We use the acronym “LGBT” to identify lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals as a community of people with common issues and concerns. But within that group, many transgender issues are unique – and can be highly complicated, requiring a level of legal and emotional support beyond that of most LGB persons. Here are some current items of interest:

Recent Ruling – Transgender People Are Protected From Workplace Discrimination.

Two key markers of financial distress are bankruptcy and home foreclosure rates. The mortgage crisis of the past several years has hit Californians hard, and is a major cause of the large number of bankruptcies filed here. But we may see a gradual reduction in the number of foreclosures as federal and state regulations begin to protect a larger number of homeowners with upside down mortgages.

If you own a residential property and rent it to someone else, you are a landlord. If you rent from someone who owns the property, you are a tenant. And if this takes place in the state of California, you are both subject to some of the most complex and nit-picky rules and regulations in the world. These laws have evolved over the past 150 years to preserve the rights of each of you, and to provide remedies when disagreements occur.

It is a legal minefield, and one that I avoid in my own practice.

Every now and then, headlines spotlight a celebrity who has entered the world of conservatorship – where courts determine if there are issues that a person can’t handle, and if someone else should be named a guardian or conservator of that person.

There are thousands of conservatorship actions in California every year, but most of them aren’t big news. It’s the actors, entertainers and other popular idols who get the press, the blogs and the YouTube exposure.