Everyone agrees AI should never replace attorney judgment. But what does “judgment” mean? Josie Petrick offers a different approach, which she calls “layered review.” A certified appellate specialist, who also serves as Chief of AI Products at BriefCatch and builds her own legal tech, Josie notes that human-only work is no panacea, either. Lawyers misquote...
Dismiss a case twice in federal court—no problem, you can still file in California. But dismiss a case in state court, and it’s gone forever. Tim & Jeff cover these two holdings of the California Supreme Court, issued two weeks apart. The first in Doe v. Marysville Joint Unified School District, held that the two-dismissal...
If someone is going to make #AppellateTikTok a thing, it’s John Stobart. John is a certified appellate specialist who shares practical guidance on responsible AI use for lawyers through short videos on TikTok and at stobart.ai. John walks Tim and Jeff through how he actually uses Claude in an appellate practice, and where he draws...
Related Posts: Appeals and Anti-SLAPP Law: California Appellate Law Podcast Episode 1 (Jul. 1, 2020) When Are Nonappealable Orders Actually Appealable? Orders on Demurrers and Summary Judgment: California Appellate Podcast Episode 2 (Jul. 3, 2020) Appeals and Summary Judgments: California Appellate Podcast Episode 3 (Jul. 20, 2020)
Tim Kowal and Jeff Lewis discuss Family Violence Appellate Project v. Superior Court, the California Supreme Court's unanimous August 2026 decision holding that an indigent litigant unable to find or afford a court reporter is entitled to an electronic recording, and that the trial court has a ministerial duty to press record. The court reached...
Ben Feuer, chair of Complex Appellate Litigation Group, joins Tim and Jeff to discuss how CALG built a successful appellate firm by rejecting the traditional law firm pyramid entirely. CALG hires no associates and pays attorneys a percentage of billings rather than a fixed salary. The result is a firm composed almost entirely of seasoned...
Less than a month after the California Supreme Court’s watershed case in Family Violence Appellate Project v. Superior Court expanded the common-law right of indigent litigants, the Third District used that case to let a man worth $1.75 million out of a $31 million appeal bond. The ladder of new common-law “indigent” accommodations is going...
In light of the national shortage of court reporters, the California Supreme Court now holds the statutory prohibition on audio recordings of court proceedings is not enforceable as written. But the reasons and results in Family Violence Appellate Project v. Superior Court (Cal. Aug. 10, 2026, No. S288176) are not what you might expect, because...
A demurrer guts your case, and the only claim that survives isn't worth a trial. What do you do? For two decades, California lawyers answered this problem by voluntarily dismissing what was left and appealing from the dismissal. The Supreme Court closed that door in Maniago v. Desert Cardiology Consultants' Medical Group (Cal. July 16,...
Retired Associate Justice Thomas L. Willhite Jr. of the California Court of Appeal, Second District, Division Four, joins Tim Kowal and Jeff Lewis to discuss nearly four decades in the legal system, from coordinating capital appeals at the California Attorney General's office to authoring roughly 2,000 appellate opinions. He serves as a mediator, arbitrator, and...
John Mitch Mitchell joins Tim Kowal to unpack Maniago v. Desert Cardiology Consultants’ Medical Group, a July 2026 California Supreme Court decision that shuts down a procedural shortcut California litigators have been relying on for years. Mitchell, who represented the plaintiffs on appeal, offers a candid, behind-the-scenes look at how a carefully planned litigation strategy...
Smart move by Jermaine Jackson to change his name to “Jacksun”—it got him out of a $6.5 million default judgment. (Sort of.) The Daily Journal recently published my article, "How One Vowel Beat a $6.5 Million Judgment" (Civil Procedure, July 20, 2026). The column details how Jackson legally changed the spelling of his surname years...
Why do tenants' rights cases end up on appeal—and what happens when the Ellis Act gets weaponized? Tenants' rights appellate attorney Fran Campbell joins Jeff Lewis as a guest host while Tim Kowal is on vacation, sharing hard-won insight from landlord-tenant litigation, mobile home park law, and the appellate front lines of California's housing crisis....
One California city has been quietly collecting $5,000-per-incident fines from short-term vacation rental owners. And if the regime is struck down, the city may owe half a million dollars back. Former constitutional law attorney David Koslow joins Tim Kowal and Jeff Lewis to break down two Appellate Division challenges that expose a structural flaw in...
Why do writ petitions so often fail? Judge Tom Fay covers the technical writ rules that attorneys often overlook. In part 2 of our conversation with former lead writs attorney at the Santa Ana Court of Appeal, Judge Fay covers the CRC 8.486 and local rule requirements for your writ petition, the available remedies for...
