Don Shirley: Pianists make history
Iris Schneider on Annie Leibovitz
It appears as a mea culpa from a lawyer husband divulging personal health details about his wife.
Archive: Law
It appears as a mea culpa from a lawyer husband divulging personal health details about his wife.
Wow. This caps an interesting day for the LA Times. When you go to trial, anything can happen.
The six-week trial is wrapping up with the ask for damages dropping -- to just $12.3 million.
He sends a check for $10,000 along with an apology.
Plus look who is on T.J. Simers' legal team: Stephen Glass.
Trial continues in the retired sports columnist's $18 million claim of age discrimination and retribution for writing critically about the publisher's friends.
Jim Romenesko reports the staff was told this morning that the magazine is closing effective immediately.
After convicting Charles Manson and followers, Bugliosi wrote "Helter Skelter" and a number of other books.
Two lawyers have paid seven-figure settlements to Hollywood executives over bogus sexual abuse lawsuits.
Individual actors or set designers can't copyright their small contributions to a film, as the actress argued who was tricked into appearing in "Innocence of Muslims."
Overtures to big D.C. law firms did not find a comfortable fit for the Democrat who battled Big Tobacco and Big Pharma.
With U.S. Attorney Andre J. Birotte, Jr. as of today a federal judge, special counsel Bruce Riordan is moving to the Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section.
Douglas Emhoff went to USC law school, Harris to UC's Hastings College of Law. Both are 49 and have not divulged a date.
President Barack Obama today nominated U.S. Attorney André Birotte Jr. to be a judge on the U.S. District Court
Too many lies over too many years to be a lawyer, the California State Supreme Court says in an unsigned, unanimous opinion.
UCLA Law professor Eugene Volokh — he graduated from college at age 15 — takes his popular center-right law, culture and politics blog to the Post, which loses Ezra Klein.
Sergio Garcia has waited four years to be told he can practice as a lawyer. He still cannot be paid under federal law.
After ten years, Mickadeit is putting down his Orange County Register column to practice law in Costa Mesa. His first legal advice: "Never talk to a reporter without your lawyer present."
If you were a fan of Scott Turow's early blockerbuster legal thrillers, you will possibly remember that in the film version of "Presumed Innocent," Brian Dennehy played prosecuting attorney Raymond Horgan.
Kenneth Klee, one of the most respected bankruptcy lawyers in the U.S., is profiled in today's Wall Street Journal for his side practice. It won't help deter the stereotypes about Californians.
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals today abruptly lifted its injunction that barred same-sex marriages while Proposition 8 finished its course through the legal system. Soon after, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa married Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo in a ceremony at Los Angeles City Hall.
The Supreme Court today declared the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act to be unconstitutional, but declined to make a sweeping ruling on Proposition 8. The ruling means that same-sex couples who are legally married deserve equal rights under federal law, and that gay unions may resume soon in California.
The Supreme Court today without comment let stand a lower-court ruling that blocked Los Angeles officials from collecting and disposing of the belongings of homeless people that are left temporarily on sidewalks and streets. The court also said Wednesday would be its last day of the session.
City Attorney-elect Mike Feuer named his transition team today. The co-chairs are police commission president Andrea Sheridan Ordin and former Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg. The co-executive directors are Miriam Aroni Krinsky and Alex Ponder. Inside: team members and the communications director.
This cannot be called a surprise. Losing candidates for DA don't usually have happy careers in the office after taking on the boss.
Julio Morales cannot be convicted of raping a sleeping woman unless she is married, due to California state law, or unless it's proved that Morales knew she was asleep when he forced himself on her.
A lawsuit against Occidental College and President Barack Obama by Obama conspiracy-theorist Orly Taitz provided some eye-rolling amusement in the courtroom before it was tossed out by the judge.
President Obama has nominated Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell for a seat on the United States District Court.
The Daily Journal's Ciaran McEvoy ran one of the paper's periodic updates on the epic lawsuit between the MTA and one of its subway contractors accused of overbilling — way back on the original subway project. If nothing else, it's a reminder that the path from here to a new subway line is long and fraught with unforeseeable delays and problems.
