On February 8, 2018, Heather F. C. Hoganson, of counsel to Simas & Associates, Ltd., gave a presentation before the Sacramento County Bar Association (“SCBA”), Administrative Law section at its February MCLE Luncheon. Along with her colleague, Helen Geoffroy, Heather presented on the interesting topic of “Attacking Regulations: A Guide Read more…
California Supreme Court held today that the California Public Records Act (PRA) law provides the public with a right to emails and other communications, such as text messages, regarding government business written or received by public officials and employees, regardless of whether the communication was done using a private account Read more…
On April 20, 2017, Steven L. Simas, owner and founder of Simas & Associates, Ltd., will be serving as one of several presenters for Writs of Administrative Mandamus Demystified: A Step by Step Guide. This day-long seminar is being hosted by Pincus Professional Education. The seminar will be held at the Tsakopoulos Library Read more…
Our law firm’s primary practice area is representing professional licensees and healthcare licensees before the various licensing agencies within the state of California and its local or municipal levels of government. Most of these matters are “litigated” – if at all – through the administrative hearing process. Sometimes, the administrative Read more…
On November 7, 2016, Julianne Allen, Senior Paralegal at Simas & Associates, Ltd., guest lectured at American River College. The students were part of the Paralegal Program and the course was “Administrative Law and Procedure” taught by Julia Brynelson, Adjunct Professor. “I was invited to speak and jumped at the chance,” Read more…
Every so often, the team at Simas & Associates, Ltd. encounters a new story about a licensee who undertook to represent himself or herself in an administrative proceeding. The seeming informal nature of administrative proceedings somehow lures intelligent, successful, licensees and business owners into thinking they can represent themselves. Unfortunately, Read more…
The administrative license suspension program, known as “Admin Per Se” (“APS”) was implemented in California in 1990 to serve as a stronger deterrent to drunk driving. The APS program compels the Department of Motor Vehicles (“DMV”) to immediately suspend or revoke the driving privileges of any person arrested for the Read more…
The California Administrative Procedure Act permits parties to use affidavits, declarations, and even letters in lieu of live testimony as evidence in an administrative hearing. This aspect is one of the big differences with civil litigation or criminal trial in that an unauthenticated document containing hearsay is permitted to be Read more…
Parental leave policies in the United States lag behind many other countries. In fact, the United States is one of just three industrialized nations in the world that does not offer paid maternity leave as a mandatory, national benefit. Despite these shortcomings in parental leave policies nationwide, Netflix, the California-based Read more…
Under the American Rule of attorney fees in civil litigation, every party—even the party prevailing—must pay its own attorney’s fees. Unless specific authority granted by statute or contract allows the awarding of accrued attorney fees against the other party, each party in a lawsuit is responsible for paying its own Read more…