(Subscription required) State Bar investigators can obtain confidential records from Downtown L.A. Law Group as part of a misconduct investigation tied to Los Angeles County's $4 billion juvenile sex abuse settlement, a judge ruled. Los Angeles County, which asked the State Bar to investigate the firm last year following media reports alleging it improperly recruited and paid people to file false abuse claims, welcomed the ruling Thursday. 

The initial testing, says the California Bar Association, showed that “attorneys, whether at large firms, medium-size firms, or solo practitioners, are not complying with important record-keeping requirements which, if (they) were in place, would prevent negligent trust fund management errors.”

The City of Grover Beach in San Luis Obispo County might be liable for the attorney fees incurred by a civic group ad two individuals in gaining an order that forced the municipality to accept a petition seeking the recall of a City Council member, under a decision by Div. Six of this district’s Court of Appeal which rejects the trial judge’s notion that no significant benefit was conferred on the public.

A state appeals court panel today upheld a transient’s conviction for murdering a University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) graduate student who was stabbed 46 times inside a Hancock Park furniture store in an attack captured in a chilling audio recording. The three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the defense’s contention that Smith’s trial attorney violated the Racial Justice Act by comparing the defendant’s actions to an animal at the time he killed Brianna Kupfer, 22, on Jan. 13, 2022.