Criminal Law

• Criminal Defense
  A direct criminal appeal is basically challenging issues arising during any point in the trial. A direct appeal is usually limited to issues that are part of the official trial
• Sex Crimes
  At the time of the crimes, petitioner D’Arsey Bolton was 16. He accosted two young girls, aged 10 and 12, while they were at school, forcing each at knife point into a bathroom, where he threatened them and raped them. Petitioner was convicted in Contra Costa County of five counts of rape, two counts of unlawful penetration with a foreign object, two counts of forcible lewd and lascivious conduct on a child, two counts of false imprisonment, one count of attempted rape, and one count of assault with a deadly weapon, along with multiple enhancements for being armed with and using a knife and pellet pistol.
• Robbery
  See tweets for Lawyer's whereabouts. She is in the State Prison on a monthly basis representing Lifers on Post-convictions for Parole Suitability Hearings. (murder, rape, robbery, etc.)
• Burglary
  ** STRIKES: (aka Violent felonies) include murder, mayhem, rape, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act, robbery, kidnapping, carjacking, and first-degree burglary. Violent felonies also include any felony punishable by a life sentence or the death penalty. And any felony where the defendant inflicts great bodily injury or uses a firearm is a violent felony.
• Misdemeanors
  REMEMBER: Even person serving two or three Strikes term for one of the crimes affected by Prop 47, can ask for reduction of that to a misdemeanor via Penal Code 1170.18. The re-sentencing is a “
• Murder
  Young adults ages 18-26 convicted of murder can be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, (LWOP) the California Supreme Court ruled in a 5-2 decision this year, rejecting arguments that they should be considered for parole decades later after becoming more mature and less impulsive.
• Kidnapping

Business and Corporate Law

• Business Disputes
• Small Business Law

Employment Law

• Wrongful Termination
  There is a number of laws and ways in which the presumption of at-will employment can be defeated, as might be necessary in order to prove a wrongful termination claim. Some of those laws are stronger and more definite while others are more vague and are not applied by all courts equally in California. Below is a number of the more compelling ways to defeat at-will employment presumption.
• Employment Discrimination
  Automated "right to sue" Notice In certain wrongful employment termination case, you must exhaust your Administrative remedy. Therefore, you have limited number of days to file a charge with the State Agency Departmnet of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) https://www.dfeh.ca.gov/ or the Federal Agency's counter-part Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), http://www.eeoc.gov/. You may file a charge of employment discrimination at the EEOC office closest to where you live, or at any one of the EEOC’s 53 field offices. If you have been wrongfully terminated, immediately consult an attorney to avoid missing the crucial deadlines, and the preserve your rights!
• Employment Contract
  You can file a claim against your employer if you bellieve s/he owes you money that was not provide to you at termination time. CAVEAT: You may want to first CONSULT with an attorney verse in this area of the employment law before filing your claim. S/he will explain the advantage and disadvantage of filing with DLSE instead of the Courts. In some cases, you may be able to first file with DLSE and then dismiss the claim to purse all of your rights under the Courts jurisdiction. You may skip the DLSE filing alltogether, and go directly to Court for relief. You may need to know if your Employer has an Arbitration clause in their employment contract before proceeding to Court or you may find yourself facing a MOTION TO COMPEL ARBITRATION to "bump you" out of court.
• Employment Litigation
  EFFECTIVE January 1, 2021: We no longer accept Employment Litigation. Please contact your local Bar Association for a referral to an employment law attorney.
• Sexual Harassment
  Ontiveros v. DHL Express (USA), Inc. 164 Cal. App. 4th (2008). the First District Court of Appeal declined to require arbitration of an employee’s sex discrimination, sexual harassment, and retaliation claims. The court held that several provisions in the arbitration agreement in dispute were unenforceable, including a provision requiring the employee to pay portions of the costs unique to arbitration and a provision severely limiting discovery.

Health Law

• Personal Injury

Finance Law

• Bankruptcy
  ELIMINATE YOUR BAD DEBT - Chapter 7 Bankruptcy is the most common form of bankruptcy and was designed to provide people with a way out from the burden of debt they can longer pay. It is generally the quickest form of bankruptcy & allows individuals to eliminate debt. It is the chapter of the Bankruptcy Code that provides for "liquidation," ( i.e., the sale of a debtor's nonexempt property and the distribution of the proceeds to creditors), if any!
• Foreclosure
  Individual debtors who have regular income may seek an adjustment of debts under chapter 13 of the Bankruptcy Code. A particular advantage of chapter 13 is that it provides individual debtors with an opportunity to save their homes from foreclosure by allowing them to "catch up" past due payments through a payment plan. The court may dismiss a chapter 7 case filed by an individual whose debts are primarily consumer rather than business debts if the court finds that the granting of relief would be an abuse of chapter 7. 11 U.S.C. § 707(b).