California Employment News: California Wage Compliance – Avoiding Legal Pitfalls
California Employment News: CA Local Minimum Wage Updates
(Podcast) California Employment News: CA Local Minimum Wage Updates
Adaptive Reuse: From Desks to Doorways
Law School Toolbox Podcast Episode 514: Listen and Learn -- Discovery (Civ Pro)
A Counterintuitive Approach to Winning Without Litigation: One-on-One with Haley Morrison
(Podcast) California Employment News: Creating the Report for a Workplace Investigation – Part 4 (Featured)
California Employment News: Creating the Report for a Workplace Investigation – Part 4 (Featured)
Law School Toolbox Podcast Episode 511: Listen and Learn -- Landlord/Tenant Law (Part 1)
From Permits to Penalties: A Deep Dive Into Coastal Development Law
California Employment News: Synthesizing Evidence in a Workplace Investigation – Part 3 (Featured)
Doc Fees Decoded: The Price of Paperwork in Auto Sales — Moving the Metal: The Auto Finance Podcast
(Podcast) California Employment News: Gathering Information in a Workplace Investigation – Part 2 (Featured)
California Employment News: Gathering Information in a Workplace Investigation – Part 2 (Featured)
Bar Exam Toolbox Podcast Episode 314: Listen and Learn -- False Imprisonment and Shopkeeper’s Privilege (Torts)
(Podcast) California Employment News: Starting a Workplace Investigation – Part 1 (Featured)
California Employment News: Starting a Workplace Investigation – Part 1 (Featured)
Feeling the Heat: Strategies to Keep Cool Under California's Consumers Legal Remedies Act — The Consumer Finance Podcast
The JustPod: Prosecutor-Initiated Resentencing: A Discussion with Hillary Blout
In an effort to tackle California’s persistent housing shortage and accelerate infrastructure development, California has enacted the most substantial reform to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in decades and...more
Beginning January 1, 2025, the “Making Conservation a California Way of Life” regulatory framework requires urban retail water suppliers — not individual households or businesses — to adopt a series of “urban water use...more
On Monday, June 30, 2025, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law two bills, AB 130 and SB 131, which provide new exemptions from, and streamlines the process, under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). AB 130...more
AB 130 focuses on streamlining the approval of urban-infill housing. SB 131 complements AB 130 by removing CEQA hurdles for a broader range of project types and land use decisions. CEQA exemptions do not override local zoning...more
Two newly enacted California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) reform laws (AB 130 and SB 131) would significantly impact California’s infill housing sector. Our Environment, Land Use & Natural Resources Group unpacks what...more
On June 30, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed two budget bills that contained the most significant reforms to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in decades, effective immediately. These changes create an...more
On June 30, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed two budget trailer bills that deliver the most significant and sweeping reform of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in the 55-year history of this far-reaching...more
The long-standing third rail of California politics, the California Environmental Quality Act ("CEQA"), has finally been touched, in a major win for proponents of the anti-NIMBY "Yes In My Back Yard" movement ("YIMBY"). On...more
On June 30, 2025, Governor Newsom signed two budget trailer bills into law: Assembly Bill 130 and Senate Bill 131, which reform the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) effective immediately. As explained by the...more
The California State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) has begun its process to develop a new statewide Urban Stormwater Infiltration Policy. The goal of the proposed new policy is to establish statewide...more
A roundup of news and multimedia from the Unfamiliar Terrain team: San Francisco Why Mission Bay is recovering faster than anywhere else in San Francisco (SF Standard): The redeveloped neighborhood is booming ahead...more
The western burrowing owl was just recently elevated to a “candidate species” under the California Endangered Species Act (CESA) by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW). As a candidate species, the owl now...more
On September 29, Governor Newsom signed Assembly Bill 98, a bill establishing warehouse design and build standards for new or expanded “logistics uses”, requiring cities and counties to update their circulation elements to...more
Despite strenuous opposition from both the state’s real estate and business communities, near the end of the 2024 Legislative cycle, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Assembly Bill 98 (“AB 98”) – a bill that,...more
A roundup of news and multimedia from the Unfamiliar Terrain team: San Francisco - Small and Mighty: How small businesses can reinvent downtown San Francisco (SPUR Policy Brief): SPUR’s research, drawn from a...more
If there is one truism in California water, it is that there is not enough of it. In part to try to help address that issue, on December 19, 2023, the California State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) adopted...more
On July 10, 2023, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law a package of bills intended to accelerate critical infrastructure projects across the State aimed at achieving monumental climate and clean energy goals while...more
Welcome to Construction & Claims, a periodic digest of the headlines, statutory and regulatory changes and court cases involving construction news, claims, bid protests, contract administration and payment-related disputes....more
Redevelopment agencies (RDAs) have held a rather infamous position in California history. While originally created to address urban decay (aka “blight”), generally speaking, RDAs developed into entities that wielded the...more
In April, the Ninth Circuit held that a city’s ban on new natural gas hookups for new construction was preempted by federal law. This may impact proposed or existing bans in Oregon including in Eugene and Bend, and in...more
On January 31, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously and finally approved an updated Housing Element, on the schedule we referenced in our prior post. The City had obtained a compliance letter from the California...more
On January 10, 2023, Governor Gavin Newsom announced his $297 billion budget proposal for 2023-2024, which includes a $22.5 billion budget deficit. Despite environmental/climate change programs facing $6 billion in cuts,...more
In early June, we reported on the key land use-related ballot propositions San Francisco voters faced during the June 7, 2022 special election. Now that the dust has settled after the election, voters came very close to...more
On May 12, 2022, at the conclusion of a ten-hour hearing, the California Coastal Commission voted to deny Poseidon Water’s application to site and operate a desalination plant in Huntington Beach, in what could be a fatal...more
To kick off our 2022 newsletter season (and hopefully in better fashion than the Sacramento Kings), we thought it would be helpful to summarize a few of California’s noteworthy new-for-2022 laws....more