Category Archives: law in the news
b e r k e s l a w To The Rescue
To The Rescue
I just received this email from a dear friend who lives in New York, and walked the walk last night in Staten Island. I want to share this story with people in every way I know how. I will keep my friend’s [and other] names out of this, but not for lack of pride. Please read this:
Services – Berkeslaw
Services
Talk more about your products here.
Tell prospective customers more about your company and the services you offer here. Replace this image with one more fitting to your business.
Talk more about your products here.
Tell prospective customers more about your company and the services you offer here. Replace this image with one more fitting to your business.
Next Steps…
This is should be a prospective customer’s number one call to action, e.g., requesting a quote or perusing your product catalog.
Portfolio – Berkeslaw
Portfolio
Product / Service Categories
Project Name
Talk about this portfolio piece–who you did it for and why, plus what the results were (potential customers love to hear about real-world results). Discuss any unique facets of the project–was it accomplished under an impossible deadline?–and show how your business went above and beyond to make the impossible happen.
Product / Service Categories
Project Name
Talk about this portfolio piece–who you did it for and why, plus what the results were (potential customers love to hear about real-world results). Discuss any unique facets of the project–was it accomplished under an impossible deadline?–and show how your business went above and beyond to make the impossible happen.
b e r k e s l a w Grimace and Bear It
Grimace and Bear It
The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
With the horror of the massacre in Sandy Hook Elementary School still searing raw in the collective consciousness, there may actually be developing some consensus to do something about the carnage routinely occurring in the streets, schools and homes of America. Maybe. Between the extremes — both self-evidently untenable — there must be available some action (or actions) that we can take to reduce the shocking flow of gun-related homicides. Indelicately stated, if there was something that we could have done that might have saved the life of even one of those precious children in Newtown, would we not have deemed it sufficient cause to act?
The gun lobbyists and “right to bear arms” absolutists love to argue that the Second Amendment was intended to protect the citizenry’s right to defend themselves against their own government. Take a deep breath: They are absolutely correct. Better still, the Second Amendment was also enacted to secure the ancient right of a free person to arm and protect themselves, their families and property. These are not “negotiating points.”
But here’s the kicker, folks: Even the Supreme Court of the United States (“SCOTUS”), no friend to the “gun control” faction, has recognized that the rights granted by the Second Amendment are not “unlimited.” Do I need to say that again? Surely not. Indeed, from the pen of no less a personage than Justice Anton Scalia, writing for the majority in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), comes the following passage (worth repeating in its entirety despite its length) regarding the boundaries of the Second Amendment:
“Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. [citations omitted] For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. [citations omitted]. Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.
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Gallery – Berkeslaw
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) – Berkeslaw
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
This is where you should answer the most common questions prospective customers might have. It’s a good idea to cover things like your return policy, product warranty info, shipping and returns, etc. Check out the examples below.
What’s your return policy?
Return any of our products–no questions asked–within 30 days of purchase. We even pay return shipping.
Do you ship oversees and to P.O. boxes?
Yes, we’ll ship your package anywhere that can accept deliveries.
Do you have customer service?
Of course! Our friendly and knowledgeable customer services reps are available to answer your questions 24/7/365.
Disclaimer – Berkeslaw
Disclaimer
Disclaimer
Thank you for visiting my blog (the “Blog”); however you got here, I am honored that you took the time to stop by and review the materials presented, and the services offered. Please be advised that what you read and see here has been prepared, or is being presented, for general informational purposes only to those who visit the Blog in order to learn more about my law firm, Berkeslaw (the “Firm”), and the services we offer. Nothing contained, printed, stated and/or archived herein, including any and all of the articles, tweets and comments posted, is not, nor can it be construed as constituting, “legal advice” of any kind or nature, and is not to be acted on as such. The materials on my blog may not be current, and its contents are subject to change without notice. The opinions expressed herein are my own, and are just that: Opinions.
