"App" Help For Lawyers - FilingRabbit.com Takes On Document Management

The "Internet of Things" comes as a next phase in our practical appreciation of the Internet, going beyond webpage interactions and social media. You can call a cab substitute, summon a baby-sitter, or get your online order delivered, all by tapping into a power of crowd-sourced and -outsourced apps, straight from your phone.

Search your phone's app store, and you will discover that pretty much any activity under the sun has its own app for it. Legal profession, though, notably lags in the apps offering.

Similarities Between Landlord-Tenant and Employer-Employee Relationships

Since I primarily practice litigation in these two fields, real property and labor law, it has caught my eye that the rights and obligations of the parties in rental and employment contexts have many similarities. To see just a few, consider the holdings I highlighted in this post.

Paying Rent: Toward the Past and Back For The Future

There is almost nothing to discuss on the rent's timing, or when does a rent payment become due. And everybody knows what to do when the rent is past-due. Yet, there are a few more possible timing problems relevant to the rent obligations: retroactive application of rents, retroactive change of terms, or charging the already left tenants for a loss of future rent. While these problems were litigated over, the answers are not always straight-forward:

e-Filing comes to San Francisco, hopefully without Jim Crow laws

Filing court papers online (termed as "e-filing") is a very useful feature. It was implemented already 10 years ago in the Federal courts, through the so called ECF/Pacer system. The efficiency of ECF/Pacer was recently put on the test, during the Federal Government's shutdown, allowing the courts to remain functional. In his address to the bar, Chief Judge Jaroslovsky commented that he would be writing a much different letter, should no eFiling system be in place at the time of the government's closure.

[UPDATE 11-5-14] 3 vendors are finally approved for the SF Court, in addition to the previously approved sole provider "File & Serve Xpress." Given the e-filing becomes mandatory in this court starting December 8, it's about time to get the providers on board.

[UPDATE 7-24-14] The voluntary e-filing became available on almost all kinds of cases, and I have personally successfully filed my first document through this system today.

[UPDATE 1-27-14] The "mandatory" e-filing is changed to "voluntary," while the second provider is getting up and running. New estimate for mandatory e-filing's cut-off date is June 30, 2014.

[UPDATE 1-6-14] San Francisco Court moves forward with one vendor and announces an additional vendor selected "through a competitive process." Competitor's name is not yet disclosed. Expansion of the mandatory e-filing kicks in on January 27, 2014.

Mandatory Health Exchange Notice - Where A California Employer Can Look For Help

It is a sad coincidence that the deadline of one event (federal budget) matched with the date when another event started rolling out (Health Care Reform). It is even sadder if the two events are related and the impasse on one may get the other stuck in its opening gates. It is for politicians to wrestle in search of a compromise; meanwhile, the law's one of the initial stages came into force, people are enrolling, and the California Employer is now mandated* to give employees a certain notice about health exchange. Where can one look for tips and hints, or, better, for suggestions on the notice's form? I have assembled here what I was able to find so far:

Ghostwriting in Federal Courts in California - allowed, disfavored, or banned?

Attorney's ghostwriting, a practice for an attorney to draft documents for client's submission in court without revealing who actually wrote the documents, becomes more and more acceptable as a form of practice and is now generally allowed in California (Cal. R. of Ct., Rs 3.36, 3.37), subject to some reasonable ethical considerations. If you ask BAR for an advice, they would refer you to Los Angeles Bar Association's publications on the subject, such as this one from 1999 and a fresh 2012 update. Yet, the view on ghostwriting practice in the Federal courts of this same state remains unsettled.

Vasquez v. Greene Motors - detailed decision re: enforceability of an adhesion contract and its arbirtration clause

On March 27, 2013,  1st Appellate District handed down a decision in Vasquez v. Greene Motors, Case No. A134829. There, Vasquez, a buyer of a used car, was challenging the car's purchase agreement, printed out on a standard form ("553-CA-ARB"), particularly its arbitration clause, arguing that the clause may not be enforced, because it is unconscionable, procedurally and substantially, and is overall one-sided and unfair. This decision contains a few thoughts worth to notice.