Category: Opinion

As the number of states electing to delay the July bar exam in response to the coronavirus pandemic increases, so too have the calls for state bar associations to waive the exam requirement altogether.[1] Such an “emergency diploma privilege” would allow new graduates to practice law without first passing a state-administered bar examination. As the explanation goes, allowing a law degree to substitute for a bar exam this year would not only resolve current uncertainty over when bar exams can be safely administered (especially in harder-hit states like California and New York), but also allow these new attorneys to offer...

Overview Local governments have increasingly relied on parcel taxes — taxes on property that are assessed independent of a property’s value — to generate revenue and avoid longstanding tax reform measures like Proposition 13. The California Supreme Court’s recent decision in California Cannabis Coalition v. City of Upland lowered the threshold for voters to pass such taxes, so they are likely to increase. Parcel taxes, however, are legally suspect and largely unregulated: statutes barely mention parcel taxes,[1] and almost no judicial decisions or legal scholarship discuss them.[2] The current unregulated parcel tax system is untenable and requires judicial and legislative...

Overview On January 21, I attended “Diversity Summit 2020,” a program convened by the Bar Association of San Francisco, Berkeley Law’s California Constitution Center, and California ChangeLawyers. The conference explored two questions to address the state of diversity in the legal profession: Where are the leaks in the pipeline? And what can we do to fix them? As I recently wrote in the Daily Journal, legal profession surveys show that the profession has a persistent, systemic inclusivity problem. This conference brought together key stakeholders — including California’s Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye, leaders from the Bar Association of San Francisco,...

[Editor’s note: this is part one of a two-part series debating Proposition 13 in light of a possible ballot measure in 2020 to “split the tax roll” by changing the commercial property tax provisions and leaving residential tax assessments as is.] Overview Proposition 13’s promise of helping residential property owners remains unfulfilled 41 years after its passage. By freezing property tax rates on commercial properties, Proposition 13 shifted California’s property tax burden from commercial to residential properties. This has harmed consumers and contributed to tax inequality, while delivering windfalls to corporations. By reinstating annual reassessments on commercial properties, voters could...