October Newsletter 2005

Jay Jeffcoat 2005 Witkin Award Winner for Practice Category This month we are honored to highlight the third of this year's four Witkin Award winners, Jay W. Jeffcoat, Esq. Mr. Jeffcoat is a partner at DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary and is a veteran trial attorney. He practices in a variety of litigation areas including: environmental, commercial, title insurance, trust & estates law and agricultural issues among others. The LLJF is proud to honor this distinguished attorney and San Diego citizen with the 2005 Witkin Award winner in the practice of law category. Mr. Jeffcoat has been a very active contributor to local civic and charitable organizations. He is the Senior Vice President of the Community, Public and Governmental Relations Board member for the John Hopkin's Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center. This center is dedicated to funding cancer research. In addition, he is a Past President of the San Diego Kiwanis Club Foundation of San Diego from and is an active member/contributor to the City Arts Feasibility/Organization Committee; the Children's Museum Capital Campaign Study and the Balboa Theater Feasibility Study Committee. Mr. Jeffcoat has also volunteered his leadership and expertise when he chaired the Bank of America Olympic Cup and the San Diego International Sports Council. Mr. Jeffcoat received his B.A. degree with honors from the University of California at Santa Barbara and his J.D. from the UCLA School of Law.

Witkin Event for Law Library Justice Foundation- November 16, 2005! Mark your calendars for Wednesday, November 16, 2005! The Bernard E. Witkin, Esq., Award Dinner and Law Library Fundraiser will be held at the Prado Restaurant in Balboa Park (1549 El Prado, San Diego, CA 92101). You don't want to miss one of the year's premier events in the legal community! The Law Library Justice Foundation presents this annual award to honor members of the San Diego legal community for civic leadership and excellence in the teaching, practice, enactment, or adjudication of the law. The Foundation is pleased to recognize the continuing support of Thomson West as a major sponsor of the Witkin Award Dinner. In addition to its continuing support as a Gold Level sponsor, this year Thomson West is donating a set of the new 2005 edition of Witkin's Summary of California Law 10th ed., valued at $2000.00. This prize will be given away in a drawing at the close of the evening's festivities. The winner must be present during the drawing. For more information about the Witkin Award Dinner, go to http://www.sdcpll.org/Witkin or http://www.lljf.org.

New Edition of Wikin's Summary of California Law Released This Month It's what we've been waiting for for many years! The newly revised Witkin, Summary of California Law 10th ed. is here. We've all relied on Bernard Witkin's analysis of California law for years and years. Witkin has been the primary source for providing a concise statement and critical examination of every substantive area of California statutory and case law. Now Thomson West and the Witkin Legal Institute have made our wish come true. The same important information that has always been available has been updated and integrated in the new volumes. The first eight volumes are available now and the remaining eight volumes will be published later this month. This new set contains expanded coverage of environmental law and revised coverage of insurance law. Areas of coverage include contracts, agency and employment, workers' compensation, sales, negotiable instruments, secured transactions both for personal and real property, personal and real property, torts, constitutional law, taxation, partnership and corporations, parent and child, husband and wife, community property, equity, trusts, and wills and estates. To help with cites from previous editions, there is a cross reference table to both the 8th and 9th editions.

Two New Laws Affecting California Attorneys On September 23rd, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law two bills which affect attorneys in different ways according to the State Bar's website. The first is AB 1529 (Jones) which raises the California State Bar fees five dollars a year for the next two years. Dues will become $395 on January 1, 2006 and go up to $400 on January 1, 2007. Inactive member dues will receive an even steeper increase, going from $88 to $115 this coming year and to $125 in 2007. This new law also restores the provision for attorneys making a gross annual income of $40,000 or less to get a 25% reduction on their bar fees. The other bill just signed into law closes a "gap" in the previous law of "unauthorized practice of law." The law gives a superior court the authority to assume jurisdiction of the "practice" of a person who is not a lawyer either on its own motion or upon application of the State Bar. This bill completes the jurisdiction of the State Bar over the practice of law in California. In addition, this law permits attorneys who are on inactive status to be credited for time spent in the Lawyer Assistance Program. The time will be credited to any period of actual suspension imposed by the State Bar.

