California law requires cities to approve ADU permits ministerially, without discretionary review. When a city takes three years instead, can the homeowner sue for damages?

In Jeff's win in Shi v. City of Palos Verdes Estates, the Second District, Division Four, said yes. The court held that the ministerial-approval duty in Government Code section 66317 protects the permit applicant, so a homeowner who alleges the city sat on his application states a damages claim under section 815.6.

We also cover Luna v. Top Dawg Entertainment, where two plaintiffs sued a record label as Jane Doe and Jane Roe without ever moving to proceed under pseudonyms, then sued for doxing when the label named them in a press release. The Court of Appeal ordered the doxing claim stricken under the anti-SLAPP statute. Martinez v. Contreras is a primer on juror misconduct motions: jurors openly discussed whether the defendant could afford a bigger award and why the plaintiff wasn't suing an insurance company; the trial court granted a new trial, and the Fifth District affirmed. And in Holtz v. Moreles, the Sixth District upheld Santa Clara County's emergency declaration, reading "emergency" to mean any unforeseen situation calling for immediate action, and left open a standard-of-review split the Supreme Court flagged in 2006.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why a city that sits on a ministerial ADU approval can owe the homeowner damages, and why Jeff sees the same leverage for any project under an expedited-approval law
• Suing as Jane Doe does not make you anonymous: file the pseudonym motion with the complaint, and think twice before anyone issues a press release
• Can a juror ask whether the award would be bigger if Wal-Mart were the defendant? Can the jury talk about why the plaintiff isn't suing an insurance company? And what if jurors "heavily discussed" the defendant's ability to pay while setting damages?
• Why "emergency" now means anything unforeseen, how that put a general sales tax on a special election ballot at a simple majority, and the two-thirds argument the Sixth District left in a footnote
• If you oppose a juror misconduct motion, object to every declaration in writing and get counter-declarations; without them, the jurors' accounts are deemed established

If you found this episode useful, please recommend the California Appellate Law Podcast to a colleague.

Everyone agrees AI should never replace attorney judgment. But what does “judgment” mean?

Josie Petrick offers a different approach, which she calls “layered review.” A certified appellate specialist who also serves as Chief of AI Products at BriefCatch and builds her own legal tech, Josie notes that human-only work is no panacea, either. Lawyers misquote and overstate too, especially on deadline. So whatever the tool, review should be layered: AI tools, attorney ideas, woven together.

Among other tools, Josie built a California Supreme Court civil case tracker to spot amicus opportunities, then wrote for 14 law professors, including Erwin Chemerinsky and Judith Resnik, in Family Violence Appellate Project v. Superior Court. In an opinion by Chief Justice Guerrero, the Court held unanimously that a litigant who cannot afford a reporter gets an electronic recording.

In this episode:

• Why running a citation checker is the first pass, not the verification, and what the other layers are.
• SB 574 will require disclosure of AI use to the court. Do you file boilerplate that tells the judge nothing, or a line that says what the AI actually did?
• Does filling out a form require attorney judgment? Can AI safely fill out a proof of service form? What about an extension application outside the “good cause” paragraph? But what if a court form looks clerical but makes you decide appealability and deadlines?
• Why a defendant with about $1.75 million in assets counted as indigent, and how the Third District used FVAP to cut a $20 million-plus judgment's appeal bond to $1.25 million in Guzman.
• Where to start building your own tools, and Josie's prediction for AI sanctions in 2027.

What are you comfortable delegating to AI?

Dismiss a case twice in federal court—no problem, you can still file in California.

But dismiss a case in state court, and it’s gone forever.

Tim & Jeff cover these two holdings of the California Supreme Court, issued two weeks apart. The first in Doe v. Marysville Joint Unified School District, held that the two-dismissal rule in federal court does not apply in state court. Then in Maniago v. Desert Cardiology Consultants' Medical Group, the Court held that a voluntary dismissal with prejudice ended an action entirely despite the plaintiff's stated intent to preserve appellate rights.

