Carmen Li, Author at The Bar Association of San Francisco

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Favor the Simple, Declarative Sentence

Resisting the urge to pack your sentences with numerous thoughts and details will make your writing easier to understand and thus, more effective. Use of sprawling, convoluted sentences—in legal memoranda, briefs to the court, judicial opinions, statutes, and transactional documents—is…

Solo and Small Firm Practitioners Gathered Virtually for Fifth Annual Conference

This year marked the fifth year of the Solo and Small Firm Section of the Bar Association of San Francisco’s ever-popular annual conference, and despite being held virtually due to the current public health orders, the January 28 conference, Larger Than…

What Can Oral Argument Preparation Teach Us About Effective Briefing?

Tips for adapting your case to the judges’ and justices’ perspective While attorneys advocate, judges search for the right result. Here are three techniques for persuading judges by aiding them in their truth-seeking mission. First, channel your audience’s inner ‘scientist.’ Organizational…

A Case Management Platform For The Pandemic Era

While many discuss the coronavirus pandemic as a force that has dramatically reshaped workplaces in 2020, few note the extent to which it has revolutionized how lawyers interact with their colleagues and clients — and the new expectations clients now…

We Stand on the Shoulders of Giants: Pauli Murray

The Bay Area legal community has extra cause for celebration this Black History Month as we celebrate the inauguration of the first Black woman Vice President, Kamala Harris, a member of our own legal community. As we celebrate this historic…

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The Labor and Employment Law Section Annual Conference: February 25-26, 2021

When I started my career in labor over fourteen years ago at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), I frequently heard about the Bar Association of San Francisco’s (BASF) Labor and Employment Law Section’s Annual Conference at Yosemite from my…

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Are You Working on a Project That You Could Have Given to Your Paralegal?

The primary job of a paralegal is to lighten the workload of their attorney. Your paralegal can be an invaluable asset to your practice if you are using their skills correctly. You can have them review and organize client files,…

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Pandemic Arbitration

I try jury trials. I also try arbitrations. Unfortunately, anyone expecting to talk to a jury this year is likely out of luck. Although a small number of social-distanced jury trials were attempted in 2020, for the most part they were…

Data Breach: Breaking Down a Lawyer’s Ethical Duties to Inquire and Disclose

Your laptop or smartphone containing client confidences is lost or stolen. Or, you learn that the public Wi-Fi that you accessed yesterday without using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) was a fake internet portal set up by hackers. Even worse,…

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Give It Away Now: Billionaire Went Broke Intentionally

He’s the “ultimate example of giving while living,” says Bill Gates, himself no slouch when it comes to charitable donations. Chuck Feeney pioneered luxury on the cheap with his Duty-Free Shoppers stores in airports all around the world. Decades of…

TV’s Wyatt Earp Fought Off a Mob of Unclaimed Heirs

Hugh O’Brian channeled his straight-shooting Old West lawman elsewhere once he became famous as TV’s Wyatt Earp. Inspired by an encounter with the humanitarian Albert Schweitzer, the actor created a youth leadership organization that remains one of America’s most prominent.…

February 2021 Members in the News

San Francisco Members Honored as Lawyer of the Year by Best Lawyers The following is a list of San Francisco-based BASF members who received recognition as Lawyer of the Year 2021 by Best Lawyers: Cecily Talbert Barclay, Perkins Coie; Thomas R.…