July 2013 - Public Justice

July 30, 2013 In Blog

DirecTV gets get-out-of-jail-free card, but not Best Buy

By Spencer Wilson and Paul Bland Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a great decision for consumers in Murphy v. DirecTV. On the plus side, the court allowed cheated consumers to pursue their legal claims against Best Buy, which was…

July 30, 2013 In Blog

The facts of life

By Victoria Ni, Senior Attorney Sometime during early childhood, I’m sure you picked up these facts of life: Only women can bear children, and only women can produce breastmilk. It’s human biology. There are no exceptions. But for courts, nothing — not even human biology…

July 25, 2013 In Updates

Champion of Justice & TLOY Award Winners Honored in San Francisco

At the Public Justice Foundation’s 31st Annual Gala & Awards Dinner in San Francisco, Alan R. Brayton won the Champion of Justice Award, and Matthew Coyte and Jack Jacks were awarded the 2013 Trial Lawyers of the Year Award. As Executive Director Arthur Bryant said…

July 16, 2013 In Blog

Solitary confinement: What the Shawshank Redemption doesn’t teach us

By Adrian Alvarez, Goldberg-Robb Attorney “He is a man buried alive; to be dug out in the slow round of years,” Charles Dickens wrote in 1842 after visiting prisoners living for years in solitary confinement at a penitentiary outside Philadelphia. Back then, solitary confinement was…

July 9, 2013 In Blog

State DOMAs: The next frontier of litigation after the Supreme Court’s DOMA ruling

By Adele Kimmel, Managing Attorney The Supreme Court’s historic ruling striking down a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as unconstitutional is being hailed by advocates and supporters of gay rights as a milestone in our country’s march toward equal treatment for all…