Together, the cases stand for the proposition that a plaintiff's own choice of dismissal language controls, regardless of strategic declarations filed alongside it.

The episode also covers Wilson v. Johnson, clarifying that the five-year rule is satisfied when prospective jurors take the section 232(a) oath—even while hardship screening continues—and Chin v. DoorDash, where a majority found waiver of EFAA rights after a plaintiff strategically withheld a harassment claim through arbitration proceedings.

Tim agrees with Justice Wiley's dissent—this is forfeiture, not a waiver. Putting a steak on your plate at the buffet doesn’t “waive” a right to help yourself to the chicken, too. In the same way, litigating in real court doesn’t “waive” your right to arbitration. Does it violate public policy? Sure—which is where juridical doctrines like forfeiture come in. But there’s no intent to forgo anything, so it’s not a waiver.

Covered in the episode:

• The scope of FRCP 41's two-dismissal rule in California state court proceedings
• How voluntary dismissals interact with res judicata and claim preclusion
• When a jury-tried action is "brought to trial" for purposes of the five-year rule
• Waiver of EFAA rights when a harassment claim is withheld during arbitration proceedings
• The doctrinal distinction between waiver and forfeiture in the arbitration context

Listen to the full episode for a detailed breakdown of each decision and its practical implications for trial and appellate practice.

If someone is going to make #AppellateTikTok a thing, it’s John Stobart. John is a certified appellate specialist who shares practical guidance on responsible AI use for lawyers through short videos on TikTok and at stobart.ai. John walks Tim and Jeff through how he actually uses Claude in an appellate practice, and where he draws the line between using AI and delegating to it.

We cover concrete workflows: how John built a verified case law corpus and a five-year brief bank to control what sources the AI can draw from, how he uses the Claude Word plugin's /check doc command as a final proofreading pass before filing, and why he still writes every argument section himself. (Well, the fact section is pretty dry stuff, so you could be forgiven for letting AI pick up the pen there.)

We also talk about California's newly signed SB 574, the first state statute regulating lawyers' use of generative AI, and what its verification and disclosure requirements mean in practice for litigators who do and do not use AI.

We cover:

• How to get started with AI without compromising the quality of your work product
• Building a brief bank and deposition corpus as verified sources for AI-assisted drafting
• Practical safeguards against hallucinated citations, including a Westlaw-to-Claude feedback loop
• What SB 574 requires of California litigators starting January 1
• Whether AI arbitration could ever be appropriate for wage-and-hour disputes

If you found this episode useful, please recommend the California Appellate Law Podcast to a colleague.

Law students won a Ninth Circuit appeal on a broader theory than they argued. Now it’s en banc, and they have to defend the result, not the reasoning, in front of the judge who wrote the opinion.

The case is King v. Villegas, and the students are from the Pepperdine Ninth Circuit Advocacy Clinic, co-directed by Rebecca Powell and Curt Cutting of Horvitz & Levy. Becca and Curt joined us on the California Appellate Law Podcast to talk about it.

Clinic students aren’t mere research assistants—they’re lead counsel on real appeals, from the first page of the record to the lectern. The clinic gets 24 hours to pick a case and two semesters to finish it—no extensions.

And the students deliver. One answered an unbriefed question from the bench by citing an out-of-circuit case from memory. Another wrote an opening brief so strong that the Attorney General conceded.

In the episode:

• How the Ninth Circuit’s pro bono program fits an appeal into the academic calendar
• What makes a good clinic case, and how to decide to take it in 24 hours
• Why let students serve as lead counsel?
• Defending a win at en banc without defending the panel’s reasoning
• What training students to argue teaches about developing junior lawyers at any firm

Most firms make associates wait years for their first argument. This clinic gives students the lectern before they graduate. Do you supervise junior lawyers? Which approach do you think produces better advocates?

