In 1998, the California Legislature designated the second full week in May each year to honor the important contributions of citizens who serve on juries, making citizens’ right to trial by jury possible. This year marks the 16th Anniversary of Juror Appreciation Week. For those of you who have served on a jury, CALA would like [...]
If I were trying to grow a state’s economy, I would probably listen to someone who knows how to create jobs and is making decisions on behalf of shareholders, investors and employees. I think the time has come to take seriously all these various surveys that come out and rank California at the bottom or [...]
The Governor said in his State of the State speech: “We … need to rethink and streamline our regulatory procedures, particularly the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).” CEQA, for those of you who do not know, was passed in California in 1970 – the year of the first Earth Day. It does not directly regulate land [...]
San Francisco, the beautiful city by the bay, is one of the most popular destinations in the world. To me it is like Las Vegas. Two or three nights in San Fran is the perfect mini vacation. My wife and I like to hop on the famed cable cars and take a spin over to [...]
CALA recently released a report finding that just 17 of California’s 482 cities and 58 counties spent more than $1.09 billion on lawsuits over a four-year period from 2008-2012. And that’s just on verdicts, settlements and outside counsel. It does not even take into account the cost of in-house counsel and other administrative costs associated [...]
A recent LA Times article reported that dozens of recently graduated law students across the country have decided to file or join class action lawsuits against their law schools, alleging the schools lured them in with misleading reports of their graduates’ success. Since it was published on April 1st, I thought that it might be a joke, [...]
There is no doubt that since the passage of the Affordable Care Act three years ago people are not exactly sure of what to healthcare costs to expect. One of the major costs to healthcare is the annual cost of defensive medicine. According to the independent healthcare economics firm BioScience Valuation, the annual cost of [...]
The Los Angeles County Superior Court recently announced plans to eliminate 511 positions by June in a sweeping cost cutting effort to close an $85 million dollar budget shortfall by the beginning of the next fiscal year. The Presiding Judge, David Wesley, said all of the cuts are necessary. Including cuts made over the past four years, [...]
Nearly every organization in the State of California takes time to engage their supporters and arrange for them to meet their legislators in Sacramento. Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse and the Civil Justice Association of California did just that the other day, when we held our annual Day at the Capitol on March 13th. We started [...]
The deadline for new bills in California’s legislature was February 23rd and we can now see some of the legislation related to legal reform that legislators have introduced. I must point out here that Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse is strictly a grassroots, nonpartisan, educational nonprofit organization. We aren’t lobbyists, but we certainly take positions on [...]
