Meet SFVBA's Judge of the Year Virginia Keeny
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FEBRUARY 2020 • $5 A Publication of the San Fernando Valley Bar Association Meet SFVBA’s Judge of the Year Virginia Keeny The Buck Stops Here: What You Owe Your Employees www.sfvba.org www.ketkcpa.com 2 Valley Lawyer ■ FEBRUARY 2020 www.sfvba.org www.lewitthackman.com www.sfvba.org FEBRUARY 2020 ■ Valley Lawyer 3 www.SteveSepassi.com CONTENTS FEBRUARY 2020 VALLEY AWYER A Publication of the San Fernando Valley Bar Association 12 22 29 On the cover: Judge of the Year Virginia Keeny 30 Photo by Ron Murray 36 FEATURES 12 The Buck Stops Here: What You Owe Your Employees | BY DAVID G. JONES DEPARTMENTS MCLE TEST NO. 136 ON PAGE 21. 7 President’s Message 22 A Heritage of Service: Meet SFVBA’s 9 Editor’s Desk Judge of the Year Virginia Keeny | BY MICHAEL D. WHITE 10 Event Calendars 30 Preparing An Expert for Depositions 35 Member Focus and the Courtroom | BY JAMES I. EBERT 39 Photo Gallery 41 Attorney Referral Service 32 Retaining Your Top Performers | BY MARTIN LEVY 43 Valley Community Legal Foundation COLUMN 45 Santa Clarita Valley Bar Association 36 Book Review Getting Life by Michael Morton | BY RANDI R. GEFFNER 46 Classifieds www.sfvba.org FEBRUARY 2020 ■ Valley Lawyer 5 Jack G. Cohen COURT QUALIFIED EXPERT WITNESS SAN FERNANDO VALLEY BAR ASSOCIATION 20750 Ventura Boulevard, Suite 140 Woodland Hills, CA 91364 OVER 30 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE Phone (818) 227-0490 IN PRIVATE MONEY LENDING & Fax (818) 227-0499 www.sfvba.org REAL ESTATE RELATED CASES EDITOR Plaintiff and Defense Michael D. White GRAPHIC DESIGNER Marina Senderov OFFICE: 747.222.1550 « CELL: 747.222.1554 OFFICERS EMAIL: [email protected] President ..................................Barry P. Goldberg 2629 Townsgate Road, Suite 110 « Westlake Village, CA 91361 President-Elect .........................David G. Jones Secretary .....................................Christopher P. Warne Treasurer ..................................Matthew A. Breddan PRIVATE MONEY LENDING Immediate Past President ........Yi Sun Kim CREDIT FILE AND QUALIFICATIONS Executive Director ....................Rosie Soto Cohen APPRAISALS • EVICTIONS • FORECLOSURES BOARD OF TRUSTEES INDUSTRY STANDARDS • TITLE REPORTS Michael L. Cohen Joy Kraft Miles PROPERTY MANAGEMENT Alan Eisner Amanda Marie Moghaddam TENANT AND LANDLORD ISSUES Kyle M. Ellis Samuel R.W. Price BROKERS AND INVESTORS RELATIONS Ivette Fernandez Allan D. Sarver Heather Glick-Atalla George N. Seide FINANCE AND DOCUMENTATION Gary J. Goodstein Steven M. Sepassi SALES & LEASING • INSURANCE CLAIMS Alexander S. Kasendorf Benjamin E. Soffer LOAN SERVICING • ESCROW Minyong Lee Taylor F. Williams STAFF Director of Education & Events .... Linda Temkin Communications Manager .........Michael D. White How did Member Services Coordinator ...Sonia Bernal Associate Director of Public Services .......................... Miguel Villatoro that last Referral Consultant .................... Favi Gonzalez lease work SECTION CHAIRS Bankruptcy Law ............................Steven R. Fox out for you? Business Law & Real Property ..... Lauri Shahar Criminal Law.................................. David S. Kestenbaum Employment Law .......................... David G. Jones Family Law ....................................Vanessa Soto Nellis ......................................................Amir Aharonov Litigation ......................................Christopher P. Warne New Lawyers .............................. Yi Sun Kim ....................................................... Amanda Marie Moghaddam Probate & Estate Planning ............John E. Rogers Landlords lease office space everyday, so they know the ins and outs of crafting a lease .......................................................Nancy A. Reinhardt that benefits them the most. At Mazirow Commercial, we represent you, the tenant, Taxation Law ................................Hratch J. Karakachian Workers’ Compensation .............. Jeffrey S. Swartz and only you. With our decades of lease negotiation experience, we make sure you come to an even negotiating table with the landlord and stay out of a leasing bind. EDITORIAL COMMITTEE CHAIR David Gurnick Valley Lawyer is published monthly. Articles, announcements, and advertisements are due by the first day of the month prior to the publication date. The articles in Valley Lawyer are written for general interest and are not meant to be relied upon as a substitute for independent research and independent verification 805-449-1945 Tenant Representation & Advisory Real Estate Services of accuracy. www.tenantadvisory.com For large corporations to individual entrepreneurs Printing Southwest Offset Printing © 2020 San Fernando Valley Bar Association 6 Valley Lawyer ■ FEBRUARY 2020 www.sfvba.org PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE BARRY P. GOLDBERG Why Aren’t You Tech-Savvy? SFVBA President [email protected] GAVE A PRESENTATION AT THE RECENT MCLE I have been urging, teaching and now, in effect, ordering Marathon entitled “Technology and Your Firm.” Exciting, our Board of Trustees to ‘like’ or ‘share’ SFVBA posts on huh? I originally wanted to do the presentation on “Easy social media. At our Board Retreat, I received a verbal Marketing Ideas for Solo and Small Law Firms,” but I was almost 100 percent agreement to cooperate. After all, it is told that in order for attorneys to receive MCLE credit, the the awareness from Social Media that has been fi lling up our presentation could not be on marketing. programs, attracting record sponsors and enticing younger I was the ‘natural choice’ to present on law fi rm lawyers to join our Association. technology because I am perceived as an ‘expert’ of Check this out. On any given SFVBA post, the buy-in sorts on all things tech. This is actually hyperbole at its is no more than 25 percent with the usual few Trustees best. Rather, I have worked hard to reasonably embrace that comment or share. I am becoming convinced that a technology in an effort to better leverage my time and remain similar percentage of tech buy-in is present for seasoned competitive. Valley lawyers for other reasonable and necessary tech It has gone a long way in giving me some degree of innovations. fl exibility and has freed up enough time to serve as SFVBA Most lawyers use a handheld device and have access President. to their calendar and email on the go. Most, but surprisingly Although California has not yet adopted a duty of not all, use some advanced case management software and tech competence in the State Bar’s Rules of Professional billing program. But, unfortunately, that is where it ends. Conduct, they do require that lawyers involved in litigation My MCLE Marathon presentation materials covered matters have competence in e-discovery or associate with accounting and email marketing software, note-taking consultants or counsel who do have such competence. applications, cloud storage platforms, time tracking, video The Opinion cites ABA Model Rule 1.1, Comment 8, conferencing software and project management software, which states that “[m]aintaining learning and skill consistent and customer service tools, all of which can make you— with an attorney’s duty of competence includes keeping particularly solo and small practices—more powerful and ‘abreast of changes in the law and its practice, including the competitive. benefi ts and risks associated with relevant technology.’” Especially today, solo and small practices must leverage In other words, embracing technology in order to technology to remain competitive. leverage time and remain competitive has always been This includes social media. If you are a personal injury required, especially in the practice of law. defense attorney and failed to catch a plaintiff’s latest ski trip Dial back a few short years to law school—in my case, on Facebook, would that be malpractice? I could list more 1984. examples in almost every area of solo and small fi rm law. In any given class, there was one or two that had a Perhaps, more importantly, social media is a type of laptop computer for taking notes. We marveled at the adjunct to regular directory listings, displaying a lawyer’s wonders of Lexis and I clerked at a downtown law fi rm that persona online as a critical part and parcel of getting and had a copy machine with a giant roll of paper and a fully- keeping clients. Potential new clients are looking. Why not staffed Word Processing Department. If you lacked these be found? tech innovations in those days, you were doing all your legal Better yet, why not start following SFVBA on Facebook, research in the library with legal pads, carbon paper, IBM Instagram and LinkedIn? When you simply ‘like, share or Selectric typewriters, and writer’s cramp. comment,’ you are associating your professional online The question is: Why do we “more seasoned” lawyers persona with an organization that stresses education, justify using those tech innovations so easily and willingly, leadership and charity. and yet stalwartly resist new tech innovations? That, my friends, is making the very best use of your Let me give you an example. For the past four years, tech-savvy! www.sfvba.org FEBRUARY 2020 ■ Valley Lawyer 7 A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE Law Street Media Fastcase Legal News Legal Research AI Sandbox Legal Data Analysis Full Court Press Expert Treatises Docket Alarm Pleadings + Analytics NextChapter Bankruptcy Petitions + Filing start your journey Fastcase is one of the planet’s most innovative legal research services, and it’s available free to members of the San Fernando Valley Bar Association. LEARN MORE AT www.sfvba.org DOWNLOAD TODAY 8