The California Appellate Law Podcast

One California city has been quietly collecting $5,000-per-incident fines from short-term vacation rental owners. And if the regime is struck down, the city may owe half a million dollars back. Former constitutional law...

Why do writ petitions so often fail? Judge Tom Fay covers the technical writ rules that attorneys often overlook. In part 2 of our conversation with former lead writs attorney at the Santa Ana Court of Appeal, Judge Fay...

Tom Fay spent years as the lead civil writs attorney for California's 4th District, Division 3, processing every emergency petition that crossed the court's threshold. Effective June 29, 2026, he's now Judge Tom Fay of...

One of just 12 California lawyers dual-certified in both family and appellate law, Lisa McCall has an unusually clear view of how family trial work plays out on appeal. Lisa shares the record‑killing mistakes family...

John Snow, Director of Legal and Trial Training at the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office and author of Rules to Speak By (Carolina Academic Press, 2026), joins Tim Kowal and Jeff Lewis to discuss what it actually takes...

Drawing on 20 years observing attorney behavior, Hon. Stuart M. Rice (ret.) now at JAMS, speaks freely. This episode is a rare candid debrief from the other side of the bench. Key topics: What incivility actually costs...

<p>Does your office have a blank 170.6 form ready to go for a certain judge? Stop doing that. A 170.6 peremptory challenge is no longer automatic: the California Supreme Court now authorizes courts to look behind your...

<p>The fall of copyright troll Prenda Law is, according to the ABA Journal, "part of legal folklore." We talk with the attorney who kicked over the first domino, Morgan Pietz.</p><p>Prenda Law was the copyright trolling...

<p>Everyone is watching Family Violence Appellate Project v. Superior Court (S288176) to see if the California Supreme Court is going to strike down the ban on electronic recording of court proceedings. There is a...

<p>The Honorable Tani Cantil-Sakauye led the state judiciary through the Great Recession's budget crisis, bail reform advocacy, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Now she has three new roles: President and CEO of the Public...

<p>In addition to having more than 100 published opinions and close to 100 oral arguments to his name, Jeremy B. Rosen is the managing partner of the Horvitz & Levy LLP San Francisco office. Jeremy is also nationally...

<p>Justice Ming Chin wrote more majority opinions in his first decade on the California Supreme Court than any colleague—then retired to discover that mediation feels a lot like his first judicial assignment in family...

<p>Legal writing authority Ross Guberman has been busy absorbing AI tools into his popular BriefCatch and now-related suite of writing tools. Ross returns to discuss how BriefCatch cousin app RealityCheck uses a...

<p>The law is riddled with things "everybody knows" that aren't actually true. In this April Fool's-themed episode, Tim Kowal and Jeff Lewis discuss several legal myths, half-truths, and courtroom fictions—from rules of...

<p>David Lat—founder of Above the Law and author and host of Original Jurisdiction blog and podcast—explains what these stories reveal about a legal profession navigating ideological warfare, economic disruption, and...