Not a good day on the newspaper editorial pages for City Attorney Carmen Trutanich, who wants to be seen as the frontrunner in the district attorney race. "Trutanich is not the disaster portrayed by many of his critics," the Times says, adding the inevitable but.
In his column over at the Jewish Journal, Bill Boyarsky looks at the ballot battle over a judgeship that once again appears to be a case of a challenger trying to capitalize on a sitting judge having an ethnic name. The highly ranked incumbent is Superior Court Judge Sanjay T. Kumar. The challenger is a guy named Smith. And that's all most voters will know when they look at their ballots.
Judge Otis Wright II, a George W. Bush appointee who was confirmed in 2007, has filed for personal bankruptcy, "a rare thing for a federal judge." His home in Rancho Palos Verdes will be put on the market.
The best hope for newspapers online is a temporary, narrow anti-trust exemption to let publishers collude on a web pay wall, says a former reporter now at UCLA Law School.
"Proposition 8 served no purpose, and had no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California,” the court said.
Both sides are claiming victory in a Los Angeles civil trial that was noteworthy because the judge said reporters could not cover the case because of sensitive income tax information to be discussed.
Friends of the environmental attorney Roger Carrick held a well-attended life celebration last night at Para Los Niños, the Downtown childrens' center where he was on the board and the former chairman.
The well-known criminal defense attorney in Los Angeles recently was directing attorney of the Post Conviction Assistance Center. She died last week.
A fee dispute between the wealthy widow of sub-prime mortgage magnate Roland Arnall and her former tax attorney has gone to a civil jury trial in Los Angeles. That's not...
I guess the Los Angeles County reserve sheriff's deputy who made the traffic stop that netted arson suspect Harry Burkhart is OK looking too.
The Herman Cain sexual harassment allegations (and the Anthony Weiner frolics some months earlier) provide fresh material for the January profile.
Not many people probably know that there is a Mental Health Courthouse in Los Angeles County, or that when you report for Superior Court jury duty Downtown you could be sent to this building on San Fernando Road.
U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney sanctioned Justice Department lawyers and ordered the FBI to pay monetary sanctions over the government lying about its surveillance of SoCal Muslim groups.
The California Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the proponents of banning gay marriage can take the place of state officials defending the initiative in court.
Frank and Jamie McCourt have reportedly reached a divorce settlement under which she would get about $130 million and relinquish any claim to the Dodgers.
Steven Gellman says he was fired for objecting to the paper discontinuing magazine delivery to less desirable Zip codes.
Southwestern Law School professor David Fagundes, writing at the legal blog Concurring Opinions, considers the long waits for a hot dog at Pink's and concludes there's a paradox lying therein....
The cover story of the ABA Journal for August has some good news for three Los Angeles authors who are also journalists.
Done in by a daughter, a lawyer, and a federal judge.
Too much money has been spent on pet projects.
Chuck Manatt was co-founder in Los Angeles of the law firm now called Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and served as national (and California) chairman of the Democratic Party and co-chair of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign for president. Manatt died Friday night at a Richmond, Va., hospital of complications from a stroke.
The L.A. Times has posted tonight, for Sunday's paper, the first of a four-part series by Richard Marosi that reconstructs the inner workings of a busted Sinaloa drug cartel from court records and interviews.
Nicole Bershon, head of the Los Angeles Police Department's watchdog agency just since May 2010, said today she will depart soon to become a Superior Court commissioner
Frank and Jamie McCourt have reached a divorce settlement, according to three people familiar with the case, says the LAT's Bill Shaikin. They are in court this morning to inform...
Superior Court Judge Scott Gordon on Thursday rescinded his finding that Frank and Jamie McCourt were at an impasse in their settlement talks, and he set a hearing for later today to determine if a deal had been reached.
Anthony Brooklier has been in the news recently as the lawyer for Giovanni Ramirez, the parolee who the LAPD thinks is a top suspect in the Bryan Stow beating at Dodger Stadium.
