Penner & Purves

06/16/2026

Our reason for hope very much lies in the younger generations.

As the younger generations return to first principles, origins, and tradition, let’s not be the ones holding them back.

As the younger generations begin their work of institution rebuilding and restoration, let’s not be the generation who resists that work of restoration

There really isn’t any good reason for Baby Boomers or for Generation X to be some sort of weird, inverted, rebels who are against inheritance and simultaneously against both our grandparents and against our grandchildren.

Emily Takaki, legal assistant at Penner & Purves, quotes Barack Oba...

06/12/2026

Let’s not actually put a wrecking ball to this. Let’s also not replace the words.

We do not happen to agree to absolute, unlimited, arbitrary power.

We do agree to enforcing the law, and our law is built upon specific principles.

Frances Mullen, paralegal at Penner & Purves, quotes Emma Lazarus....

06/11/2026

By this time it is a cliché to sing the praises of the internet’s alleged advantages for free government, representative democracy, connectivity and liberty around the globe.

But what if this commonly accepted banality about how wonderful the internet (or “the cloud”) is for us and for our liberties isn’t true?

Here is a brief outline of the contrary position, and we’d argue the contrary position is actually true. For anyone who cares about preserving our constitutional form of government, this matters quite a bit – and it is ultimately going to require some future court decisions, if not also some outright new legislation and Constitutional amendments.

Either we are going under, or we are going to establish legal limits and boundaries before it is too late.

Stephen E. Penner, attorney at Penner & Purves, quotes Justin E.H. Smith. ‬“The principal charges against the internet, deserving of our attention here, ... ...

06/10/2026

“It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.”
— William Carlos Williams

Tiffany Gauthier, soon-to-be associate attorney at Penner & Purves,...

06/03/2026

This is probably the single most important issue for every parent of children right now:

“I grossly underestimated the damage in The Anxious Generation — because I focused on the mental health outcomes. That’s where we have the best data, that’s where we’re doing the most work. But I now believe that even larger damage is the diminishment of the human capacity to pay sustained attention.

One third of all American teens say that they are on a social media platform ‘almost constantly,’ throughout the day. And the main thing they’re doing on those social media platforms is watching very short videos. Young people call it ‘brain rot,’ which is a funny term but it might really be true. Because the adolescent brain is always a brain that’s being remodeled. The neural network of a child has to convert itself, has to rewire itself, to become the neural network of an adult. And that rewiring process — the neurons finding each other — that’s shaped by whatever you’re doing every day. And it’s shaped by whatever everyone else says is prestigious.

Which means that puberty is therefore the worst possible time for a human being to be on social media. For our ultrasocial species, that rewiring should be guided by huge amounts of social interaction, in the real world, not by TikTok’s algorithm.”
— Jonathan Haidt

Jaime Purves, wife of J.A.A. Purves, quotes Jason Frost. “Going a...

05/20/2026

05/18/2026

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05/16/2026

The highest level, intentional, most secure, and thoughtful families already have their estate plans completed (or updated within the last 10 years).

This includes young families.

These families have ensured that they have their own estate planning lawyer capable of educating them about the basics of how their legal planning works. So, they actually know the advantages that estate planning tools give them to take care of both themselves and their children. And they understand how paying the initial cost of the estate plan has saved them more than 100x the money.

This means these families know how to distinguish between what is worth spending their time on and what is less important, and how to prioritize and act accordingly.

This means that these leaders are strong, secure, and building the human, financial, intellectual, and spiritual capital of their families within their lives and their relationships.

If this isn’t you, then it should be.

Just find an estate planning lawyer who will:
(a) educate and enable you in clear, simple language;
(b) greatly decrease the time, work, and cost for you personally; and
(c) be ready, available, and quick to respond when the time comes that your family has a need or emergency.

So, the question is ... are you interested in arranging for you and your family to be in this top 30% of Americans?

Book a free estate plan consultation now by texting (805) 965-0085 or calling us at the same number during business hours, or alternatively reserve a time sl...

05/14/2026

“Full little knowest thou that hast not tried,
What hell it is in suing long to bide:
To lose good days, that might be better spent;
To waste long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow;
To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares;
To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs;
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone.
Unhappy wight, borne to disastrous end,
That doth his life in so long tendence spend.”
— Edmund Spenser

05/13/2026

Two of the essential skills of the legal professional are (1) the interpretation of history, and (2) employing a reliable, nonarbitrary standard of judgment between competing interpretations of history.

This means learning to interpret the chronological facts of the recent individual case.

This also means learning to interpret the historical facts underlying the law and the legal system.

Also, you can’t interpret history without knowing history.

This therefore means that good lawyers are deep readers of history.

Hence, to be a deep reader of history, you need to read books and you need a standard of measure and criterion of judgment—a way of judging what is and isn’t reliable, credible, valuable, or true.

And, guess what? That standard of measure exists.

Paul Blewett, senior associate attorney at Penner & Purves, quotes James L. Papandrea‭“It’s become fashionable in some circles to say that history is so obsc...