Coblentz’s Family Wealth practice and partners Jim Mitchell, Phil Feldman, Jaime Mannon, and Jennifer Scharre are recognized in the 2026 Chambers High Net Worth Guide, which ranks the world’s top service providers to ultra-high net worth and high net worth individuals and families and family offices.

The Coblentz Family Wealth practice moved up one band and now ranks in Band 1 for Private Wealth Law, Northern California. A source notes, “They do an incredible job with clients. They are definitely top of the field in their level of responsiveness, sophistication and ability to break down complex topics,” while another adds, “Coblentz’s strengths are its ability to quickly diagnose the problem and present complex solutions in a simple way.”

Jim Mitchell is ranked as a Leading Lawyer in Band 2. Jim advises high net worth clients on tax planning and trust and estate administration.

Phil Feldman is ranked as a Leading Lawyer in Band 2. Phil assists wealthy individuals and families with income, philanthropic, and gift and estate tax planning. A source says, “Phil has excellent judgment and he is able to work with all types of clients.” Another adds, “His experience is his key strength. He has been doing this a long time and has seen it all. Clients take a lot of comfort in that.”

Jaime Mannon is ranked as a Leading Lawyer in Band 2. Jaime offers affluent individuals and families assistance with estate and gift tax planning and cross-border tax planning. A source notes, “Jaime is very thoughtful. She understands the legal nuances but also the personal relationships we are dealing with.” Another adds, “Jaime has a ton of depth and experience.”

Jennifer Scharre is newly ranked in Band 3. Jennifer is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law by the California Board of Legal Specialization. Her practice focuses on sophisticated wealth transfer strategies for high net worth clients, including founders, individuals at startups, and clients with large real estate portfolios. “Jennifer’s best attribute is this ability to accurately break down complex topics in a digestible way. She does an incredible job. She is also very creative in strategy. She works on it like a jigsaw puzzle,” says a client. “Jennifer Scharre is a real subject matter expert and she follows through to deadlines and produces high quality work all the time,” notes another client.

Independent and objective, Chambers HNW is carefully researched and widely considered to be one of the most reputable law firm directories in the world. Ranking criteria include technical legal ability, professional conduct, client service, business understanding, diligence, commitment, and other qualities most valued by legal clients. To view additional details on Chambers HNW rankings, please click here.

Additional Coblentz Chambers USA Rankings

Nine additional Coblentz partners and four practices are recognized in the 2026 edition of Chambers USA, also published by Chambers & Partners. Real Estate partners Alan Gennis, Danna Kozerski, Miles Imwalle, and Tay Via; Litigation partners Timothy Crudo, Sean Coyle, and Rees Morgan; and Employment partners Fred Alvarez and Hannah Jones are ranked as leading lawyers in their respective categories. Coblentz’s Employment, Land Use, Real Estate, and White Collar Defense and Investigations practices are also recognized by Chambers USA 2026.

By Hannah Withers and Hannah Jones

Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming part of everyday Human Resources and People operations—from recruiting and onboarding to performance management and employee relations. But as AI becomes more integrated into these functions, it also creates significant legal and compliance risks. Improper use of AI can expose employers to discrimination claims, compromise confidential and proprietary information, create data privacy concerns, and increase litigation risk. Many organizations are adopting AI tools faster than they are updating the policies, agreements, and governance needed to manage these exposures. Below are several key areas HR and People teams should be evaluating now.

AI Use Policies for HR

Many HR teams are already using AI tools, often without clear internal guidance on what is and is not permitted. Without a written policy, organizations face discrimination, equity, data security, and other employment compliance risks.

Key topics for an AI Use Policy include:

• Which AI platforms are approved for HR use and under what circumstances?
• May AI be used to assist with hiring, promotion, discipline, or termination decisions, and if so, what level of human review is required?
• What types of employee data may or may not be entered into AI tools?
• How should AI-generated outputs be documented and retained?

Privilege and Litigation Risks

One of the most significant, and often overlooked, risks of AI use in HR is that conversations with AI tools may not be protected by attorney-client privilege. When HR personnel use AI to answer legal questions or evaluate employee complaints, those prompts and responses may be discoverable in litigation. If an AI tool flagged a potential legal violation and the company proceeded with a contrary course of action, that record could become powerful evidence for the opposing party. Organizations should think carefully about where legal questions are being routed and whether AI-generated records are being preserved in accordance with litigation hold obligations.