SDCPLL New Positions for Joan Allen-Hart & Gail Lawrence Joan Allen Hart, former Assitant Director for the Branches at San Diego County Public Law Library, has changed hats. Joan has now been named the Assistant Director for Public Services and will oversee the Reference and Access Services (Circulation) Departments at the Main Library as well as at the Branches. We look forward to providing enhanced reference and online services. Joan has an M.S.L.S. from Catholic University in Washington D.C. and a J.D. degree from Western State University in San Diego. She is the former President of San Diego Area Law Libraries (SANDALL) and has been very active in legislative advocacy for county law libraries. Moreover, Joan is a member, of the Assembly at Large of the California Library Assocation. Gail Lawrence, former Assistant Director for Finance and Personnel, has also changed her job title. At present, Gail has been named the full time Finance Officer. She will administer the personnel department at the library as well. Gail has an M.L.S. from U.C.L.A. and has passed the C.P.A. exam in Ohio. She holds 2 bachelor's degrees in English and accounting as well as a Ph.D. in English from Notre Dame.

Library Trustee Board Member: Cyndy Day-Wilson Named to State Bar of CA Environmental Executive Committee Cyndy Day-Wilson was recently appointed to a three term on the State Bar's Environmental Law Section's Executive Committee. Ms. Day-Wilson is the lead attorney of Best Best & Kreiger's Environmental Law and Natural Resources Department with a focus on litigation and business counsel to government entities. In addition, she currently serves as the Trustee Treasurer on the SDCPLL Library Board.

October MCLE Program Please bring your lunch and join us on Thursday, Oct. 27th at noon for a one-hour MCLE program on doing California legislative intent research. For anyone who has done research in this area, it is one of the more frustrating processes. At this upcoming program, Tom Stallard from California Legislative Intent Service will provide insight into how to best approach finding information and which sources to use. Mr. Stallard obtained his law degree from the University of California, Davis, after having served as an officer in the U.S. Navy. Selected as an intern in the California State Assembly in 1973, he later joined the Minority Consultant Staff. Today he is President of the California State Archives Foundation, Secretary of the California State Library Foundation, and was elected to the Yolo County Board of Supervisors in 1994. He lobbies for the cause of public county law libraries and for the preservation of California's rich historical heritage. Tom is a qualified expert witness on the subject of legislative intent. This program is another in a series of MCLE free programs for attorneys sponsored by the Law Library as one of the benefits of membership. For non-member attorneys, the registration fee is $25.00. To register, please call the Library's main number (619) 531-3900.

No More Legalese: Criminal Jury Instructions Translated into Plain Language After eight years of study and preparation, the California Judicial Council has approved more than 700 newly rewritten criminal jury instructions that were translated from "legalese" into plain English. The purpose behind this project was to get rid of jury instructions laced with complicated long winded legalese and replace them accurate statements of law. For example, the older version of the instructions provided the following statement when considering the element of time as a factor in premeditation of murder, "The law does not undertake to measure in units of time the length of the period during which the thought must be pondered before it can ripen into an intent to kill which is truly deliberate and premeditated." Now, this instruction has changed into a much simpler fluid sentence with, " The length of time the person spends considering whether to kill does not alone determine whether the killing is deliberate and premeditated." The new instructions will be available in January of 2006 through Lexis Nexis without copyright. For more information see the California Bar Journal's September 2005 Issue .

Dial 2-1-1 for Information on San Diego County The 2-1-1 information line has recently become available by telephone to give county residents a quick referral to government agencies plus public service organizations in San Diego County. You can click here to get community, health, disaster or general information. If for some reason 2-1-1 is not yet available in your area, please call 1-858-300-1211 for further assistance.

Reference Question of the Month Q: Where can I find some examples of attorney fee agreements? A: The State Bar of California has recently published on their website some sample fee agreements as well as related "Instructions and Comments." These sample fee forms are free of charge.

October Legal Links Check out the CIA Factbook if you are looking for maps, statistics, government or economic information as well as transportation, military and demographics for every country in the world. See also Infoplease.com that collects demographics, news, this-day-in-history, stock prices, governmental information, almanacs, encyclopedias, thesauri and other valuable information. You can also find biographies, photos, graphics and scientific information.

We hope you've enjoyed our newsletter! If you are a guest and would like to subscribe, please click here. We're hard at work on the next edition. In the meantime, please see us online at www.sdcpll.org or visit us at one of our four locations. For more information, or to send comments about this newsletter, contact Ellie Slade, Reference Librarian.