(Subscription required) Half of her docket involves estates and trusts; the other half focuses on guardianships and conservatorships. Both, she said, are highly emotional.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has brushed aside as meritless a man’s contention that the Equal Rights Amendment, having been ratified by three-fourths of the states, presently takes the form of the 28th amendment to the United States Constitution and that, under its terms, requiring males but not females to register with the Selective Service is impermissibly discriminatory.

Div. One of the Fourth District Court of Appeal held Friday that a defense summary judgment motion was properly defeated in a lawsuit filed by a lesbian former employee of a company affiliated with Loma Linda University, a Seventh-day Adventist institution, saying that the plaintiff had established a triable issue of fact as to whether her termination was motivated by illegal animus rather than a desire to save money.

A divided panel of Div. Two of the Fourth District Court of Appeal held Friday that a trial judge erred in terminating reunification plans for an out-of-state mother, whose son had been declared a ward of the Riverside Superior Court after his guardian could no longer care for him, due to her failure to obtain local services in Texas for which she did not have the means to pay.