Supreme Court Health Care and Public Health Rulings 2025-2026: Critical Takeaway

Commissioner David Friedman has served on the bench at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse since 2025. He has been a Partner at Friedman & Friedman since October 1999, bringing over two decades of private practice experience to his judicial role. He also spent 15 years (2009–2024) as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Glendale University College of Law, teaching Community Property, Family Law, and Torts.

Jiyun Cameron Lee is a partner and chair of Folger Levin LLP’s Litigation Practice Group, with extensive experience representing clients in complex commercial disputes, employment litigation, and disability accommodation matters. She has represented financial institutions, rental car companies, law firms, hotels, technology companies, and non-profit organizations as both plaintiffs and defendants, with particular expertise in financial litigation, contract disputes, trade secret misappropriation, and ADA public accommodations issues, as well as defending employers in wage-and-hour, ERISA, and WARN Act class actions. An experienced trial lawyer, she has tried cases in both federal and state courts and has successfully obtained preliminary injunctions and specific performance decrees in contractual and intellectual property disputes. Beyond her practice, Jiyun teaches Negotiation as a Lecturer at Stanford Law School, has served as a volunteer mediator for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California since 2011, and is active in the legal community, including service on the California State Bar’s Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation and the Judiciary Committee of the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area.

Dana Welch is a highly experienced domestic and international arbitrator, mediator, and discovery referee based in Northern California, with more than twenty three years of service across over 400 disputes ranging from modest claims to multi million dollar, bet the company matters. She has been selected to oversee settlement of over 200 individual arbitrations and to advise a federal district court on the adequacy of a class settlement for opt outs. Her credentials include the AAA’s commercial, large and complex case, and employment panels since 2002, along with rosters at ICDR, SIAC, JCAA, and CPR, and inclusion on the Silicon Valley Arbitration and Mediation Center’s exclusive Tech List. She is a Northern California Super Lawyer in Alternative Dispute Resolution, has been named to Best Lawyers in America since 2022, and was recognized as a 2018 ADR Champion by the National Law Journal. Before becoming a neutral, she served as General Counsel of the investment bank Robertson Stephens and as a litigator at an AmLaw 50 firm, and she now serves as co chair of ICCA 2028, taking place in San Francisco in May 2028.

Michael P. Rolland, Shareholder at Engelman Berger, is a passionate, versatile, and experienced commercial litigator and a second-generation Arizona native committed to advocating for the Arizona business community. His practice focuses on real estate disputes, breach of contract, ownership disputes, loan workouts, Chapter 11 bankruptcies, receiverships, and appeals, serving a diverse clientele that includes debtors, creditors, lenders, real estate developers, commercial landlords, and other business owners. Michael has a strong record of success in both state and federal courts, including before the Arizona Court of Appeals and the Ninth Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel, and he also maintains a specialized water law practice representing several metro-area cities in the Gila River General Stream Adjudication. He served as Chair of the Arizona State Bar’s Business Section in 2023 and was certified as class counsel in the first class action certified in the District of Arizona under the Electronic Funds Transfer Act. Michael has been recognized as a Southwest Super Lawyers Rising Star since 2019, named to Best Lawyers in America’s Ones to Watch since 2021, and identified as a “Leader to Watch” in the 2026 Az Business Leaders publication.

Scott Cohen, Shareholder at Engelman Berger, is both a commercial bankruptcy attorney and a problem solver, with over 30 years dedicated to strategic, results-oriented solutions—whether negotiated or litigated—in finance, banking, bankruptcy, creditors’ rights, workouts, turnarounds, and commercial litigation. He represents banks, lenders, creditors, borrowers, landlords, guarantors, committees, and debtors in matters spanning Chapter 11 reorganizations, bankruptcy litigation, receiverships, lender liability disputes, and complex priority disputes between secured creditors, as well as non-litigation alternatives like loan workouts and business turnarounds. Scott is a Certified Specialist in Business Bankruptcy Law through the American Board of Certification, where he serves on the board and faculty, and is a past chair of the State Bar of Arizona’s Bankruptcy Section. His career highlights include representing a private equity client in the Chapter 11 bankruptcy of the NHL’s Phoenix Coyotes, leading the reorganization of a 150-unit affordable housing project, and serving as an expert witness on Arizona’s foreclosure and anti-deficiency laws. Scott has been recognized in The Best Lawyers in America© since 2020, named to Southwest Super Lawyers since 2013, and honored with the 2026 Top Pro Bono Award from the Arizona Foundation for Legal Services & Education.

