6 Cal. 4th 409 - Howard v. Babcock’s Empirical Analysis
1993
Citation profile
8 federal appellate · 73 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 93 later decisions — most recently September 2024 · most notably 7 Cal. 4th 1164 - General Dynamics Corp. v. Superior Court (1994), 19 Cal. 4th 582 - In Re Attorney Discipline System (1998)
8 federal appellate · 73 state decisions — followed in 13 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Bates v. State Bar of Arizona · 10 Cal. 3d 222 - Moyer v. Workmen's Compensation Appeals Board · 6 Cal. 3d 784 - Fracasse v. Brent · Shapero v. Kentucky Bar Assn. · 38 Cal. 3d 913 - Perdue v. Crocker National Bank
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 93 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A lawyer shall not participate in offering or making: (a) a partnership or employment agreement that restricts the rights of a lawyer to practice after termination of the relationship, except an agreement concerning benefits upon retirement; or (b) an agreement in which a restriction on the lawyer’s right to practice is part of the settlement of a controversy between private parties.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“An agreement that assesses a reasonable cost against a partner who chooses to compete with his or her former partners does not restrict the practice of law.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“the right of a client to the attorney of one’s choice and the rights and duties as between partners with respect to income from unfinished business are distinct and do not offend one another. Once the client’s fee is paid to an attorney, it is of no concern to the client how that fee is allocated among the attorney and his or her former partners.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.