Elmer G. "Geronimo" Pratt, the former Los Angeles Black Panther Party leader who spent 27 years in prison before his 1972 murder conviction was overturned, died today in a small village in Tanzania.
California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye spoke out today in Beverly Hills on the remark that Assembly Majority Leader Charles Calderon made at a recent hearing on his bill to strip her of some powers to oversee the courts
Matt Fong, a Republican who served as California's elected Treasurer for a term in the 1990s, died today of skin cancer at home in Pasadena.
The beating victim's family will sue today in L.A. Superior Court, the Daily Journal says in a story.
“We’re one of the few firms that sue; we don’t just send a letter,” Singer says in a NYT mini-profile of Hollywood's guard dog to the stars.
The suit against the Dodgers' top McCourt-in-residence, by the Boston-based law firm that made the big gaffe enshrined in McCourt v. McCourt, "is the strangest damned thing to read," writes Gene Maddaus of the LA Weekly.
The movie version of Michael Connelly's 20xx bestseller stars Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller, an L.A. defense attorney who eschews an office and operates out of the back of his Lincoln Continental.
After a procedural gathering of the city's most fortunate lawyers — those with a piece of the McCourts divorce proceedings — a couple of things became clear.
Lawyer F. Lee Bailey, who's now 77, has posted a lengthy argument on his consulting firm's firm website contending that O.J. Simpson did not kill his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman in 1994.
L.A. Democratic Party chairman Eric Bauman was right in our post last night. Associate Justice Carlos Moreno has resigned from the California Supreme Court, effective Feb. 28.
Eric Bauman, the chairman of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, has posted on Twitter that Justice Carlos Moreno of the California Supreme Court has submitted his resignation to Gov. Jerry Brown.
Stephen Yagman, the civil rights lawyer who did battle with the LAPD several times before his 2007 conviction for tax evasion, money laundering and bankruptcy fraud, was formally disbarred by the State Bar Court.
ESPN reporter Molly Knight is the first to tweet from today's hearing that the judge has sided with Jamie McCourt and thrown out the disputed marital agreement with Frank McCourt.
The editors of the American Bar Association's ABA Journal have put up their annual list of top 100 legal blogs, including several SoCal gems.
Hector Villagra, legal director of the Americal Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, will succeed Ramona Ripston as head of the organization.
The Los Angeles Daily Journal already has the highest pay wall around separating its stories from the Internet, and it just got higher.
U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips rejected a move by lawyers for the state to return Bruce Lisker to prison because he was freed on a legal point that no...
H. David Nahai, whose short stint as general manager of the Department of Water and Power for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa ended last year, is joining the Los Angeles law firm of Lewis, Brisbois, Bisgaard & Smith as partner.
Turns out that Beverly Hills Judge Elden Fox can't just make it up and prevent Lindsay Lohan from getting bail on a misdemeanor violation.
Once Larry Silverstein gets done testifying, the two sides will go into mediation, reports say.
Fine, the 70-year-old lawyer and self-styled taxpayer advocate sent to jail "indefinitely" by a ticked-off Superior Court judge, served a year and a half before being released abruptly last night.
Bruce Lisker's lawyer says that a representative of Attorney General Jerry Brown's office asked to delay consideration of Lisker's legal status until mid-November — in other words, after the election.
The Daily Journal's Ciaran McEvoy seems to have this alone, in today's paper.
U.S. District Court Judge Virginia A. Phillips in Riverside ruled tonight that the military’s ban on openly gay service members violates the 1st Amendment rights of lesbians and gay men.
In Part 6 of The Lisker Chronicles at LA Observed, Bruce Lisker is hit with the state's move to send him back to prison, just as he celebrates his one-year anniversary of freedom.
The attorney general’s office filed a motion late Wednesday saying that Bruce Lisker, released last year after more than 20 years in prison on a conviction of killing his mother, should be sent back because the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that inmates should not be allowed to file late petitions for release even if they can prove they are innocent.
The Times used an outside accountant to look at the mounds of financial information that has become publicly available as part of the Frank and Jamie McCourt divorce action. The...