Terms of Use
By your use and visitation of this site, you hereby acknowledge and agree that the Blog, and the information contained and/or transmitted herein, and/or your receipt of same, does not create, nor is it intended to create, an “attorney-client relationship.” Under no circumstances should you rely upon your transmission of an e-mail using my Blog to create an attorney-client relationship, or have any such expectation. Visitors to the Blog should not act upon any information contained herein in this without first consulting legal counsel of their own directly. If you have questions about the law, or a particular legal issue or problem, please feel free to make an appointment to speak with me, but it is essential for your own protection that you understand that nothing you read or review in this Blog is being provided in the course, conduct or context of an attorney-client relationship. Different countries, States, counties, cities, districts, and the like, all may have different laws, rules and regulations, and those may and do change from time to time, so notice is hereby given that nothing contained on this Blog is intended to constitute legal advice, or should it be used or understood as a substitute for obtaining legal advice from an attorney licensed in the appropriate jurisdiction.
Links To Other Sites
This Blog may from time to time include links to other Internet sites whose content, views, opinions and other materials are beyond my control. My firm is not responsible for the content of any such sites, and a link to such sites does not necessarily mean or imply my endorsement of the information, material, products or services contained on or accessible therein. You hereby acknowledge and agree that should you decide to link to other Internet sites, your use of such sites, and your use of any information, material, products and services offered by such sites, necessarily occur at your own risk.
Content
Please be advised that all of the content found on this Blog is provided “as is.” No representations of any kind are made that the content will be timely, factually accurate, error-free, and/or free of viruses or other harmful electronic elements. Moreover, you should not expect, nor is any representation herein made, that any alleged errors or defects will be corrected. The video and its content, the blog posts, tweets and other materials that appear on this Blog, and the opinions stated therein, are all my own (unless otherwise specified), and they may, from time to time, be considered controversial, inappropriate or offensive to some of those who visit. As individual tastes and opinions vary and change, please be advised that all content on this Blog is intended only for the purposes of information and/or to stimulate discussion or interest, and under no circumstances is my intent to alarm, dismay or offend anyone. The Firm makes no representations, express or implied, with respect to the timeliness, accuracy or completeness of any of the contents of this Blog, and expressly disclaims any liability or warranties, express or implied, including, without limitation, any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement. Your sole remedy for any dissatisfaction with any of the content of this Blog is to refrain from using it.
Privacy
The Firm has a deep and abiding respect for your privacy. If you contact us voluntarily regarding our services, we may collect the following categories of personal information: name, company name, title, email address, telephone and facsimile numbers, and mailing address. We do not sell, trade or rent personal information submitted by visitors to companies, mailing lists or organizations outside of this Firm. However, please be advised that in no event are any “comments” that you submit, or information that you provide in response to the Blog, considered confidential attorney-client communications, protected by the attorney-client privilege. They are not thus privileged, and you should be aware of this fact when submitting anything to or on the Blog.
Daily Tweets – Berkeslaw
Daily Tweets
Contact Us – Berkeslaw
Contact Us
Contact Us
For any questions and/or concerns you may have, or to set up an appointment
to meet either by telephone or in person, please contact the Firm as follows:
David Berke (State Bar #123007)
B E R K E S L A W
7162 Beverly Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90036
Telephone: (323) 879-9115
Cell Phone: (310) 251-0700
email: [email protected]
Twitter: @berkeslaw
Please note that the Firm does not employ a fax machine, believing it to be obsolete technology. Rather than pass along ink costs to you, the consumer, we ask that you “go green” and email documents instead.
If you really are serious about reaching me, then please make certain that you always favor email over voice-mail when leaving messages. I may just be out for a moment, walking Butters, but I will have my Blackberry with me. If I am out for coffee with a client, then I will have an iPad. In other words, emails are checked obsessively, while voice-mail messages invariable disappear into a cosmic black hole. Even the voice-mail on my cell phone is deactivated, for goodness’ sakes. Finally, for all of you zealous attorneys out there — you know who you are — notice is hereby given that this blog may not be used for the purposes of providing ex parte notice, as the blog is not intended for the purposes of day-to-day litigation, and it is thus not necessarily reviewed regularly.
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b e r k e s l a w Citizen’s United: SCOTUS Double-Speak
Citizen’s United: SCOTUS Double-Speak
In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 08-205 (2010), 130 S.Ct. 876 (January 21, 2010), the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment prohibited the federal government from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations and unions. In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that corporations and unions have the same political speech rights as individuals, as protected by the First Amendment.
