On February 5, Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Charles S. Treat approved California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s petition to link the state’s climate accountability case with lawsuits brought by the counties of Marin, San Mateo, and Santa Cruz, and the cities of Imperial Beach, Richmond, and Santa Cruz.

Div. One of the Fourth District Court of Appeal held Friday that after granting permission to a lawyer to withdraw from a case in which trial was scheduled to commence the following day, the judge erred in summarily denying a continuance rather than weighing the consequences of a party being unrepresented, but the error, the panel held, was harmless.

Since mid-January, the San Francisco district attorney has been forced on a daily basis to dismiss dozens of years-old criminal cases that had become mired in the judicial system as a result of earlier Covid restrictions.

Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero, the Supreme Court’s first Latina member and the first Latina or Latino leader of California’s judicial branch, will be the keynote speaker at Pepperdine Law School’s Belongings Awards on March 2.