Category: News

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER March 6, 2020 9:00 a.m. – 4:15 p.m. The Bar Association of San Francisco 301 Battery Street, San Francisco, CA 94111 8:30-9:00 Registration 9:00-9:15 Welcome/Opening Remarks 9:15-10:15  The Impact of California Cannabis Coalition v. City of Upland on Tax Initiatives In 2017, the California Supreme Court issued a 5-2 decision in City of Upland expressing a decision on a narrow issue, that local measures introduced by voter initiative were not required to be presented in a general election, but could be presented in a special election instead. This panel will discuss this decision which sparked a...

Justice Ming W. Chin today announced he will retire from the Supreme Court of California on August 31, 2020 after 25 years on the state high court. He served California well and he will be missed. We wish him a happy retirement. The 2019 SCOCA year in review article currently in the works will feature a retrospective of Justice Chin’s contribution to the court, and some thoughts on what his departure might mean. At the very least it means all eyes in the profession will turn to Governor Gavin Newsom, who now has the first opportunity to appoint a justice in the...

WHEN: Tuesday, January 21, 2020 LOCATION: 301 Battery Street Click here to register! 1:00 — Keynote Speaker Chief Justice of California Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye 2:00 — Current state of the profession Executive Director Yolanda Jackson (BASF) and Donna Hershkowiz (State Bar of California) will analyze recent data on the profession’s diversity and pipeline programs. 3:00 — Evaluating pipeline programs Executive Director Chris Punongbayan (Changelawyers) and Director of Programs for Academic and Bar Success Sara Berman (AccessLex) will will analyze issues across the legal education continuum from admission to licensure, and make recommendations to increase diverse law school matriculants, graduates, and...

SCOCA Symposium 2020 State and Local Control: California’s Battle Over Housing Thursday January 30, 2020 Hastings Alumni Reception Center Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/scoca-symposium-2020-state-local-control-cas-battle-over-housing-tickets-87740432997 Join Hastings Law Journal for our annual California Supreme Court symposium at UC Hastings College of the Law. Our theme this year is California’s state and local control battle over housing, including bills like SB 35, (proposed) SB 50, and related litigation. The symposium will feature a practitioner panel of attorneys discussing the background and impact of these legislative efforts today, and an academic panel covering the different dimensions of growth and housing in the state. Topics of...

Announcing a new data analytics tool for SCOCA watchers: a justices voting relationship matrix, available here: SCOCA Justices Concurrence Matrix Similar to the SCOTUSblog voting relationships chart on its statistics page (scroll to the bottom), this tool tracks the agreement rate of the justices relative to each other as a percentage value. The methodology is simple: any justice who concurs in the judgment counts as an “agree” in a given case even if that justice writes separately. SCOTUSblog does the same, counting agreement “in full, in part, or in judgment.” You will note that the “KW” values are grayed out....