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Last week, Governor Jerry Brown appointed Stanford Law professor Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar to the California Supreme Court, reported the Los Angeles Times. In January, Cuéllar will fill the seat of Justice Marvin Baxter, who will not seek reelection in November. Cuéllar has all the right bona fides to sit on California’s highest court: Harvard undergraduate, Yale Law School, plus a Ph.D. in political science from Stanford. He’s taught at Stanford Law School since 2001....

The Fourth District Court of Appeal for the state of California has issued a ruling that, at first blush, appears to disregard the recent ruling of the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on a nearly identical issue. At issue in the People v. Sandee case is whether a warrantless search of a probationer’s cell phone is valid under the Fourth Amendment waiver that probationers consent to as a prerequisite to being granted probation....

After a decade of litigation, Peter Atherton has finally lost his battle for a spot on a D.C. grand jury. Atherton was sworn in as a District of Columbia Superior Court grand juror on April 9, 2001. The grand jury was scheduled to deliberate for 25 days, but Atherton was permanently removed from grand jury service on April 11, after an Assistant United States Attorney reported to the supervising AUSA, Daniel Zachem, that the jurors were complaining about Atherton....

Did you hear the one about the guy who was caught cheating when a traffic cam snapped his photo with another woman in the car? That’s not this case, but it has a cross-over issue. Los Angeles police use high-speed cameras to scan license plates and then catch drivers who are involved in crimes. They scan about 1.8 million license plates a week. But what to do about the privacy of all those people who are not criminals?...

The Associated Press reported yesterday that a California appeals court rejected a lawsuit brought by Christy O’Donnell and two other terminally ill patients who sought to legalize the procedure for doctors to prescribe them fatal medication. The court ruled that current law would criminalize physicians who helped patients commit suicide. The news comes as a blow to the patients in light of this month’s signing of the California’s physician-assisted suicide law....

If you’ve been to a Glendale, California Starbucks, you may have reason to blush - and feel violated. The “Starbucks Peeper” was recently arrested for putting in a secret camera in the ladies restroom. The peeping tom video recorded and took still photographs of around 45 female victims, some including children. The alleged Starbucks Peeper is William Zafra Velasco, 25, an unemployed student. He disguised the camera as a plastic coat hook that was affixed to the wall, right across from the toilet seat, reports the Los Angeles Times....

The administration at an elementary school in Gustine, Texas, was fed up with “finding poop on the gym floor,” as one parent told Dallas’ WFAA-TV. (Apparently, it was an ongoing problem.) They decided to get to the bottom of the caper by forcing students to pull down their pants and expose their underwear to check for poo. Predictably, the school’s actions angered parents – along with the school district’s superintendent, who said he would take “disciplinary action....

We usually write our own headlines. Some are straightforward. Some are funny. (At least we hope they’re funny). Every once in a while, however, a court will hand us such a gem that we decide to use a direct quote in a headline. That’s what happened today. (Thanks, Second Appellate District!) So how far must an attorney go to be deemed a “vexatious litigant” engaged in “grievously unethical conduct?” We’ll give you a hint: The answer involves puppet counsel....

While the German men’s team received $35 million for beating Argentina in Brazil last summer, the United States women got only $2 million for last night’s victory over Japan in Canada. So why the discrepancy? Blame FIFA You’ll be shocked to learn that FIFA, an organization embroiled in a sweeping corruption scandal, treats women players and women’s tournaments differently than the men. FIFA would never entertain the thought of having a men’s World Cup game played on artificial turf, but they insisted all games for this year’s women’s World Cup be played on the stuff, despite facing a lawsuit from top female players, even turning down an offer from Scott’s to sod all the venues for free....

We’ve covered resumes before, but cover letters are a whole other ballgame. The cover letter – which you should be sending even if a job description doesn’t ask for it – is your time to shine, to separate yourself from all the other lawyers blindly sending their resumes into the ether. While there’s no single correct way to craft a cover letter, there are some general principles you can follow for a smoother experience and with any luck, a better outcome (read: a job!...