Since decided, Citizens United has been widely condemned by a large swath of the American public, even by some who originally thought it a great victory. In fact, I believe that Citizens United will ultimately be known as one of the most infamous SCOTUS decisions in U.S. history, and that future Courts — or even the one as near-currently constituted — will move to curb its scope and/or overturn it altogether. Indeed, the Montana State Supreme Court has already issued a direct challenge to Citizens United, setting up another round of the same fight in the very near future.
Although not often stated as such, it seems clear that the real objection to Citizens United is the visceral sense of result orientation underlying the Court’s decision. Thus, it was correctly feared that the (fairly) predictable block of 5 conservative justices were going to find a way to lift the limitations on corporate political donations; it was simply a matter of finding a plausible justification. “Corporations are people” was the dismaying result.
As infuriating as the Citizens United is, however, it is not the ”corporations as people” excuse that I see as being the problem. The legal fiction of a corporation’s “citizenry” has been a feature of Anglo-American jurisprudence for a great while. The law wants corporations to be identifiable as belonging to one state or another for any number of important reasons, such as diversity (i.e., one means of determining Federal jurisdiction), deciding “choice of laws,” and/or the rules governing service of process. All of these (and other) important procedural/due process considerations are determined by the “citizenship” of a corporation.
Accordingly, it is no great leap of legal fiction to go from (1) acknowledging a corporation may be deemed to a “citizen” of one state or another, to (1) treating that same corporation as being an “individual” for purposes of political action and contribution. And yet that is not the failing of Citizens United. The failing of the decision is, quite bluntly, that in the exercise of its “result orientation,” the Court chose the wrong result; just because a tenuous legal link could be articulated, does not mean it should have been.
Corporations and unions do not “speak,” they corrupt, or at least have the power to do so if left untrammeled. The SCOTUS was under no compulsion to liken them to “individuals” for First Amendment purposes. There are a number of rights granted/protected by the fabulous First: A prohibition against the government establishment of religion, or abridging freedom of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Do corporations and/or unions require these additional First Amendment protections? If we grant them one such right, do they not then qualify for all? Of course not, absurdity reigns.
Corporations are not “individuals,” except as to those limited legally fictitious identities that we grant them in order to serve basic jurisdictional requirements. The Citizens United decision, on the other hand, is a travesty, a thinly disguised — or perhaps completely transparent — power-grab by the monied elite to legalize the purchase of political office. It is bad enough that now one almost need be a multi-millionaire to even qualify as a candidate for higher office; but just in case you are not, Citizens United is now available to make up the difference.
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Blog – Berkeslaw
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About Us – Berkeslaw
About Us
About the Firm
Hello, my name is David Berke, and I have been a Los Angeles lawyer for the past 27 years. I began my legal education at Osgoode Hall in Toronto (Canada’s finest law school, in my home town), before completing my degree at UCLA in 1985. I first joined a marquee New York law firm, before making my way to a Westside law firm specializing in entertainment litigation. During my 5 years at the firm, I had the good fortune of learning my craft under the tutelage of two great lawyers, one, a brilliant law firm manager, and the other, one of the finest trial attorneys in the country, and someone I count among the best people I know. In 1989, however, I made the decision to open up my own law practice, a scary enough choice, but one made for a very specific reason. Thus, the only true ambition I really ever had in life was to be the father of a family and, as I watched my colleagues miss innumerable milestones, vacations, and sometimes even the most modest family outings, I knew that big firm practice was incompatible with the type of parenting I wanted to experience and enjoy.
So, with in-house jobs becoming more scarce all the time, my only real option was to open my own practice. Unlike others similarly situated, however, I opted not to design my practice around high volume fields traditional to solo practitioners such as plaintiff’s personal injury or worker’s compensation. Instead, I choose a rather unconventional approach, whereby I essentially conduct a big firm practice by myself, favoring the maintenance of a few cases (from small to large, depending on the circumstances) which command – and receive – a greater degree of my personal attention. As such, I have often taken on very large matters for very prominent clients, but invariably for the purpose of keeping my clients out of the spotlight rather than place them in it. In this fashion, therefore, you might say that I am one of the best known lawyers in Los Angeles that you’ve never heard of, because I would rather focus on my clients’ needs than make a “name” for myself, and/or a spectacle of those I serve.