With Mannywood a thing of the past, artist Stuart Rapeport suggests a new use for the left field corner seats. Jamiewood! Day 2 of McCourt vs. McCourt: Law student Josh...
Photographers Jonathan Alcorn (top) and Ted Soqui (bottom) were both out waiting for Frank and Jamie McCourt to come and go from court on Monday..
Douglas Kmiec, the Republican law professor at Pepperdine who endorsed Barack Obama for president and became U.S. ambassador to Malta, was seriously injured in a one-car crash near Calabasas that killed a nun.
Tani Cantil-Sakauye was unanimously confirmed today by the Commission on Judicial Appointments as the next chief justice of the California Supreme Court....
Superior Court Judge Hilleri J. Merritt committed "an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech" violating the First Amendment when she blocked the L.A. Times from publishing a courtroom photo of a murder defendant, the state Court of Appeal ruled.
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has extended the stay-pending-appeal of the recent Proposition 8 decision until at least December....
U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker kept his temporary hold on gay marriages in effect until Aug. 18 to give supporters of Proposition 8 time to appeal last week's ruling invalidating key parts of the voter-approved measure.
Superior Court Judge Hilleri G. Merrit upheld her order barring the L.A. Times from publishing a courtroom photo of a murder defendant whose picture has already been in the media.
Federal judge Chief Vaughn Walker in San Francisco has ruled California voters' ban on same-sex marriage is invalid.
The federal court in San Francisco says that tomorrow is the day for the much-anticipated ruling on the constitutionality of the measure banning same-sex marriage in California.
California Chief Justice Ronald George will retire rather than seek to keep his seat on the state's high court in November's election, the chief justice just announced. The Republican appointee...
The judge overseeing the Associated Press lawsuit against Shepard Fairey — over his famous "HOPE" poster of then-candidate Barack Obama — told the Los Angeles artist that he is likely to lose in court.
Remember the lawsuit that alleged Variety violated a deal by running a critical review of "Iron Cross' while the film's producers were buying ads in the trade paper? A judge said no way, on First amendment grounds.
Bel-Air author Justine Musk is blogging about the financial details of her divorce from Elon Musk, the Paypal co-founder who is behind the Tesla electric car company and Space X. It sounds contentious.
an LA Observed reader sent me to this Yale Law Review article from 1993 in which Alex Kozinski, the U.S. 9th Circuit judge, and Eugene Volokh, the UCLA scholar and law blogger, do a thorough briefing on Yiddishisms in the law.
Two of the associate editors at the Los Angeles Daily Journal — Christian Berthelsen and Evelyn Larrubia — are going off on a couple of the most sought-after fellowships among print journalists. Only Larrubia is expected back, apparently. Read the memo.
Perhaps the surest sign that the Roman Polanski saga could be speeding toward a final disposition: Los Angeles' most famous fugitive took to the web this weekend to make a personal plea to Swiss authorities to stop his extradition.
Lopez, a name partner at Century City's Kleinberg Lopez Lange Cuddy & Klein, has represented Michael Jackson and members of the Eagles, and had been a producer on "Selena." He...
Three years ago, the family that owns the Hollywood property where Yamashiro and the Magic Castle sit put the 10 acres up for sale. They accepted an offer from Sean MacPherson, impresario behind the Maritime Hotel, Jones, Bar Lubitsch and other hip spots.
Judge seizes control in rare move after David Bergstein, who runs Capitol, ThinkFilm and related entities, was described in court as overseeing "the Enron of the entertainment world."
John C. Hueston, the former federal prosecutor who secured the convictions of Enron executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, lost a case in an Orange County courtroom last week. That's only news because he had never before suffered a trial defeat, the Los Angeles Daily Journal reports tomorrow.
Our Friday newsroom buzz about the Daily Journal closing its Washington bureau was half wrong (or half right, if you prefer.) Read the memo.
The SoCal legal assistant who became famous when Julia Roberts portrayed her in the movies now runs Brockovich Research & Consulting with a couple of assistants out of her Agoura Hills home.