Tim Kowal and Jeff Lewis discuss Family Violence Appellate Project v. Superior Court, the California Supreme Court's unanimous August 2026 decision holding that an indigent litigant unable to find or afford a court reporter is entitled to an electronic recording, and that the trial court has a ministerial duty to press record. The court reached that result through the common law in forma pauperis doctrine rather than constitutional grounds, which means the right runs in every civil case type.

And less than a month later, the Third District applied the same access-to-courts reasoning in Guzman v. Superior Court to cut a $31 million appeal bond to $1.25 million for a defendant worth $1.75 million, holding that "indigent" under CCP 995.240 means unable to obtain sufficient sureties, not destitute.

Tim and Jeff also cover SB 574, California's new statute requiring attorneys to disclose use of generative AI in court filings and to personally verify every citation, effective January 1, 2027.

Topics covered:

• The FVAP ministerial duty to record electronically and how to make the showing
• How to establish indigency for bond reduction under CCP 995.240 after Guzman
• Where the access-to-courts doctrine may travel next: AI interpreters? AI translations of the electronically recorded trial?
• SB 574's disclosure and citation-verification requirements for California litigators

What procedures do you think the FVAP reasoning might affect next?

Ben Feuer, chair of Complex Appellate Litigation Group, joins Tim and Jeff to discuss how CALG built a successful appellate firm by rejecting the traditional law firm pyramid entirely.

CALG hires no associates and pays attorneys a percentage of billings rather than a fixed salary. The result is a firm composed almost entirely of seasoned appellate specialists, including former career court staff attorneys, retired justices, and senior big-firm laterals. Feuer explains what draws these lawyers to the model, how the firm structures collaboration without hierarchy, and what a former chief deputy clerk of the Ninth Circuit brings to client work that even experienced appellate lawyers cannot replicate.

The conversation also covers CALG's AI policy, how the firm currently permits limited AI use, and where the floor is.

The episode closes with a discussion of legal writing standards, what CALG expects every brief to accomplish, and why the statement of facts is where appellate cases are most often won or lost.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why CALG eliminated the associate tier and built an alternative compensation model
• How the firm recruits and integrates career court staff attorneys and retired justices
• CALG's AI policy, including what platforms were tested and where the firm drew the line
• How AI is already influencing fee motions and law-and-motion rulings at the trial court level
• What a CALG brief is designed to accomplish and why the statement of facts is central to appellate advocacy

This discussion found us asking ourselves: Why hasn't anyone tried this successful model sooner? And does it apply to other practice areas?

Retired Associate Justice Thomas L. Willhite Jr. of the California Court of Appeal, Second District, Division Four, joins Tim Kowal and Jeff Lewis to discuss nearly four decades in the legal system, from coordinating capital appeals at the California Attorney General's office to authoring roughly 2,000 appellate opinions. He serves as a mediator, arbitrator, and appellate consultant at ADR Services, Inc. since retiring from the bench in 2023.

Justice Willhite offers candid, experience-grounded guidance on appellate briefing and oral argument. And as a legal lecturer and consultant in Italy, Justice Willhite offers some striking comparative law contrasts.

• Are your introductions more than 3-4 pages? Too long. Don’t make the justices read your arguments twice.
• Prioritize conciseness, a balanced statement of facts, and the importance of confronting adverse authority—in the opening brief, rather than waiting for the reply.
• What are justices thinking during oral argument? And how should advocates deal with a cold bench?
• At oral argument, sometimes justices write notes—what are they writing?
• Did you know Italian courts don’t have juries? But the judges who decide the cases have to write detailed judgments—sometimes hundreds of pages long!

We ask Justice Willhite: Given the choice between stellar briefs and merely serviceable oral argument—or serviceable briefs but stellar oral argument—which is better?

How would you answer?

Listen to the full episode and subscribe to the California Appellate Law Podcast for more insights from the bench and bar