Employment Agreements and Internal Policies

Many employers’ confidentiality agreements, proprietary information and inventions assignment agreements (PIIAAs), independent contractor agreements, and employee handbooks were drafted before the widespread adoption of generative AI. These documents may not address whether employees can use AI tools to perform their work, who owns AI-generated work product, or what happens when confidential information is entered into a third-party AI platform. Employers operating with pre-AI-era agreements may have gaps in their protections that are worth examining.

AI in Hiring and Employment Decisions

The use of AI in hiring and employment decisions is one of the most heavily regulated and scrutinized areas of AI in the workplace. Organizations using AI at any stage of the hiring process (e.g. resume screening, candidate ranking, skills assessments, or interview evaluation) face potential exposure under federal anti-discrimination law and a growing patchwork of state and local AI regulations.

Key concerns include the risk that AI tools may perpetuate historical patterns of discrimination, resulting in disparate impact claims. Several jurisdictions (including California, Connecticut, New York City, Illinois, Maryland, and Colorado) have enacted or proposed laws requiring disclosure, bias audits, or other compliance steps when AI is used in employment decisions. These requirements are expanding rapidly, and employers using AI-powered tools to make important employment decisions should be aware of their obligations in each jurisdiction where they operate.

Beyond hiring, similar concerns arise when AI tools are used in performance management or termination decisions. If an algorithm recommends adverse action and a discrimination claim follows, the employer may need to explain and defend the AI tool’s methodology, raising questions about transparency, documentation, and the role of human oversight.

Recent litigation over alleged AI-assisted layoff selection underscores that these risks are not limited to hiring and remain largely uncharted territory. Employers using AI or algorithmic inputs in reductions in force, performance rankings, or other selection decisions should expect increased scrutiny of disparate impact, disability and leave-related bias, and the adequacy of human oversight.

Data Privacy and Cross-Border Considerations

AI use by HR frequently involves processing data reflecting employee and applicant personal information. Employers subject to the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), other state privacy laws, or international data protection frameworks should review their employee and applicant privacy notices to ensure they accurately describe how personal information is collected, used, disclosed, retained, and, where applicable, processed using AI tools. Employers should also confirm that their use of AI complies with applicable privacy requirements, including obligations relating to data minimization, purpose limitation, and vendor management.

Emerging Issues to Watch

As organizations incorporate AI into broader HR functions, several additional areas are drawing legal and regulatory attention:

• Pay Equity: AI tools used to set compensation or determine pay bands may inadvertently perpetuate pay disparities, raising concerns under federal and state equal pay laws.
• Workplace Monitoring: AI-powered productivity tracking and surveillance tools face increasing regulatory scrutiny, with several states considering or enacting legislation requiring notice and consent.
• Accommodations and Leave: AI tools used to evaluate disability accommodation requests or manage leave entitlements must account for the individualized assessment requirements of the ADA, FMLA, and analogous state laws.
• Religious Accommodations: Employees may raise religious objections to mandatory AI tools, potentially triggering accommodation obligations that employers will need to navigate.
• Vendor Contracts: Organizations purchasing AI tools from third-party vendors should consider whether their contractual arrangements appropriately account for the legal, operational, and business risks associated with the use of those tools.

The Bottom Line

The legal landscape around AI in the workplace is evolving quickly, and the compliance obligations are only becoming more complex. Organizations that have not yet assessed how AI intersects with their HR practices may find themselves exposed to risks they haven’t fully considered. The issues above are not exhaustive, but they represent the areas where we are seeing the most activity and where early attention can make a meaningful difference.

If you have questions about how these developments may affect your workplace policies, please contact any member of the Coblentz Employment Group.

To view a PDF version of this article, please click here.

This alert is intended to provide general information and does not constitute legal advice. Each situation is fact-specific, and you should consult with counsel regarding your particular circumstances.

By Scott Hall, Phillip Wiese, and Leeza Arbatman

Businesses that use automated license plate recognition (ALPR) technology should take a fresh look at their compliance with California’s Automated License Plate Recognition law. A recent California Court of Appeal decision, followed by several new class action complaints, has increased litigation risk for parking operators, shopping centers, retailers, property managers, and other businesses that use ALPR technology but have not adopted and publicly posted a compliant ALPR usage and privacy policy.

