Justice Kagan has more words about the emergency docket, aka shadow docket. This one is about the 9th Circuit panel injunction of California’s law requiring school officials not to share with parents when their children present as trans. The Su...

Three paradoxes feature in this episode:Paradox 1: You must disclose a bankruptcy stay to the Court of Appeal. What about a bankruptcy that does not create a stay?Answer: Yes, the disclose-bk-stay rule also means disclose a bk non...

In Part 2 of our conversation with Michael Shipley, Tim and Jeff dig into the real-world fallout of California's no-horizontal-stare-decisis rule — and the structural fix Shipley has been developing to address it.Shipley walks Tim and Je...

California is the largest common-law jurisdiction where appellate courts don't follow each other—and it happened by accident. In Part 1 of this two-part episode, Michael Shipley explains how Bernard Witkin’s treatise reflections on case dicta b...

In the first half of their conversation with James Mixon, Managing Attorney at California's Second District Court of Appeal, Tim Kowal and Jeff Lewis ask what is healthy AI use, and unhealthy use? To help organize—yes! To replace judgment—no! T...

Is your AI training data biased? And is using AI-generated reasoning plagiarism?James Mixon, Managing Attorney at California's Second District Court of Appeal, covers troubling topics on how lawyers should, and should not, use AI. In thi...

Lemon Law lawyer Michelle Fonseca-Kamana discusses the seismic shifts in California lemon law—from the Supreme Court's decision in

You have to literally disobey an order in California to be held in contempt. But federal courts are a little more touchy-feely: they will find a contempt for violating the “spirit” of their orders. Tim and Jeff compare the Ninth Circuit's conte...

California’s New Legal Rules for 2026: AI, Photo Proof of Service, and Simpler Statements of DecisionNew statutes and court rules taking effect in 2026 and 2027 will change how California lawyers serve papers, preserve appellate issues, ...

AI-sanctions might get eyeballs, but the bigger sanctions are still for plain old bad lawyering. Jeff also raises this ethical and pragmatic question: who defends the lawyer when sanctions threaten the client? Should counsel facing an OSC retai...

A scandalous Netflix documentary called an unconventional sex-based therapy business an “orgasm cult,” all based on a sole source whose account has several flaws. But the Court of Appeal dismissed the defamation case on anti-SLAPP grounds. Tim ...

Want to know why bad AI cites really bother the courts? Jeff and Tim discuss two recent fake-AI-cites cases imposing sanctions and State Bar referrals, and draw this conclusion: It’s not that AI is bad at law—in one of these cases, the court no...

The California Supreme Court’s long-awaited "Taking Offense" decision on gender pronouns in elder care facilities introduces a new “captive audience” exception to the First Amendment. Tim worries this new judicial carve out may creep to other f...

Jimmy Azadian is often in the room when federal judges get together to share their personal concerns about the job. When judges are asked to come speak to a group, Jimmy reports that top of mind are the recent threats to judges and the courts—w...

AI Reshapes Legal Practice: ClioCon 2025 Delivers a Wake-Up CallJeff Lewis reports from the 2025 Clio Cloud Conference in Boston. Day 1 was encouraging, but Jeff reports feeling Day 2 as a “gut punch”: within about 5-10 years, man...

Few lawyers and LRW instructors write and think more about AI than Professor Jane Woods of Mizzou Law, who offers this most important AI advice: If you haven’t read the case, don’t cite the case.The Boies Schiller Cautionary Tale...

Just a couple years ago when we talked with Ernie Svenson, the attorney who talks tech fluently, AI was not even a thing. Now in late 2025, it’s the only thing. Ernie joins Tim and Jeff to discuss the rapidly evolving landscape of AI in legal p...

Teaching Judges: Appellate Expert Cherise Bacalski on Brief Writing and the Human Side of LawAppellate specialist Cherise Bacalski teaches appellate writing at NYU Law's New Appellate Judges Program, and in this interview we discu...

Appealing in the 9th Circuit? Your deadline is 30 days. Don’t let Rule 58’s “separate document” extension lead you astray. Appellate specialists Tim Kowal and Jeff Lewis also discuss ChatGPT 5 (a “market disruptor”), and sanctions strategies in...

Failing to cite your secondary sources in briefs is poor form. But is it plagiarism? Jeff and Tim debate. And when the Supreme Court The publishes a case, should it explain itself? PJ Gilbert and Tim say yes, Supreme Court and Jeff disagree.

Patrick Hagen is a man of the people—he still proudly uses Times New Roman! But he also has the ear of LinkedIn’s legal-writing elite, with over 36,000 followers as of August 2025.Patrick sits down with Jeff and Tim to share the source a...

Unlike any other state, California effectively deputizes employees to act as “Private Attorney Generals” to sue employers for PAGA claims—both for themselves, and for their co-workers. But since the individual claims can get compelled to arbitr...

Summarizing the extraordinary events surrounding the 2020 election, the California State Bar Court’s review decision issued a decision in June 2025 recommending that President Trump’s election attorney, John Eastman, be disbarred. Tim and Jeff ...

SCOTUSblog contributor and EmpiricalSCOTUS analyst Adam Feldman joins us for a recap of the 2024–25 Supreme Court term. We dive into the end-of-term Stat Pack, ideological surprises, dissent patterns, and whether the Court is still a 6–3 conser...

Mere days after SCOTUS enjoins universal injunctions, judges find other way to afford “complete relief.” A big one: The Administrative Procedure Act allows courts to enjoin agency actions.Also:What if a defendant does not wan...