On September 29, 2024, Governor Newsom signed SB 940 into law, creating Business and Professions Code Section 6173. The new law (which takes effect on January 1, 2025) creates a voluntary Alternative Dispute Resolution Certification Program to be administered by the State Bar. One need not be a lawyer to [Read More]
While driving home the other day, I heard a story on NPR that caught my attention. It was about Kentucky prisoners hacking a computer system to put more money into their digital accounts than existed. It happened at the Luther Luckett Correctional Complex in Oldham County, Kentucky. After a prisoner [Read More]
Apologies are hard. Many folks have a really hard time saying, “I am sorry.” Instead, they sort of apologize by saying something like “I am sorry it happened to you” or “I am sorry you feel that way” or just “Sorry.” What most folks do not realize is that these [Read More]
For the past three years, many of us have been living on Zoom or a similar video conference platform. And no doubt, many times our attention and minds have wondered, and we find ourselves looking at emails, texts, social media feeds or playing games on our phones when we should [Read More]
At Friday night Shabbat services last week, the Cantor (who was filling in for the rabbi) read a sermon prepared by Rabbi Ben Spratt. While the sermon eventually focused on the torah portion for the week, it started off discussing silence or more specifically, the extreme lack of it. Everywhere [Read More]
This past Monday--March 20- marked the ten-year anniversary of the International Day of Happiness. Evidently, it was created by a United Nations Resolution passed at its 118th plenary meeting on June 28, 2012, declaring March 20th of each year to be the holiday. As one might guess, the resolution was [Read More]
As we all know, mediation has become quite popular if not ubiquitous over the last twenty years. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, it was slowly gaining acceptance; in the last twenty years, it has truly become THE alternative to litigation. (No doubt, the pandemic with its lockdowns creating the necessity [Read More]
Whenever I see an article on implicit bias, I must read and write about it. This time, the article is entitled, “Embedded bias: How medical records sow discrimination” by Darius Tahir of Kaiser Health News. The theme of the article is that doctors unconsciously (or perhaps even consciously) write notes [Read More]
