Homicides in California surged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, killings are down to historic lows in Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco and many other cities.

Div. Three of the Fourth District Court of Appeal has held that a trial judge erred in finding that a defendant was a direct aider and abettor of an implied malice murder based on his having encouraged the shooter to bring a firearm to a location where rival gang members had been spotted, saying that carrying a gun to a gang fight is not inherently dangerous to human life.

(Subscription required) A coalition of Bay Area legal consumer and housing advocates secured a partial reversal in a California Court of Appeal decision that enables renters to sue landlords for violations of background-check disclosure laws, even when tenants cannot show they suffered harm.

(Subscription required) Artificial intelligence-related disputes have surged to become the top litigation concern for in-house legal teams, displacing intellectual property and breach-of-contract issues. That's according to a new survey of more than 360 general counsel and senior in-house lawyers, many of them working for companies with a global footprint, conducted by the London-based law firm Shoosmiths.