California’s ALPR statute, Civil Code sections 1798.90.5–1798.90.55, has been in effect since 2016, but many private businesses are not aware of the law’s requirement to post an ALPR policy or may not realize that the statute applies beyond law enforcement or dedicated parking technology companies. The law can apply to private entities that operate, access, or use systems that capture license plate information through cameras and convert that information into searchable computer-readable data.

The Policy Requirement

California law requires ALPR operators and end-users to maintain reasonable security procedures and implement a usage and privacy policy governing the collection, use, maintenance, sharing, and dissemination of ALPR information. The required policy must address specific topics, including authorized purposes for using ALPR information, who may access it, training requirements, security monitoring, sharing restrictions, data accuracy measures, retention periods, and destruction procedures. In Bartholomew v. Parking Concepts, Inc., the Court of Appeal summarized these requirements and emphasized the requirement to publicly post the policy in writing, and, if the business has a website, conspicuously post the policy on that website. 

Why the Risk Has Increased

The key recent development is the February 2026 Bartholomew decision. In that case, a plaintiff alleged that a parking garage operator collected his license plate information when he entered and exited a garage but failed to implement and make publicly available the required ALPR usage and privacy policy. The trial court sustained the parking garage operator’s demurrer, but the Court of Appeal reversed in part.

The most important part of the decision is the Court of Appeal’s ruling on “harm.” The ALPR statute authorizes a private civil action only by an individual “harmed” by a violation. The parking garage operator argued that a plaintiff must show misuse, mishandling, or measurable damages—not simply lack of compliance with statutory requirements. The Court of Appeal disagreed. Although the court held that a mere technical violation is not always enough, it concluded that collecting and maintaining ALPR information without implementing and making public the required policy harms individuals by violating their statutory “right to know” who is collecting their ALPR data and how it is being used and maintained.

That holding is significant because the statute provides for actual damages, but not less than $2,500 in liquidated damages, along with potential punitive damages, attorneys’ fees, litigation costs, and injunctive relief. 

New ALPR Lawsuits Are On The Rise After Bartholomew

Since Bartholomew, plaintiffs’ firms have filed new putative class actions against businesses and property owners that allegedly used ALPR technology without the required public policy. Complaints have even been filed against businesses that have posted ALPR policies, but which plaintiffs assert lack information or details required by the statute.

What Businesses Should Do Now

Businesses that use ALPR technology in parking lots, garages, retail centers, residential communities, office properties, hospitals, or other facilities should promptly determine whether the California ALPR law applies to them. This review should consider facilities the business operates directly, as well as those operated by vendors, parking managers, security contractors, or property management companies.

At a minimum, businesses should consider taking the following steps:

• Identify all locations where cameras or parking systems capture license plate information.
• Determine whether those systems create or access a searchable database of license plate information.
• Confirm whether the business is an ALPR “operator,” “end-user,” or both.
• Review vendor contracts to understand who collects, stores, accesses, shares, and deletes ALPR information.
• Adopt a written ALPR usage and privacy policy that includes all required statutory elements.
• Post the policy conspicuously on the business’s website and make it available in writing.
• Review retention, access, audit, training, and security practices to ensure they match the posted policy.
• Periodically audit compliance, particularly when deploying new parking, security, or access-control technology.

Conclusion

The recent wave of ALPR litigation shows that businesses may face legal claims not only arising from the collection or use of license plate data, but also from the absence of a posted, statute-compliant policy. After Bartholomew, one of the most important steps businesses can take to reduce litigation exposure is to adopt and post a compliant ALPR policy.

If your company needs assistance with any privacy issues, the Coblentz Data Privacy & Cybersecurity team can help. Please reach out to Scott Hall or Phillip Wiese for further information or assistance.

A ballot initiative measure to amend the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) has qualified for the November 2026 statewide ballot, with the backing of the California Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of business, housing, healthcare, energy, and infrastructure organizations.

If approved by voters, the Building an Affordable California Act (“BACA”) would add a new chapter to CEQA for certain “essential projects,” including a wide array of housing projects,[1] as well as hospitals and medical facilities, clean energy facilities, educational facilities, and specified infrastructure/public improvement projects involving water, wildfire resilience and public safety, transportation, and broadband internet access.[2]

BACA would not exempt any project from CEQA, narrow the scope of environmental issues that need to be studied, or ensure approval of any particular project. But it would create an accelerated, and in some ways more predictable, process for qualifying projects that elect to use some or all of its procedures. Perhaps most significantly, it would create enforceable timelines for completing environmental review and judicial review, and fixed deadlines for public comment.

