(Subscription required) The pass rate on California's February bar exam plummeted to 30.8%, marking a dramatic return from last year's unusual score spike to the usual pattern of high failure rates on the Golden State's annual late winter test. The pass rate is the lowest recorded in the last six years and the second lowest mark in four decades, according to figures released Friday by the state bar.

(Subscription required) Former FTC attorney Faye C. Barnouw brings a consumer protection mindset and a photographer's eye to the bench, handling hundreds of misdemeanor cases each week while focusing on fairness, preparation and rehabilitation.

The California high court has ordered that former Executive Director of the State Bar Joseph Dunn, 67, be suspended from practicing law for one year, with execution stayed, and face an actual suspension for the first 30 days of his 365 day probationary period relating to charges that he intentionally misled the body’s Board of Trustees during his tenure by saying, in 2013, that no agency funds would be used to fund a then-upcoming trip to Mongolia.

The California Supreme Court yesterday held that defendants who seek resentencing based on claims that they could not presently be convicted of murder due to changes in the law regarding imputed malice are not categorically barred from relief based on the fact that the errors they assert in their petition could have been raised on direct appeal.