The lawyer-blogger at Copyrights & Campaigns says the candidate may well face a lawsuit for using Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World" in her video slam on Gavin Newsom.
Anna Scott moves from the Downtown News to the Los Angeles Daily Journal on March 1.
Andre Birotte Jr. received Senate confirmation tonight to be the next U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, aka Los Angeles and environs.
Now that the Metropolitan Transportation Agency has spent 15 years and $32 million fighting the giant engineering and construction contractor Tutor-Saliba-Perini, staff writer Gabe Friedman asks a reasonable question in Friday's L.A. Daily Journal: what price is too high for a legal victory?
When he was mayor, Jim Hahn made the daily trip from San Pedro to City Hall — none of that Getty House stuff for him. As a new judge at the Ed Edelman Children's Court, he has 1,500 at-risk kids under his responsibility.
U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judge Kim McLane Wardlaw committed an "egregious error" in incorrectly interpreting Supreme Court precedent in granting habeas corpus relief to a prisoner convicted of raping a nine-year-old girl in Nevada in 1994, the high court said in a summary reversal.
The White House just announced that Andre Birotte Jr, the inspector general of the Los Angeles Police Department, has been nominated by President Barack Obama to be the U.S. Attorney...
Ordin, currently vice president of the Los Angeles police commission, is expected to be named Los Angeles County Counsel at next week's Board of Supervisors meeting. She held top jobs...
Jeffrey Tidus, an attorney with Baute & Tidus in downtown Los Angeles, died this morning of his wounds. He was found shot on the lawn in front of his home...
The billboard one (and ex-candidate for governor) has filed what Matthew Belloni of The Hollywood Reporter calls "a hilarious, $500,000 breach of contract lawsuit against the Community Redevelopment Agency." Angelyne,...
The L.A. Times' Scott Glover says it appears the FBI is doing the final vetting of LAPD Inspector General Andre Birotte Jr. for likely appointment by President Obama as U.S....
Laurence Rittenband was the Superior Court judge who handled the original Roman Polanski case, and if the recent documentary is correct, was going to undo a plea deal with Polanski....
Federal prosecutor Eileen Decker, chief of the national security section in the local U.S. Attorney's office, is joining the Villaraigosa administration as deputy mayor for homeland security and public safety....
Here’s a story that's gotten too little attention. Federal officials had been accused of keeping suspected illegal immigrants in "barbaric" conditions in a downtown detention center. From AP: The federal...
Former City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo began today as counsel at Goodwin Procter LLP in Los Angeles, in the firm's litigation department. He will have the leeway to continue his run...
O'Brien, appointed by President Bush and confirmed in Oct. 2007 as the United States Attorney for the Central District of California, meaning Los Angeles, will join the L.A. office of...
President Obama has nominated Dolly Gee, managing partner at Schwartz, Steinsapir, Dohrmann & Sommers, and Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Jacquelyn H. Nguyen to the U.S. District Court bench...
A Los Angeles County Superior Court jury today assessed $370 million in damages against Guess? Inc. co-founder Georges Marciano for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress in a case...
Catching up to this via the SoCal Minds blog: Pepperdine law professor Douglas Kmiec, a regular on op-ed pages and elsewhere in the media, was nominated by President Obama to...
Eater LA, through a post signed by Curbed creator Lockhart Steele, says its post earlier this week leveling blind charges at downtown wine bar The Must "didn't rise to our...
A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal has sided with Jet Propulsion Lab scientists who are resisting a government requirement that they detail past and present financial...
It's not entirely clear to me who's leaving who here, but this much I know. Martin Berg, who was replaced abruptly last December as editor of the Los Angeles Daily...
The trickle of local Obama supporters receiving appointments as ambassadors is not quite a flood yet, but it's reached stream status. The latest is Munger, Tolles & Olson partner Vilma...
Vote of the electorate is upheld by the California Supreme Court on a 6-1 split, but the court ruled unanimously that existing same-sex marriages will also remain valid. Longtime Supreme...
There were any number of candidates off the Manny Ramirez situation. Just to change the subject, here are a pair of Twitter sends from Lawrence Hurley, U.S. Supreme Court reporter...