BACA is a detailed and complex measure—the full text submitted to the Secretary of State runs 41 pages. This summary focuses on the requirements to qualify for BACA treatment and key changes the measure would make to CEQA’s substance and process.

Tribal Consultation and Labor Requirements Apply

Any project that seeks to proceed under BACA must follow robust procedures relating to tribal consultation, beginning at the earlier of submittal of a preliminary application under any law (such as SB 330) or an essential project application.[3] These go beyond the standard notification and consultation requirements under AB 52, and in some respects beyond the tribal consultation provisions adopted for the AB 130 statutory CEQA exemption in 2025.

Additionally, essential projects that utilize the initiative would be subject to specified labor standards. All essential projects other than housing projects would generally be required to pay prevailing wages and use a skilled and trained workforce for construction, following the provisions established by AB 900/SB 7. For essential housing projects, certain prevailing wage requirements are triggered only for buildings over 85 feet in height and—in San Francisco only—for projects of 50 units or greater.[4] These mirror the provisions adopted for AB 130.

CEQA Clock Starts at Completeness

Under BACA, the determination that an essential project application is complete (or becomes “deemed complete” due to the public agency’s inaction) is an important milestone because many of the initiative’s review timelines and procedural protections begin at that point.

Like the process already available to housing projects under SB 330, BACA requires a public agency to make completeness determinations within 30 calendar days, prevents the agency from later requiring information that wasn’t identified in the initial “exhaustive” list of missing information, and can lead to applications being deemed complete if the agency misses its deadlines.[5]

Once an essential project application is determined or deemed complete, BACA would require the lead agency to identify the CEQA pathway and complete the corresponding CEQA determination within specified deadlines:

• EIR Certification: Within 365 business days (approximately 17 months)
• Adoption of Negative Declaration or Mitigated Negative Declaration: Within 180 business days (approximately 8.5 months)
• Adoption of Exemptions, Addenda, and Prior-review Determinations: Within 90 business days (approximately 4 months)

If an agency misses the applicable deadline to complete review, the applicant may request a meeting or hearing, and within 60 calendar days of receipt of the request, the agency must make a final written determination on the environmental review documentation and a final written determination to approve or disapprove the project.[6] All of these timelines may be extended, but only upon written request of the applicant.

Changes to Substantive Scope of Review

While BACA would not limit the types of environmental impacts or mitigation measures that must be analyzed, it would make two potentially significant changes to the scope of review.

• First, impacts are required to be analyzed only based on compliance with existing laws—meaning the lead agency can look only to formally adopted statutes, regulations, rules, standards, or ordinances that were in effect at the time the essential project application was submitted, with limited exceptions.[7] While the agency’s review is not expressly required to be limited to compliance with objective existing laws, that is the standard that will apply to judicial review of BACA projects, as discussed below, and so it will effectively guide the scope of agency review itself. If the agency has not adopted formal CEQA thresholds of significance, as most have not, then presumably that agency would be limited to evaluating compliance with independent legal requirements, such as building code standards, regulations adopted by a Regional Water Quality Control Board, or Air District guidelines.
• Second, where an EIR is required, the applicant may elect to opt into a process that provides preliminary scoping and streamlined alternatives analysis.[8] If the applicant selects this pathway, the evaluation of project alternatives would be limited to one “no project” alternative (as required by existing law) and one potentially feasible alternative proposed by the project applicant that is compatible with the project’s fundamental purpose. The applicant-developed alternative must be proposed early in the CEQA process, at the end of preliminary scoping period. This would differ from the current requirement to analyze a “reasonable range” of alternatives—the number of which is fact-specific—that are specifically intended to mitigate significant environmental impacts identified through the CEQA impacts analysis.

Shorter, Fixed Comment Periods

In keeping with the overall timelines above, the initiative would create fixed periods for public comment, limiting lead agencies’ ability to require longer review. (Recent examples in the Bay Area have included public agencies announcing comment periods of 60, 90, or even 180 days for draft EIRs.)

