Two decades after California voters approved medical marijuana use, state lawmakers finally endorsed the idea of creating a statewide framework regulating the product last year.

Bill Murray (not that one) was at the top of his game, so to speak, until an epic fall from grace. In December 2009, the 54-year-old tax accountant was charged with defrauding more than 50 clients of his Sacramento firm, Murray & Young Accountancy, out of more than $13.3 million. He subsequently pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 19.5 years in federal prison. The saga played out like a reality TV crime drama, from beginning to end.

Among private law firms, a dam is about to break. According to research by two Los Angeles legal marketing experts, 96 percent of leaders at the country’s biggest 100 private practices are baby boomers or older. But many of their clients are younger. 

I’m a business owner in California and I’m worried about the impact of the new overtime wage rules in the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. How can I best prepare my business for the changes caused by the regulations?

Innovation is understandably not something most people associate with government. More than most any place in society, government offices are thought of — accurately or not — as where innovation and cutting-edge thinking go to die. But it doesn’t have to be that way, nor is it that way everywhere.

The concept of reaping what you sow applies in all walks of life. No one would ever expect the Golden State Warriors to win the NBA championships if they didn’t practice in the off-season.

For U.S. exporters already dealing with multiple sets of regulations, duties and tariffs across the globe, the post-Brexit world is a mess that will take years to sort out.

Update (4/2021): Quicklegal CEO Derek Bluford was sentenced to seven years in prison for wire fraud, money laundering and other charges, according to the Sacramento Business Journal.

Update (2/2018): Quicklegal was named our Startup of the Month in June of 2016. Shortly after, we became aware of legal proceedings against Quicklegal. You can read more about the settlement judgement and the original complaint. In a statement to Comstock’s, CEO Derek Bluford said, “I had an employee who impersonated me. He defrauded me, our company and one of our clients.” In January of 2018, Derek Bluford was convicted of fraud.

Derek Bluford was in eighth grade when his single mom got into legal trouble. She had gotten injured at her prison job and couldn’t work full-time. Disability assistance wasn’t enough to cover utilities, food and rent, and they were about to get evicted from their duplex rental in Elk Grove.

For the past 48 years, Mike Doran has watched El Dorado County evolve— slowly. He recalls the days when the county was a peaceful, low-density community — long before the Home Depot came to Placerville, before the Dollar General  got the greenlight for Georgetown, back when Highway 50 was nothing but a two-lane road.

An African-American employee is told that he “doesn’t sound black,” a Jewish employee hears that she “doesn’t look Jewish” and a gay staffer’s supervisor tells him he “doesn’t act gay.”

Those are real-life stories, according to several experts on workplace discrimination.