On June 23, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Murr v. Wisconsin , 137 S.Ct. 1933 (2017), that an ordinance preventing two contiguous parcels from being sold independently of one another did not result in a compensable regulatory taking of real property. The Court held that the petitioners, the owners of two adjacent lots, were not deprived of all economically beneficial use of their property through the denial of the sale of a single lot. The decision rejected a formalistic approach to t...

​ Legal Advertising Rules Referrals are the cornerstone of any attorney's legal marketing strategy. You might believe that if you do good work, people will automatically come to you. While that can be the case for long-established practitioners with wide word-of-mouth networks, there are plenty of attorneys who advertise themselves through practically every medium, from print media to websites to the sides of buses and billboards. Until the 1977 landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bates v. S...

The 2017 Board of Governors Executive Committee: James M. Morris, past president; Michael R. Norton, president-elect; Erin Guy Castillo, president; Heather Rubino,  secretary;  and Nelson Bahler, treasurer. The San Joaquin County Bar Association met on November 2 at the Stockton Hilton for its 76th annual meeting. James M. Morris, the 2016 president of the Association, delivered the State of the Bar Address. Mr. Morris recounted highlights of the Association's activities through this y...

For most real property transactions, at least one party will care about the status of the title to be conveyed or affected and will want a detailed review of the title's current status and advice about what title insurance policy will be appropriate to protect their interests. Attorneys assist with this work by examining recorded liens and easements, resolving issues with insuring title, determining which title risks are acceptable to the client, and advising on what types of affirmative co...