For a negative declaration, mitigated negative declaration, or other circulated document, the public comment period would be 20 calendar days. For a draft EIR or subsequent or supplemental EIR, the public comment period would be 45 calendar days.[9]

The initiative states that a public comment period “shall not be tolled or extended except by a court of competent jurisdiction.”[10]

The initiative also limits which comments are included in the administrative record. The record would include timely written and electronic comments and oral testimony at a noticed and recorded public hearing.[11] Limited exceptions would apply where significant project changes or previously unavailable information create issues that could not reasonably have been raised during the original comment period.[12]

This represents a departure from the common situation where new information can be introduced into the record after the public comment period, up to the time the project is approved. Under the proposal, comments submitted after the close of the public comment period generally would be excluded unless they relate to genuinely new issues arising from project changes or information that was not previously available.[13]

Judicial Review Would Be Subject to New Rules

The initiative would also somewhat narrow the administrative record for CEQA litigation, limit the scope of review to compliance with “objective existing laws,” and provide that project approvals are reviewed under a substantial evidence standard.[15] This would be a significant change from current law, where compliance is not necessarily fixed based on pre-existing standards, and depending on the specific form of CEQA document and claims at issue, the nature of judicial review is often less deferential to the public agency’s decision. If the court finds a deficiency in the agency’s CEQA review, the remedy must be narrowly tailored to prohibit only any part of the essential project that was affected by the agency’s noncompliance, rather than setting aside the entire approval.

Together, these provisions are intended to create a more defined process for resolving CEQA challenges to qualifying projects while maintaining opportunities for judicial review of agency decisions.

Vesting Protections for Projects Already in the Pipeline

An application for any essential project submitted before BACA’s effective date and not yet finally approved may be withdrawn and resubmitted under BACA after its effective date. If the application was previously determined or deemed complete, no further completeness review would be required to preserve those rights.[16]

For housing projects in particular, a pending application may be withdrawn and resubmitted under BACA without losing vested rights or other benefits acquired under laws including the Subdivision Map Act, the Housing Accountability Act (including the Builder’s Remedy), and the Housing Crisis Act of 2019 (SB 330).[17]

Practical Takeaways

BACA would not exempt any projects from CEQA or guarantee approval. But for “essential” projects that choose to qualify and use its procedures, it offers more predictable entitlement and judicial review timelines, a more favorable standard of review, and fixed and predictable standards, among other benefits. It does not supersede any existing exemptions or streamlining provisions for housing or other projects, although it expressly provides that it may be used in combination with other land use and environmental review laws and processes. If BACA becomes law, it may create additional opportunities to combine existing streamlining tools with the initiative’s new procedures, all of which should be carefully evaluated for individual projects.

 

[1] Proposed Pub. Resources Code, §§ 21013, 21028, subd. (l). (Unless otherwise noted, all statutory citations are to the proposed Public Resources Code text that would become effective if BACA is adopted by the voters.) The measure generally includes all projects that would qualify as “housing development projects” under the Housing Accountability Act. Notably, there is no minimum or maximum number of residential units to qualify as an essential housing project.

[2] §§ 21013, 21028, subds. (i), (j), (k), (n), (o), (p), (q).

[3] § 21015, subd. (d)(1); § 21016.

[4] § 21015, subd. (c)–(d).

[5] § 21017.

[6] §§ 21018–21020.

[7] § 21022, § 21028, subd. (r).

[8] § 21024.

[9] § 21021, subd. (a)(1)–(2).

[10] § 21021, subd. (b).

[11] § 21021, subd. (d).

[12] § 21021, subd. (d)(1)(A)–(D).

[13] § 21021, subd. (d)(2).

[14] § 21027, subd. (a)(1).

[15] § 21026, subds. (b), (c).

[16] § 21014, subd. (f).

[17] § 21014, subd. (f)(3).

Join Coblentz partners Ashley Weinstein-Carnes and Gregg Miller on Wednesday, July 22, 2026, for the LAI Land Economics Society’s Housing Density Bonus Salon.

Ashley and Gregg will join Kate Conner, Deputy Director of Housing at the San Francisco Planning Department, and Mark Rhoades, FAICP, President and CEO of Rhoades Planning Group, for a discussion of California’s Density Bonus Law.

For more details and to register, please click here.

Join Coblentz partner Frank Busch on Wednesday, July 15, 2026 during the Bar Association of San Francisco’s “Meet Our New Probate Judges” program.

Frank, co-chair of BASF’s Estate Planning, Probate, and Trust Litigation Subsection, will moderate a conversation with the Honorable Russell S. Roeca and the Honorable Michael B. McNaughton about their backgrounds, perspectives on probate practice, and early experiences on the bench.

For more details and to register, please click here.