It has been my privilege to serve as the CELA Bulletin editor since March 2015 after the sad passing of the original editor, Christopher Bello. During my time as editor, I have been astonished at the wide variety of issues that are raised within the comparatively narrow area of law of reported employment decisions. Not since law school have I been forced to parse out so many key issues in so many decisions. My sympathy for judges, who must stay abreast of the whole seamless web of law, has grown exponentially. I’ve come to appreciate more than ever the need for simple, direct, but thorough briefing of what seem to us patently obvious employment law concepts.

The great advantage of being the Bulletin editor was that I had to read, and to persist in reading until I understood, every reported employment law decision issued each month in California, the Ninth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court. The great disadvantage was that I’ve learned more about the Employee Retirement Security Act (ERISA) than I ever wanted to know. Did you know that, although passed to protect employees from widespread abuses in pension and retirement plans, ERISA insurers have no right to a jury, no right to compensatory or punitive damages, and often no right to even testify because evidence is restricted to whatever is kept in the accused insurance company’s file? In fact, the only “relief” an insurer may receive is remand of the case to the insurance company so that it can think up a new basis for denial of benefits. CELAmates who litigate in this abstruse, often counter-intuitive area of law deserve our commiseration and respect.

But I have been most impressed by those CELAmates who brave the arbitration forum. The instability of arbitration law is evidenced by the disproportionate number of arbitration decisions that are reported each month. How can one assess, let alone manage, the risk of a case when the law underlying it will change several times from the time of filing to the time of final determination? A risk compounded moreover by an arbitrator, paid by the opposition, whose decision cannot be reversed for failure to follow the law. My hat goes off, and my heart goes out, to CELAmates whose dedication to protecting the rights of employees extends to battling in this dreadful forum.

Finally, I welcome the new Bulletin editor, Craig Byrnes. He will miss out on the pleasure of working with our previous independent contractor, who was so dedicated that he would format the old hard copy version at 3 a.m. to meet self-imposed publication deadlines. During my tenure, CELA implemented online formatting and electronic publication of the Bulletin. I also tried to include a Practice Guide article whenever possible. I look forward to seeing further evolution of the Bulletin under the guidance of the new editor.