Dismantling a 90-lawyer law firm is a messy business, but firm leaders at Sacramento, Calif.’s McDonough Holland & Allen are hopeful that the firm can wind down its operations gracefully before its planned Sept. 1 dissolution.

The Northern California Computer Crimes Task Force says a Sacramento man stole Mill Valley, Calif., attorney Mohamed Salem’s identity and posed as a lawyer to prey on a dozen people who were desperate to keep their homes. After an investigation this month, Nicolas Moscouplos charged with felony counts of personation of another and identity theft

Five current and former Hooters workers filed suit Tuesday in Sacramento County Superior Court on behalf of a proposed class of nonmanager employees in five of California’s Central Valley franchises. The complaint claims the restaurant chain workers were improperly forced to share tips with managers and to buy their own uniforms, among other alleged wage-and-hour violations.

Witness statements recorded or taken in writing by attorneys or their representatives aren’t privileged work product and, therefore, are open to discovery, a divided California appellate court ruled Thursday. Surprisingly, the justices, including the dissenter, took the opportunity to harshly criticize a 14-year-old appellate ruling out of Sacramento that held just the opposite.

A Sacramento, Calif., judge accused of becoming embroiled in a 2006 divorce case received a “severe” public censure from California’s Commission on Judicial Performance on Tuesday. Commissioners said Superior Court Judge Peter McBrien violated a litigant’s right to due process when he dramatically ended the trial of Mona Lea Carlsson and Ulf Johan Carlsson at the end of two days of proceedings, cutting off a witness mid-testimony.