Please do not imagine, however, that my practice is somehow limited to the representation of well known entertainment figures; far from it. I have a wide range of legal experience involving contractual and business disputes of all kinds, as well as defamation, copyright, trademark (and other IP), employment matters, plaintiff’s class actions, and still others. There are also occasions where I am called upon to bring my litigation experience to bear to assist in cases which lie outside my traditional areas of expertise, such as probate, family law, and elder law.
As circumstances require, I will take my cases either to trial or arbitration, historically with great success. Nonetheless, the economies of the day, combined with my natural inclinations and my ethical compass, move me instinctively towards finding alternative means of resolving disputes, as opposed to churning my cases for legal fees. I want my clients to win, and so they do, but “winning” these days more often than not means arriving at a result that is satisfying, preserves dignity, and permits my clients to proceed with their lives with litigation far in their rear view mirrors as quickly and efficiently as possible.
As stated above, there is a legal maxim which holds, “for every wrong there is a remedy.” I want to be that remedy. Call or email me and let’s see what we can do to help.
About firm – Berkeslaw
About firm
About the Firm
Hello, my name is David Berke, and I have been a Los Angeles lawyer for the past 27 years. I began my legal education at Osgoode Hall in Toronto (Canada’s finest law school, in my home town), before completing my degree at UCLA in 1985. I first joined a marquee New York law firm, before making my way to a Westside law firm specializing in entertainment litigation. During my 5 years at the firm, I had the good fortune of learning my craft under the tutelage of two great lawyers, one, a brilliant law firm manager, and the other, one of the finest trial attorneys in the country, and someone I count among the best people I know. In 1989, however, I made the decision to open up my own law practice, a scary enough choice, but one made for a very specific reason. Thus, the only true ambition I really ever had in life was to be the father of a family and, as I watched my colleagues miss innumerable milestones, vacations, and sometimes even the most modest family outings, I knew that big firm practice was incompatible with the type of parenting I wanted to experience and enjoy.
So, with in-house jobs becoming more scarce all the time, my only real option was to open my own practice. Unlike others similarly situated, however, I opted not to design my practice around high volume fields traditional to solo practitioners such as plaintiff’s personal injury or worker’s compensation. Instead, I choose a rather unconventional approach, whereby I essentially conduct a big firm practice by myself, favoring the maintenance of a few cases (from small to large, depending on the circumstances) which command – and receive – a greater degree of my personal attention. As such, I have often taken on very large matters for very prominent clients, but invariably for the purpose of keeping my clients out of the spotlight rather than place them in it. In this fashion, therefore, you might say that I am one of the best known lawyers in Los Angeles that you’ve never heard of, because I would rather focus on my clients’ needs than make a “name” for myself, and/or a spectacle of those I serve.
Please do not imagine, however, that my practice is somehow limited to the representation of well known entertainment figures; far from it. I have a wide range of legal experience involving contractual and business disputes of all kinds, as well as defamation, copyright, trademark (and other IP), employment matters, plaintiff’s class actions, and still others. There are also occasions where I am called upon to bring my litigation experience to bear to assist in cases which lie outside my traditional areas of expertise, such as probate, family law, and elder law.
As circumstances require, I will take my cases either to trial or arbitration, historically with great success. Nonetheless, the economies of the day, combined with my natural inclinations and my ethical compass, move me instinctively towards finding alternative means of resolving disputes, as opposed to churning my cases for legal fees. I want my clients to win, and so they do, but “winning” these days more often than not means arriving at a result that is satisfying, preserves dignity, and permits my clients to proceed with their lives with litigation far in their rear view mirrors as quickly and efficiently as possible.
As stated above, there is a legal maxim which holds, “for every wrong there is a remedy.” I want to be that remedy. Call or email me and let’s see what we can do to help.
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