The Law Office of Alex Coolman

04/29/2026

Learning to "bark."

04/24/2026

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_pEjDfmq7TI

5 likes. "The Real Story, not the Press Release"

04/19/2026

An excerpt from a longer video about a recent Ninth Circuit case involving religious objections to COVID vaccination requirements. I feel like I want to start doing longer-form stuff because there is so much to talk about and it's all really quite interesting -- at least to me! Full video is at https://youtu.be/qPV1XzOjPaQ?si=E5tg8H-3Ku1hswxI

03/29/2026

Men at CDCR painting a mural. From the prison art collection exhibited this past week at the relaunch of the Innocence and Justice Clinic of California Western School of Law.

03/14/2026

https://www.coolmanlaw.com/openca/2026/3/14/ninth-circuit-sees-first-amendment-issue-stemming-from-first-graders-expression-punished-by-school

A first grader who was given a talking-to by her school principal and told to apologize after giving a controversial drawing to an African-American classmate had a viable First Amendment retaliation claim, the Ninth Circuit concluded this week in B.B. v. Capistrano United School District .

03/11/2026

It's a trip to see Google's AI delivering this overwhelmingly pro-developer perspective on CEQA, a California environmental law. Note that the prompt was simply an inquiry about the existence of a private right of action under CEQA, not a request for Google to parrot a developer's point of view about why it's terrible for individuals to be able to go to court to enforce environmental laws.

02/28/2026

https://youtube.com/shorts/0RxY2xdPSsk

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

01/02/2026

Some discussion on the blog of a tricky case dealing with state-mandated language regarding implicit bias in privately provided trainings for doctors.

When the California Medical Board requires a private continuing medical education (CME) provider to include curriculum on implicit bias in medicine, is that government speech or is it compelled private speech that runs afoul of the First Amendment?

09/17/2024

New blog post up looking at First Amendment issues in schools and the disappointing response of most schools to student journalism that actually talks about challenging issues:

This weekend’s coverage in the San Diego Union-Tribune about two students who wrote an investigative report on Canyon Crest Academy Foundation illustrates a reality that was always very disappointing to me as a young person and scribbler of occasionally controversial ideas: namely, that schools

08/30/2024

https://www.coolmanlaw.com/openca/2024/8/29/switchblades-and-the-second-amendment

Are switchblades a type of “arm” that is covered under the Second Amendment right to bear arms? That’s a question I never even thought to ask until reading a Union-Tribune writeup (paywalled) on a federal suit brought by an Arizona group called Knife Rights. California law, as criminal defense...

08/29/2024

Some thoughts about the inherent value of constitutional violations, aside from any notion of more conventional "damages" of the sort that are typically alleged in personal injury cases. Constitutional rights cannot be reduced to mere medical bills or the cost of repairing broken property.