There’s an old saying that remodeling a home is like pulling a loose string on a sweater—go too far, and it all unravels. Robert Cundall, John Martin, and Frances Diaz were neighbors and friends before things fell apart. In 2008,…
Barristers 2020: Year in Review
As I look back on 2020, it makes me think of how bar associations have always held a very special space in my heart. When I was growing up in Hawaii, my mom spent thirteen years as executive director of…
Pandemic Forces Courts and Lawyers to Reimagine Proceedings
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo had pre-qualified over two hundred prospective jurors in anticipation of the court’s first in-person civil jury trial since the coronavirus pandemic. She used a tape measure to make sure all twelve jurors and…
Checking in with Nemo
This year, with all its challenges, has also given us an opportunity to pause and look back on the many people and stories from San Francisco Attorney magazine that have inspired and engaged. In 2017, Kathleen Guthrie Woods introduced us to Nemo,…
Leaving San Francisco: Living on the Edge of the Mystery
After ten years in San Francisco, I gave up my apartment to go on the road, indefinitely. One morning a few months back, I was sitting on my rooftop writing about the importance of paying attention to what sits beneath…
Airstreaming Live in 2020
This year, with all its challenges, has also given us an opportunity to pause and look back on the many people and stories from San Francisco Attorney magazine that have inspired and engaged. Jennifer Smythe and Gary Dubrovsky, a married couple who…
Timothy Disregards Dad’s Magic Words
Before he died in 1992, Norbert Eimer set up a family trust. Upon his and his wife’s death, everything was to go to their kids. A Power of Appointment allowed each child to pass on their inheritance to others through…
Mental Illness: Laws We Need to Know
Book by Baron Miller Reviewed by Katie Danielson According to the National Alliance of Mental Illness, in 2018 47.6 million U.S. adults experienced mental illness, 9.2 million U.S. adults experiencing mental illness had co-occurring substance abuse issues. As many as…
Federal Pro Bono Project Team Measures Success One Client at a Time
Lawyers often measure success by whether their client was made whole or how much money was at stake. But that kind of assessment oversimplifies the legal work being done by the Federal Pro Bono Project, a project of the Bar…
San Francisco: Two Pandemics, One Hundred Years Apart
For my last column for San Francisco Attorney, I wanted to explore how the 1918 flu pandemic—the last global respiratory pandemic to reach San Francisco—affected our bar association and compare that to COVID-19, more than a hundred years later. Established in…
Know Your AI
Companies across industries are using artificial intelligence, machine learning, and algorithmic decision making (collectively ‘AI’) in their everyday business practices. To ensure legal compliance with their use of AI, companies must understand how their AI works and be able to…
2020: A Year in the Rear View
For many, 2020 has proved to be a year they’d much rather throw in the circular file. But this year was not without some bright moments, especially for the Bar Association of San Francisco’s (BASF) Paralegal Section’s Executive Committee (ExComm).…