Cortney Fielding, the Superior Court reporter for the Los Angeles Daily Journal, is leaving the legal paper to freelance and work on a documentary project. * Update: Catherine Ho, a...
From the weekend L.A. Times, by Harriet Ryan: In a statement attached to the newly opened file, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Maureen Duffy-Lewis said a series of missteps,...
KTLA reporter Eric Spillman thought he had a good case so he fought the ticket he received via red-light camera while exiting the 2 freeway in Glendale. He won and...
Irvine's new law school — the one that was, then wasn't, and now is run by Erwin Chemerinsky — got a huge number of applicants for its first class and...
Californians Aware and its former president Richard McKee, a Pasadena City College professor, have been ordered to pay the legal fees that Orange Unified School District incurred after being sued...
President Obama has appointed a Maryland state official to head the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division, meaning that Villaraigosa adviser Thomas Saenz didn't get the job. The Daily Journal reported...
Hedges died Tuesday morning at home in South Pasadena of melanoma. He was 57. He was a leading Hollywood lawyer and also made a name for himself as an archaeologist....
Good column in today's L.A. Daily Journal (by former editor Martin Berg) about a storefront law office on East Compton Boulevard run by Luz Herrera. She's just your typical Tijuana-born,...
Some 190 lawyers and 250 staffers are getting the word this morning at Latham & Watkins offices around the country. The law firm was founded in Los Angeles in 1934...
Thomas A. Saenz, the in-house counsel to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, has been selected to head the U.S. Department of Justice's civil rights division, the Los Angeles Daily Journal reports today...
The economic downturn is hitting the pro bono legal sector hard, with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California imposing layoffs for the first time, today's L.A. Daily Journal...
The Los Angeles Daily Journal will report tomorrow that a ruling by Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutionally...
Remember Robert G. Bernhoft and Robert E. Barnes, those lawyers known as "the Bobs" who came out from Milwaukee last year determined to make it big in Hollywood? The L.A....
Two weeks after David Houston took over abruptly as editor of the Los Angeles Daily Journal, I'm hearing a lot of unhappiness out of the newsroom. Houston has reportedly been...
Politics, media and assorted news briefs from the greater Los Angeles universe. Heavy fog in Sacramento aborted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's flight from Santa Monica, so he made his fiscal emergency...
The Los Angeles Daily Journal newsroom was told this afternoon, in a very brief meeting, that editor Martin Berg is moving over to columnist and the new editor in chief...
It's not often you see Hollywood lawyers the prominence of Terry Christensen go to federal prison. He was sentenced today to three years, plus a $250,000 fine, for conspiring with...
Milwaukee lawyers Robert Bernhoft and Robert Barnes figured that getting actor Wesley Snipes off the felony tax charges he faced, and opening an office in Malibu, would gain them entree...
Of course Orange County judge David C. Velasquez was going to lose on his order barring the Register from reporting on a lawsuit against the paper by its news carriers....
Why yes, I believe they did. Terry Christensen's law firm sent out a press release today (via Sitrick & Co.) that says he'll be "withdrawing" from the practice of law...
Allison Margolin has changed up her look a bit since we last checked in, but not her tune. She has an Op-ed piece in today's Daily News arguing that medical...
As Mark picked up earlier at LA Biz Observed, prominent lawyer Terry Christensen and former private eye Anthony Pellicano were convicted today of conspiring to illegally wiretap the ex-wife of...
Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo today filed a civil court challenge to block Controller Laura Chick from asserting the power to audit his office, and she called in the...
Cyrus Sanai, the lawyer who publicized the existence of Judge Alex Kozinski's web stash as part of a grudge against the judge, files his report for the LA Weekly on...
Today's Los Angeles Daily Journal says that Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal, is in Sun Valley, Idaho for a circuit conference. He's not...
Alan Mittelstaedt, formerly an editor and L.A. Sniper columnist at CityBeat and LA Weekly (and blogging at the Weekly and at Witness LA), is joining the editing staff at the...
