 electronic documents in a patent…

Oct 15, 2007 11:58 AM CDT

CA v. Court in Sex Offender Residency Sweep

In a showdown between California’s governor and the state supreme court, parole officers yesterday began arresting hundreds of convicted sex offenders for violating a new state law. It prohibits sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park, as well as a number of other areas where…

Oct 12, 2007 10:31 PM CDT

Merged Firm to Corner Water Market?

A prominent Denver firm is merging with a California firm known for its work on water rights matters, creating a combination that will focus on such work throughout the western United States. Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck will tie the knot with Hatch & Parent on Jan. 1. It will still…

Oct 12, 2007 3:44 PM CDT

Law Firm Claims Right to Partner’s Invention

An intellectual property law firm is claiming it owns the patents on inventions by one of its partners. That’s the claim in a lawsuit against Google by a company that bought the right to the patents from a lawyer who worked for Fish & Richardson, the Recorder reports. The suit…

Oct 12, 2007 11:36 AM CDT

Qualcomm Laptop Becomes Focus in Sanctions Case

The focus is turning to a Qualcomm’s engineer’s laptop in court papers filed in advance of a Friday hearing on whether to sanction the company’s outside lawyers for discovery mistakes. During pretrial discovery, lawyers at Day Casebeer Madrid & Batchelder failed to search the laptop to learn whether engineer Viji…

Oct 10, 2007 12:54 PM CDT

Will UC Bolt from Boalt Hall Name?

The University of California at Berkeley School of Law is having an identity crisis. The firm is known in California as Boalt Hall School of Law, but the name can cause confusion outside the state. So the school has hired a consulting firm to poll students, faculty, alums and others…

Oct 9, 2007 12:37 PM CDT

E-Discovery Trips Up Lawyers

Outside lawyers for Qualcomm Inc. will appear at a Friday hearing that considers whether they should be sanctioned for failing to turn over e-mail in a patent dispute with Broadcom Corp. The dustup has gotten a lot of ink in the legal press, but Qualcomm’s problems are not unique, the…

Oct 9, 2007 11:04 AM CDT

CA Associates Look to Bonuses as Pay Holds Firm

Some California associates are hoping that New York law firms will raise annual starting pay to $200,000, leading to another round of salary wars. But many observers say a cooling economy is likely to keep new associate pay at the big California firms at $160,000, the Recorder reports. In view…

Oct 8, 2007 12:54 PM CDT

Paintball Suit Seeks Warnings

A man whose wife was killed in a paintball accident says a successor manufacturer has not lived up to a promise to publicize the dangers of older equipment. Mark Contois plans to file a complaint today in a California court seeking to force KEE Action Sports to do more to…

Oct 5, 2007 4:30 PM CDT

Nuns Evicted, Gagged in Pedophile Priest Settlement

The Catholic Church has obtained a gag order to prevent disgruntled nuns in California from talking about their evictions. The church is ousting nuns from five convents so it can sell the buildings to help fund a $660 million pedophile priest settlement, the Washington Post reports. One of those who…

Oct 5, 2007 3:15 PM CDT

Heller Ehrman Axes 65 Support Staffers

Heller Ehrman has cut 65 administrative staffers—but no attorneys—in its offices throughout the United States. The aim was to cut costs, firmwide managing partner Robert Hubbell told the Recorder. He said the expanding law firm needed to consolidate work that was initially done in each of its offices. The move…

Oct 5, 2007 12:37 PM CDT

Cops Bag Arrests, Vehicles in ‘Friendly’ Contests

Los Angeles County police have been participating in some unusual contests. There was “Operation Any Booking,” in which cops competed to see how many people they could arrest in a day. Or “Operation Vehicle Impound,” which boosted vehicle impoundments from 4.7 a day in July to 37 on the day…

Oct 4, 2007 6:27 PM CDT

Judge Allows NASA Background Checks

A federal judge has refused to halt background checks for 28 workers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. U.S. District Judge Otis Wright of Los Angeles refused to issue an injunction after the government said information about past drug use would not be used in criminal cases against the workers, the…

Oct 4, 2007 6:04 PM CDT