We have recently posted about a series of articles discussing the benefits of oral argument.  Those articles focused primarily on the potential impact of oral argument in California appellate courts in affecting the outcome of decisions.  Earlier this year, Jeff Bleich (current Ambassador to Australia, and former special advisor to President Obama and California State [...]

A useful resource for those preparing to argue before the California Supreme Court—and for appellate advocates generally—is the Court’s collection of archived broadcasts of selected oral arguments.  The collection consists mostly of audio recordings, with a few videos thrown in, including this video of the argument in the Proposition 8 Cases, courtesy of the California [...]

After praising his likely successor and being praised by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Kennedy, Chief Justice Ronald George reflected on a 45-year career in public service in his final address to the State Bar on Saturday in Monterey.  (Full text here.)  In part, it was a self-retrospective of the George Court years and of his [...]

According to today’s Daily Journal [subscription required], outgoing Chief Justice Ronald M. George extolled the virtues of his successor, Chief Justice nominee Tani Cantil-Sakauye on Friday at the California Judges Association annual meeting in Monterey.  He called Cantil-Sakauye a “brilliant jurist,” consistent with her recent JNE Commission rating of “exceptionally well qualified,” which we discussed [...]

A few days ago, we analyzed data about the Supreme Court in the Judicial Council’s recent Court Statistics Report.  We have since noticed that, a month later and less than two weeks ago, the Supreme Court issued its own annual report (or, at least, a news release about the report) on workload statistics.  The numbers [...]

  Today’s Daily Journal has an article [subscription req’d] summarizing the remarks of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, praising Ron George for his tenure in overseeing the effort “to ensure that the Supreme Court of California maintains its position as one of the most preeminent legal tribunals in the free world.”  The occasion was [...]

In its conference on Wednesday, September 22, 2010, the Court granted no petitions for review in civil cases, no petitions were denied with dissenting justices, and no opinions were ordered published or depublished.

For most attorneys, their primary interaction with the Court is to file (or answer) a petition for review.  We therefore thought it would be useful to share what we understand to be the “life” of a petition in a civil case once it arrives at the Court.  When a petition is filed, it is scheduled [...]

The Judicial Council’s latest annual Court Statistics Report is out, giving lots of data about all levels of the California judiciary during fiscal year 2008-2009 and the 9 years before that.  The Supreme Court numbers are revealing, demonstrating just how many matters the seven justices rule on annually.  The data also show that, at least [...]

The following is our summary of the Supreme Court’s actions on petitions for review in civil cases from the Court’s conference on Wednesday, September 15, 2010. The summary includes those civil cases in which (1) review has been granted (not including grant-and-transfers), (2) review has been denied but one or more justices has voted for [...]

In today’s Daily Journal [subscription required], Presiding Justice Norman Epstein and Justice Richard Mosk of the Second District Court of Appeal have each responded to Professor Myron Moskovitz’s September 9 article entitled “Abolish Oral Argument,” which we discussed in this post.  In that article, Professor Moskovitz argues that oral argument is generally not a useful [...]

The Recorder is sponsoring a panel discussion tomorrow at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco to discuss the California Supreme Court’s 2009-2010 term.  The Panel will include Justice James Richman of the First District Court of Appeal, Jon Eisenberg of Eisenberg & Hancock, Raymond Cardozo of Reed Smith and Horvitz & Levy’s own Lisa Perrochet.  [...]

The Court held no conference on September 8, 2010.  Accordingly, no action was taken on petitions for review and no opinions were ordered published or depublished.

Myron Moskovitz, a law professor at Golden Gate University, has written a provocative opinion piece for the Los Angeles Daily Journal entitled “Abolish Oral Argument” [subscription required].  The article discusses what some might describe as “the dirty little secret” of California appellate advocacy—that oral argument is rarely effective in changing the outcome of an appeal [...]

A Daily Journal article [subscription required] this week described the pending proceedings in which the California Supreme Court will decide whether the Governor has authority to issue an executive order imposing a mandatory two-day-a-month unpaid furlough for state employees.  You can watch a video of the September 8 oral argument in that case here.  Even [...]

An appellate lawyer at another firm has raised a question about petitions for review in criminal law cases.  This lawyer said someone at the DOJ informed him they don’t file answers to petitions (APFRs) in criminal cases unless the Supreme Court asks for an answer.  So, the question is, does the Supreme Court ever grant [...]

Never let it be said that the Supreme Court can’t do more than one thing at a time.  The Court heard oral arguments in nine cases yesterday and today, including a well-publicized argument this morning about furloughing state workers.  Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the Court was dealing with another high-profile issue:  whether the Governor and/or [...]

The following is our summary of the Supreme Court’s actions on petitions for review in civil cases from the Court’s conference on Wednesday, September 1, 2010. The summary includes those civil cases in which (1) review has been granted (not including grant-and-transfers), (2) review has been denied but one or more justices has voted for [...]

Some of our readers are of the view that we need to include more pictures on our blog.  The ever-informative Cal Biz Lit has even gone so far as to supply us with a photo of a lectern.  We should point out that we have posted photos—albeit of “doghouse” file folders—on one occasion.   Nonetheless, by [...]

For your consideration, here are two great articles about what is destined to be known as the “George Court.”  First is this article by Clark Kelso in the California Bar Journal, which surveys the impact of the Court’s decisions under the leadership of the outgoing and esteemed Chief Justice.  Kelso argues the Court’s decisions under [...]