Career Files, Justice

Promoting Access to Justice Through Tentative Rulings in California

Ari Kaplan speaks with Los Angeles-attorney Crawford Appleby about tentative rulings.

By Ari Kaplan  
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Ari Kaplan speaks with Crawford Appleby, a Los Angeles-based transportation accident and Qui Tam attorney with Baum, Hedlund, Aristei and Goldman. He is also the founder of Rulings.law, a free online database of tentative rulings written by California state court judges.

Ari Kaplan: Tell us about your background and the genesis of Rulings.law.

Crawford Appleby: I worked as a law clerk at the Los Angeles Superior Court for a few years, where I helped judges draft tentative rulings. When I went into private practice and started appearing in superior court, I was always looking for a drafting advantage and knew that each judge had his or her own approach and preferences, which they often revealed in tentative rulings that the court published on its website. Those rulings, however, disappeared once the hearing on the motion ended, so I started manually collecting them before realizing that my effort was not sustainable and I hired someone to automate the process. Once I created the database, I decided that it should be available to everyone in a searchable format as an access to justice initiative.

Ari Kaplan: What is a tentative ruling?

Crawford Appleby: It might be unique to California, but a tentative ruling conveys how a judge is planning to rule on your motion, e.g., grant or deny, and the reasons for doing so. When attorneys engage in oral argument, reading these rulings will offer insight into a judge’s position and help the attorney tailor the arguments to the strengths or weaknesses of the case.

Ari Kaplan: Why do tentative rulings matter?

Crawford Appleby: While tentative rulings are not necessarily final, they reflect the outcome over 90% of the time. Once a judge issues a tentative ruling, that is probably how the judge will rule. I read the rulings to get an idea of how judges think, the type of authority they like, the cases on which they rely, how they have ruled on my particular kind of motion, and which arguments they find persuasive, among other insights.

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Ari Kaplan: How do you expect attorneys to use Rulings.law?

Crawford Appleby: It can be useful for attorneys who are practicing in front of the judges who have issued tentative rulings because they can get an idea of how their judge likes to rule, perceives certain issues and cases, and handles certain motions. It may also highlight what the judge doesn’t like and help guide their strategy.

Ari Kaplan: What does the creation of Rulings.law indicate about the trends associated with predicting case outcomes?

Crawford Appleby: People can read the rulings and get an idea of how their particular judge might rule, but, ultimately, I hope it inspires them to develop additional opportunities to collect free, public, government information and organize it for the benefit of others.

Ari Kaplan: Can you share some advice with practicing lawyers who are hopeful legal tech innovators?

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Crawford Appleby: I am not a tech expert and have very basic understanding of how code works. I used Codecademy.com to get my feet wet. What I learned from my law school classmate, Bill Bittner, is that you should write a scope of what you want your site to do, i.e., an outline with a series of if/then statements, which dictates how the code will work. Once I did that, I found a programmer on Guru.com and have been working with him ever since. I also suggest that hopeful entrepreneurs perform some test marketing on Facebook and LinkedIn. I didn’t spend very much money and used some clip art for a logo. The ad received a three percent click through rate for my target audience of lawyers in Los Angeles County. Several people even signed up at my very basic landing page. Start by finding someone on whom you can depend, like a friend or a colleague who knows about code that can connect you with a programmer to do the actual work. Then, put your idea out there and see what people think of it since you do not want to go through the whole process to find out that people aren’t going to use the site.

Ari Kaplan (http://www.AriKaplanAdvisors.com) regularly interviews leaders in the legal industry and in the broader professional services community to share perspective, highlight transformative change, and introduce new technology at http://www.ReinventingProfessionals.com.

https://www.reinventingprofessionals.com/promoting-access-to-justice-through-tentative-rulings-in-california/

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