Tom Fay spent years as the lead civil writs attorney for California's 4th District, Division 3, processing every emergency petition that crossed the court's threshold. Effective June 29, 2026, he's now Judge Tom Fay of the Orange County Superior Court. We caught Judge Fay between appointments for an inside look at what actually happens when...
One of just 12 California lawyers dual-certified in both family and appellate law, Lisa McCall has an unusually clear view of how family trial work plays out on appeal. Lisa shares the record‑killing mistakes family lawyers often make. And with 14 published opinions, Lisa shares about publish-worthy issues and her work on the amicus committee...
John Snow, Director of Legal and Trial Training at the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office and author of Rules to Speak By (Carolina Academic Press, 2026), joins Tim Kowal and Jeff Lewis to discuss what it actually takes to be an effective oral advocate. Snow has tried more than 30 cases to completion in state...
Drawing on 20 years observing attorney behavior, Hon. Stuart M. Rice (ret.), now at JAMS, speaks freely. This episode is a rare candid debrief from the other side of the bench. Key topics: Your next status conference is closer than you think. Hit play before it gets here—this episode will change how you read the...
Every litigator has a judge or two they would paper on sight. The peremptory challenge under Code of Civil Procedure section 170.6 seemingly gives an absolute right: one affidavit, no reasons given, no questions asked, and the judge is gone. That’s how it’s been done for nearly 50 years. But not anymore. If you or...
Does your office have a blank 170.6 form ready to go for a certain judge? Stop doing that. A 170.6 peremptory challenge is no longer automatic: the California Supreme Court now authorizes courts to look behind your 170.6. The touchstone is whether your 170.6 is based on a genuine belief of prejudice—or mere grievance. But...
The fall of copyright troll Prenda Law is, according to the ABA Journal, "part of legal folklore." We talk with the attorney who kicked over the first domino, Morgan Pietz. Prenda Law was the copyright trolling operation that filed approximately 20,000 abusive BitTorrent lawsuits targeting anonymous defendants for alleged pornography downloads. Morgan's work on that...
Everyone is watching Family Violence Appellate Project v. Superior Court (S288176) to see if the California Supreme Court is going to strike down the ban on electronic recording of court proceedings. There is a steady drumbeat in favor, including the Los Angeles County Superior Court and other courts. But are we missing a perspective? Stephanie...
The Honorable Tani Cantil-Sakauye led the state judiciary through the Great Recession's budget crisis, bail reform advocacy, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Now she has three new roles: President and CEO of the Public Policy Institute of California, a neutral at ADR Services, and a founding voice of the Alliance of Former Chief Justices. CJ Cantil-Sakauye...
In addition to having more than 100 published opinions and close to 100 oral arguments to his name, Jeremy B. Rosen is the managing partner of the Horvitz & Levy LLP San Francisco office. Jeremy is also nationally recognized for his First Amendment and anti-SLAPP work. Jeremy joins Jeff and Tim on the California Appellate...
Justice Ming Chin wrote more majority opinions in his first decade on the California Supreme Court than any colleague—then retired to discover that mediation feels a lot like his first judicial assignment in family law, where the goal was bringing people together rather than telling them what to do. Justice Ming’s biggest pet peeve as...
Legal writing authority Ross Guberman has been busy absorbing AI tools into his popular BriefCatch and now-related suite of writing tools. Ross returns to discuss how BriefCatch cousin app RealityCheck uses a traditional authority base plus AI power to ruthlessly search and destroy hallucinations in your briefs. Who else is using RealityCheck? Courts. So let...
The law is riddled with things "everybody knows" that aren't actually true. In this April Fool's-themed episode, Tim Kowal and Jeff Lewis discuss several legal myths, half-truths, and courtroom fictions—from rules of evidence to constitutional assumptions to a Scopes Monkey Trial mythology that is more Hollywood script than record. Key points: Miranda warnings aren't in...
Last month I had the pleasure of presenting to the Orange County Bar Association on a topic I return to often: how good cases die on appeal, not because the appellant was wrong on the merits, but because avoidable procedural mistakes made reversal impossible before the briefing even began. The talk was titled the "Appeals...
David Lat—founder of Above the Law and author and host of Original Jurisdiction blog and podcast—explains what these stories reveal about a legal profession navigating ideological warfare, economic disruption, and the enduring craft of persuasion. Paul Clement delivered what SCOTUSblog called "a master class in oral argument" in Trump v. Cook. Lat dissects what made...
