Whether it is taking advantage of the many Continuing Legal Education (CLE) events the Litigation Section offers, brushing up on your trial skills, getting updates on the state of the court, or networking at the annual Bench Bar Conference, most…
Bay Area Minority Law Student Scholarship Program Now Accepting Applications
The 2021 Minority Law Student Scholarship Application is now available online. Students can access the application at www.sfbar.org/scholarships. The 2021 application deadline is Friday, May 21, 2021. Thanks to the generosity of the legal community, the Justice & Diversity Center (JDC)…
Bay Area Diversity Career Fair Moves Online, Increases Access to Students Nationwide
A program of the Bar Association of San Francisco and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, this year’s 16th Annual Bay Area Diversity Career Fair was unlike those held in prior years. Traditionally the fair is an in-person, day-and-a-half long event featuring…
Three Estate Planning Keys for Solo and Small Firm Attorneys
Do you know who would make decisions for you if you lost capacity? Have you designated guardians for your children to act if you’re not around? How confident are you that your assets will go to the right people, in…
Help Your Neighbors in Need, Support Food From The Bar
For the past thirty years, the legal community has supported the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank through the annual Food From the Bar campaign. Last year alone, Food From the Bar helped provide over 1.3 million meals. Since the start of…
Favor the Simple, Declarative Sentence
Resisting the urge to pack your sentences with numerous thoughts and details will make your writing easier to understand and thus, more effective. Use of sprawling, convoluted sentences—in legal memoranda, briefs to the court, judicial opinions, statutes, and transactional documents—is…
Solo and Small Firm Practitioners Gathered Virtually for Fifth Annual Conference
This year marked the fifth year of the Solo and Small Firm Section of the Bar Association of San Francisco’s ever-popular annual conference, and despite being held virtually due to the current public health orders, the January 28 conference, Larger Than…
What Can Oral Argument Preparation Teach Us About Effective Briefing?
Tips for adapting your case to the judges’ and justices’ perspective While attorneys advocate, judges search for the right result. Here are three techniques for persuading judges by aiding them in their truth-seeking mission. First, channel your audience’s inner ‘scientist.’ Organizational…
A Case Management Platform For The Pandemic Era
While many discuss the coronavirus pandemic as a force that has dramatically reshaped workplaces in 2020, few note the extent to which it has revolutionized how lawyers interact with their colleagues and clients — and the new expectations clients now…
We Stand on the Shoulders of Giants: Pauli Murray
The Bay Area legal community has extra cause for celebration this Black History Month as we celebrate the inauguration of the first Black woman Vice President, Kamala Harris, a member of our own legal community. As we celebrate this historic…
The Labor and Employment Law Section Annual Conference: February 25-26, 2021
When I started my career in labor over fourteen years ago at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), I frequently heard about the Bar Association of San Francisco’s (BASF) Labor and Employment Law Section’s Annual Conference at Yosemite from my…
Are You Working on a Project That You Could Have Given to Your Paralegal?
The primary job of a paralegal is to lighten the workload of their attorney. Your paralegal can be an invaluable asset to your practice if you are using their skills correctly. You can have them review and organize client files,…