Alice Graham Mediation and Law

Calling all immigration lawyers, tax lawyers and all interested others! Santa Monica Bar Association announces its monthly First Friday Lunch on June 2 on International Legal and Tax Aspects of U.S-EU Estate and Trust Planning with Marco Q. Rossi. Marco is an Italian-born Tax and Estate Planning Attorney with offices in Genoa, New York, Miami Beach, Beverly Hills, and Milan. The speaker is a brilliant attorney with relationships within Italy's international business communit...y. He has presented on this subject to the Arizona State Bar. The lunch event is at at Inotheke Restaurant, 606 Broadway, Santa Monica. The event will be from 12 to 1:30 p.m. One hour MCLE. Register at: http://www.smba.net/event-2542628

Join the Santa Monica Bar Association this Friday on EPA Civil Enforcement Actions. If you own, buy or sell real property, find out about the Environmental Protection Agency: what your real estate broker can't tell you. The EPA Director for our region will be our speaker. Here's the link: http://smba.net/event-2245776

Score one for borrowers. In a recent decision, the California Court of Appeal found that the borrower properly stated a cause of action for wrongful foreclosure where the lender failed to meet with the borrower to try to work out a loan modification, foreclosed while supposedly considering modification of the loan, and falsely claimed the borrower did not submit requested documents. The appellate court easily could have gone the other way because the borrower failed to name a necessary party and failed to make essential allegations. But the court kept its eye on the ball, and found those deficiencies were easily corrected by amendment. Majd v. Bank of America, California Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division 3, no. G050250, filed 12/21/15 and partially certified for publication on January 9, 2016.

In a new Second District case, the court agreed the appeal was frivolous, but respondent asked for such an unreasonable amount of attorney's fees as sanctions for having to respond to the frivolous appeal (around 20 times what they should have asked for), that the court just said no. Motion denied, sanctions denied. The court quoted the California Supreme Court which reasoned, in an earlier case, ‘If . . . the Court were required to award a reasonable fee when an outrageou...sly unreasonable one has been asked for, claimants would be encouraged to make unreasonable demands, knowing that the only unfavorable consequence of such misconduct would be reduction of their fee to what they should have asked for in the first place.’ Olive Properties v. Coldwaters Ent., Ct. of App. Case No. B261105. Moral: don't be a jerk. Reasonable people sidestep the entire morass by going to mediation instead.

"Let us pause and give thanks for the fact that Nelson Mandela liveda man who took history in his hands and bent the arc of the moral universe toward justice." President Obama

The 2013 State of Community Mediation Report release countdown begins with a daily, little known fact about the report. Did you know the report provides both concrete steps to growth & won the Silver Medal in the breaststroke @ the 1972 Munich Olympic games?