All posts in Community

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is authorized for 29 judges. As of last week, it is finally full. Of those, eight were appointed by Trump, and seven by Obama, or slightly more than half.  Rounding out the rest, five were appointed by George Bush, and nine by Bill Clinton – so 13 republicans and 16 democrats. For completeness, there are also 18 “senior status judges,” who take a reduced load of cases. The senior status judges don’t vote on en banc petitions.  The 9th Circuit had 10,500 new case filings in 2018.

I was visiting with a couple non-bankruptcy lawyer friends who are almost as old as me, 120 years of experience at the table. I mentioned that debts go away in bankruptcy, liens don’t.  Huh?  You don’t owe the car debt anymore but if you don’t pay it they can take the car.  One said “bizarre”!  If it’s bizarre to experienced lawyers, I can understand a little better why it makes no sense to our consumer clients.

Desiree Causey is having the trip of a lifetime. She and her husband started in Rome – seems like a few weeks ago. Then to Greece, Israel, Palestine, Egypt to see the pyramids, Jordan. I see her posts on facebook everyday.

It’s really annoying to me that the two California senators are holding up confirmation of a badly needed Central District judge.  I’m a lifelong Democrat so it’s not politics to me.  But according to an article in the Daily Journal today – 11/22/2019 – the candidate Jeremy Rosen is clearly qualified and has significant “support among ideologically-diverse colleagues” but our senators are withholding approval “effectively vetoing Rosen’s candidacy, at least for now.”

By the way, November 22 is the darkest day of my life.  I was a freshman at Serra High School in Gardena in 1963 when JFK was shot down.  They announced it on the school intercom.   I still rarely watch the documentaries about that day.

Learning stuff for the Ethics program I’m doing for the Federal Bar Assn on November 22, 2019.  California law requires the retainer agreement to be translated into “the language the agreement was negotiated in.”   I guess as long as I’m doing the “negotiating,” no translated copy is required, since I don’t speak any other language (except bankruptcyese).  At the program I will be asking the two experts with me whether the retainer should be translated nevertheless; the pros and cons of doing that.

California Civil Code 1632.
(b) Any person … who negotiates primarily in Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, or Korean, orally or in writing, in the course of entering into any of the following, shall deliver to the other party …, a translation of the contract or agreement in the language in which the contract or agreement was negotiated, that includes a translation of every term and condition in that contract or agreement:

(6) A contract or agreement, containing a statement of fees or charges, entered into for the purpose of obtaining legal services, when the person who is engaged in business is currently licensed to practice law …

(g) The term “contract” or “agreement,” as used in this section, means the document creating the rights and obligations of the parties and includes any subsequent document making substantial changes in the rights and obligations of the parties. The term “contract” or “agreement” does not include any subsequent documents authorized or contemplated by the original document such as periodic statements, sales slips or invoices representing purchases made pursuant to a credit card agreement, a retail installment contract or account or other revolving sales or loan account, memoranda of purchases in an add-on sale, or refinancing of a purchase as provided by, or pursuant to, the original document.

(k) Upon a failure to comply with the provisions of this section, the person aggrieved may rescind the contract or agreement in the manner provided by this chapter.

(Amended by Stats. 2014, Ch. 117, Sec. 1. (SB 245) Ef