Welcome to your daily briefing on legal developments in California. Today we're covering 4 key stories including updates on california legal headlines, background & context. Let's dive in.
1 story
Find the latest news on attorney licensing, discipline, and State Bar policy updates and programs that matter to the public.Note: The news releases were published at the time indicated and have not been updated. They are maintained for….
Relevant to legal professionals operating in CA.
Reach professionals in this market
3 stories
A preservation (litigation hold) letter is appropriate as soon as litigation is reasonably anticipated, not just after a complaint is filed. The letter should identify the matter, the document categories at issue, and the recipient's preservation duty. Failure to send one is the leading evidence of spoliation in subsequent motion practice.
Sanctions for spoliation can include adverse-inference instructions, monetary fines, and in severe cases default judgment. The cost of issuing a hold letter is one paralegal hour.
Beyond civil-rights and consumer-protection statutes, many CA jurisdictions have fee-shifting provisions in landlord-tenant, mechanics' lien, insurance bad-faith, and construction-defect contexts. Pleading the fee-shifting statute in the complaint is typically required to preserve the right to recover.
A fee-shifting case has fundamentally different settlement dynamics than a non-fee case, especially in low-damages disputes where fees can dwarf the underlying claim.
Most non-compliance findings stem from three avoidable mistakes: claiming credit for the wrong reporting period, missing the ethics-credit minimum, and failing to retain proof of attendance for the audit lookback window (typically 5 years). State bar audits are random but increasing in frequency.
A CLE non-compliance finding is a public record in many states and triggers an administrative suspension that requires reinstatement application. Reinstatement is slower than initial admission in some jurisdictions.
Get California legal intelligence delivered to your inbox every morning.
Subscribe FreeView all past issues
Feature your brand across the U.S., Canada, and select international markets and 10 industry verticals.
Become a National Partner