Aaron Hernandez is scheduled for his murder trial in January, and the prosecution plans on potentially calling more than 300 witnesses. Among the hundreds of potential prosecution witnesses are Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, team owner Robert Kraft, and former LB Brandon Spikes. According to the Boston Herald, the defense had attempted to get the 305-person witness list pared down, but that request was denied last week. Is Hernandez going to have to face to these hundreds of potential witnesses?...

FOIA Request to Department of Defense In ACLU v. U.S. Dept. of Defense, No. 09-5386, an action in which plaintiff submitted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency seeking documents related to fourteen “high value” detainees held at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the court affirmed summary judgment for the government where the information withheld by the government was exempt from FOIA disclosure, and the district court did not abuse its discretion by declining to perform in camera review....

If we’re ever a litigant in a California appellate case, we hope that the judge doesn’t begin the opinion with some kind of condescending life lesson like, “If ever there was a case where the adage ‘be careful what you wish for’ applied, this is surely it.” Losing a case that begins with an Aesop shoutout sounds miserable. Jeffrey Barth understands that all too well, thanks to this Fourth Appellate District case....

Bar results are in – for most states, anyway – and some proud new attorneys who passed the exam are sharing their success on YouTube. The experience, of course, is quite personal – and insanely nerve-wracking. That’s why some examinees surround themselves with a support group of relatives or friends when they get their results. Others opt to face their fate in pro per. Or perhaps with a bottle of their favorite libation....

While the traditional madness that accompanies the month of March may inspire illegal office pools, this year, sports gambling advocates are hoping the madness inspires congress to repeal the federal ban on sports betting. Despite the fact that the federal ban on sports betting has been in place for nearly three decades now, if you’re a gambler, you might want to put your money on that law not being there much longer....

As a federal judge blocked President Trump’s order against transgender people in the military, his transgender ban and travel bans started to sound alike. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued an injunction against Trump’s directive on transgender military members, which he had dumbed down after a political backlash in July. Instead of a ban, the President said in August that transgender service members could be discharged. It’s more of the same, however, as the courts have pushed back repeatedly against the President’s executive orders....

Bad news: Being an attorney is not good for your waistline. Lawyers and judges are more likely to be overweight than most other professions and that information is supported by multiple sources. Attorneys primarily work in front of a computer or hunched over documents, sit for long hours on the job, and spend a lot of their meals at their desk eating take out. Add to that the stress inherent in the practice of law and you’ve got a recipe for some serious weight gain....

The Peju Province Winery is a family-owned business in the sunny countryside of Napa Valley, California. Tony Peju and his wife Herta bought 30 acres there in 1982, cultivated and nurtured the winery, all while raising two daughters who rode bicycles and horses in the rambling vineyards. They work the business together, and invite visitors to “bask in the glory of summer.” But now the Pejus are reeling after former employees allegedly stole company information that threatens the winery’s once-idyllic existence....

Two former partners of Edwards Wildman Palmer, a law firm based in Boston, have sued its managing partner Walter Reed. The allegations are racy – and sexy. The two partners who sued are Jay Rosenbaum and Lawrence Cohen. Cohen is married to Laurie Hall, who is also a partner at Edwards Wildman. Cohen says his wife was having an affair with Reed. It’s the stuff of all associates’ fantasies: two law partners, engaging in an illicit love affair....

In a patent infringement action involving infrared thermometers, district court judgment is affirmed in part and reversed in part where: 1) the court erred in finding that the claims in plaintiff’s ‘205 patent were not anticipated by an earlier patent, and thus defendant cannot be liable for infringement of this patent; 2) plaintiff failed to provide substantial evidence to support the jury’s finding that defendant’s device directly infringed on plaintiff’s ‘813 patent and actively induced infringement plaintiff’s ‘685 patent; and 3) the court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant’s motion for leave to add allegations of inequitable conduct to its original answer, as its proposed allegations failed to satisfy the heightened pleading requirement of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b)....