A federal grand jury has been secretly probing whether attorney Pierce O'Donnell violated federal campaign laws by asking employees of his law firm to contribute to the 2004 presidential campaign...
I'm told that the Los Angeles Daily Journal's Supreme Court reporter in Washington, Brent Kendall, has left to join Dow Jones Newswire. He was at the DJ for five years....
Cyrus Sanai is the Beverly Hills attorney who found sexually explicit photos and videos on Judge Alex Kozinski's personal website and who tipped the Los Angeles Times to the porn,...
Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, confirmed to the L.A. Times that he had posted sexually explicit photos on his website and only blocked...
The public information office at the Los Angeles County Superior Court has a bone to pick with tonight's Roman Polanski documentary on HBO. The court sent out this media advisory:...
California's Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that the voter-approved prohibition against same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Mayor Villaraigosa praised the ruling as the "right thing to do," and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said...
The seaside city has asked Ken Starr, dean of the Pepperdine Law School, to convene media and legal experts to help draft an ordinance that would control paparazzi swarms around...
New U.S. Attorney Thomas OBrien redistributed the 17 lawyers in the public integrity unit in Los Angeles among the major fraud and organized crime sections, the Recorder reports. The San...
The Anthony Pellicano trial jury was seated today. The government's opening statement is set to begin tomorrow at 8 am. The prosecution's official witness list, unsealed today, has 127 names...
Interesting lineup at noon today at the Loyola Law School Entertainment & Sports Law Society symposium. Topic: "The Paparazzi, Celebrity Bloggers...and the Lawyers Who Represent Them." Speakers: Michael Amir, legal...
Sandra Hernandez, who broke the news last May on the pre-deportation government drugging of two men before boarding at LAX, writes in today's L.A. Daily Journal that Homeland Security has...
Loyola Law School Dean David Burcham has been named provost at Loyola Marymount, a new position at the law school's parent institution. The new interim law dean is Victor Gold,...
No word in the Times web story on when civil rights lawyer Stephen Yagman begins serving his federal prison term for tax evasion, money laundering and bankruptcy fraud. But the...
CityBeat columnist Alan Mittelstaedt FOI'd the chancellor of UC Irvine trying to find out who pressured him to un-hire Erwin Chemerinsky as dean of the new law school, before eventually...
The Daily Journal's Sandra Hernandez reports that attorneys for immigrants being held in the U.S. facility are livid. In the wake of a series of scandals including the death of...
The family of Lana Clarkson said through its attorney that "we support the decision of the district attorney in this case and we will be present at the retrial. We...
Phil Spector's homicide trial ended this afternoon in a mistrial, with the DA's office vowing to try again. The final count was reportedly 10-2 in favor of conviction. Earlier, the...
The newly reinstated dean-to-be of the future UC Irvine law school will be next year's commencement speaker at the rival Chapman University law school. The dean there, John Eastman, has...
Liberal legal scholar and pundit Erwin Chemerinsky will become dean of the new UC Irvine law school after all. Chancellor Michael V. Drake spent the week in North Carolina —...
A three-judge panel of the state's Second District Court of Appeal sided with local groups and the city of Santa Monica and ordered that construction activity stop on phase two...
Constitutional law scholar and media quotemeister Erwin Chemerinsky was all set to be named dean of the new UC Irvine law school — he even signed the contract — but...
The Hollywood Reporter's legal site gives up the ghost as a standalone publication effective, well, immediately. Coverage of Hollywood's legal movers and issues will become a "dedicated channel" on THR.com,...
Jack McClellan, the self-proclaimed pedophile who has become notorious for hanging around local young girls and posting pictures on his website, flew to Chicago yesterday. Before he left, he was...
From the email in-box: Quarterback Matt Leinart has agreed to pay Brynn Cameron $15,000 in monthly support for the child they spawned together at USC. Corina Villaraigosa is already billed...
Lots of L.A. city council members are happy about this — a judge rejected a challenge to the ballot measure that extends their term limits. Voters in Los Angeles passed...