Jenna Edzant is an associate at Greene Broillet & Wheeler, LLP, whose practice focuses on catastrophic injury, traumatic brain injury, premises liability, and product liability. She has helped litigate cases and won significant victories, including the country’s highest-ever non-lethal dog bite verdict and an eight-figure verdict for a slip-and-fall client. She also successfully represented two victims against the UC Regents, exposing a decades-long history of hazing and sexual assault at the UCLA Alumni Bruin Woods summer camp. The lawsuit temporarily closed the camp while administrators implemented significant reforms and protections for the next group of student counselors.

Most recently, Jenna was a member of the trial team who obtained a $6.1 million jury verdict for two whistleblowers who sued the Regents of the University of California. The plaintiffs accused UC Riverside’s Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience Department Chair of misappropriating a $15 million state grant for mental health care and telepsychiatry services. After reporting infractions, they faced retaliation, including job demotions and forced resignations. The trial team was able to prove constructive termination for one plaintiff and obtained significant emotional distress damages for both plaintiffs. This case was particularly important to Jenna given her own background in psychology and neuroscience and her commitment to mental health care.

Jenna also helped secure a $6 million settlement on behalf of a heart transplant surgeon at a well-known medical campus in Los Angeles, whose career was significantly impacted after he slipped at the hospital and suffered permanent nerve damage to his leg.

Jenna is a member of the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles (CAALA), the Consumer Attorneys of California (CAOC), the Association of Business Trial Lawyers (ABTL), and the Santa Clarita Valley Bar Association (SCVBA). She currently serves as Education Chair for CAOC’s New Lawyers Division and on CAALA’s New Lawyers’ Committee. In her role as Education Chair, Jenna has greatly expanded opportunities for new lawyers to present at conferences and seminars. She is admitted to practice law in California.

Jenna started her undergraduate education at UCLA before moving to England for a year to finish her degree early at Oxford University, earning her Bachelor of Science in Experimental Psychology. She then attended University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law, earning her Juris Doctor in 2021. While attending law school, Jenna completed historical research into USC’s mistreatment of Japanese students during World War II. The project was the catalyst that prompted the university to grant honorary degrees to those students or their surviving family members. She was also President of Law Students for Better Health, which expanded mental health resources and education for her fellow law students.

Outside the courtroom, Jenna enjoys engaging in her many hobbies, including dance, baking, improv comedy, and spending time with her dogs. She is also a die-hard Formula One fan and an avid international traveler.

Jacob William Cutler is an accomplished civil litigator and skilled mediator with over 15 years of experience representing both plaintiffs and defendants throughout California. He co-founded Cutler Mediation Group, LLC to bring a results-driven, neutral, and highly informed approach to mediation, with a particular focus on Lemon Law and Personal Injury disputes. A graduate with honors from the University of Miami School of Law, Jacob brings over 12 years of experience handling cases under California’s Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act, along with prior leadership of settlement departments at multiple prominent law firms. Having participated in hundreds of private mediations and mandatory settlement conferences, and taken dozens of cases through jury trial, he offers a rare combination of trial readiness and dispute resolution finesse. Jacob is widely recognized for his professionalism, impartiality, and calm, analytical approach to helping parties reach efficient, meaningful resolutions.

Michael Gouriet is a solicitor handling complex international financial remedy cases, including Part III claims following a foreign divorce.

Kim Lehal is a solicitor focused on international child abduction and Hague Convention work