(Subscription required) In a courtroom where outcomes can reshape lives, Judge Leslie B. Gutierrez ensures litigants -- especially the self-represented -- grasp what's happening. Her approach blends procedural precision with compassion, informed by her upbringing in France and her tenure in Los Angeles's toughest prosecutorial units.

The California Supreme Court yesterday largely affirmed the dismissal of a putative class action accusing private administrators—hired to manage loans offered under a 2008 statute authorizing local governments to provide homeowners with financing for energy-efficient residential improvements in exchange for a voluntary special assessment added to their property taxes—of engaging in predatory lending practices.

Officials said the state’s Bureau of Field Enforcement, which regulates child labor and wage and hour laws, is developing plans to conduct joint operations with an existing agricultural enforcement task force assigned to the Division of Occupational Safety and Health, known as Cal/OSHA.

(Subscription required) In a long-running dispute over coastal development, justices pressed attorneys on both sides about jurisdiction, delay, and whether recent amendments to San Luis Obispo County's Local Coastal Program have rendered the case effectively moot.