Today's Daily Journal front page carries the story of Ted A. White, an attorney who quit abruptly as a $115,000-a-year immigration judge in Los Angeles before completing his first year....
Brenda Lee only received $2,500 in punitive damages today from the jury that earlier awarded her $6.2 million for suffering discrimination as a black lesbian in the Los Angeles Fire...
Pinkberry's popular frozen concoction isn't yogurt in the eyes of the law in California, but the makers would like to fix that. Alexa Hyland in today's Daily Journal chronicles the...
A jury yesterday recommended that Frank Lima should receive compensation from the city of Los Angeles after he argued that he suffered retaliation for refusing to give preferential treatment to...
The Bush Administration has settled on Thomas O'Brien, chief of the criminal division for the U.S. attorney's office here and a former gang prosecutor in the district attorney's office, to...
Curtis Hazell, the third-ranking official in the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office and college roommate of DA Steve Cooley, says he did not begin dating stripper Donna Novarro until...
Just before jurors returned a verdict yesterday in a breach-of-contract case involving the creators of the NBC sitcom "Will & Grace," lawyers for the network revealed that the jury foreman...
It's Adam Gorfain, a 41 year old senior producer for "Dateline NBC" at the NBC News studios in Burbank, according to sometime NBC ABC independent investigative producer Eric Longabardi on...
Waiting to hear just when (or if, considering appeals) he goes to federal prison in the Fleishman-Hillard case, Doug Dowie is writing up a storm. In addition to the screenplays...
The former New York Post gossip reporter alleges that Beverly Hills gazillionaire Ron Burkle committed libel, emotional distress, interference in business relationship, injurious falsehood, abuse of process and civil conspiracy....
President Bush gave Attorney General Alberto Gonzales a vote of confidence last night, but why let that ruin a good story? This morning's Daily Journal speculates on possible replacements for...
A local panel formed by the White House has recommended Thomas O'Brien, chief of the criminal division in the U.S. Attorney's office here, and Sidley Austin partner Kimberly A. Dunne...
For the first time in 57 years a Los Angeles jury has handed down a death sentence in a federal case, tomorrow's Daily Journal reports. Two Russian mafia associates from...
Lawyers for Phil Anschutz say the stinker of a movie lost $105 million because Clive Cussler lied about his book sales. Cussler says that's, uh, ridiculous. All I want to...
The law firm of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges raised its salary for new associates to $160,000 a year, following the lead of a top New York City firm,...
PI Anthony Pellicano's client isn't as much a fool as he seemed. A week after receiving court permission to represent himself against charges of racketeering and wiretapping, the Daily Journal...
Mogul Kirk Kerkorian got briefings from his high-powered attorney on what P.I. Anthony Pellicano was learning from illegal wiretaps of Kerkorian's ex-wife in their child-custody and support case, the New...
Remember when South Bay bagel shop owner Lynn Diane Olson shocked the legal establishment by getting elected last June to the Superior Court? Although rated not qualified by the county...
LA Biz Observed had it early this morning: the U.S. Attorney for Los Angeles, Debra Yang, is resigning to join Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and co-chair the firm's crisis management...
With the demise of the Los Angeles Alternative in print form, Allison Margolin needed a new place to advertise her services as L.A.'s Dopest Attorney. She found one. Ads for...
Civil rights lawyer Stephen Yagman made bail on income tax evasion charges after spending part of Friday in jail and returned to his office on the Venice Beach boardwalk, where...
Civil rights attorney—and long-time thorn in the side of local law enforcement officials—Stephen Yagman has been indicted on nineteen counts of income tax evasion. The indictment dated June 1 was...
Today's Daily Journal carries an Erin Park story saying that the City Attorney's office spent $10 million on an outside law firm to defend the city against a lawsuit over...
New at LA Observed
Clinton fundraises in LA
Jim Henson Studios on La Brea became a presidential campaign stop on Thursday.
Brown declares disaster area
The natural gas leak above Porter Ranch now qualifies for various government actions. Story
Performing arts with cheer
Donna Perlmutter closes out 2015 with productions downtown and on the Westside.
