Applegate Tran, interior designers based in San Francisco, opened an office in San Diego under the supervision of Connie Leung, a Hong Kong native and graduate of the University of Vancouver. The award-winning firm now boasts five offices, the other three in New York, Sacramento and Hawaii. 

Mark E. Ellis, managing partner of Ellis LaVoie Poirier Steinheimer & McGee, LLP, is included in the 2010 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® under the specialty of Legal Malpractice Law. Selection to Best Lawyers, which has been published for more than a quarter century, is based on a peer-review survey comprising more than 2.8 million confidential evaluations by the top attorneys in the country. The advertisement-free publication has been described by The American Lawyer as “the most respected referral list of attorneys in practice.” In October, after a lengthy and highly publicized trial, Mark Ellis won a 12-0 jury verdict exonerating a law firm of malpractice allegations brought by the Sacramento City Unified School District. The plaintiff sought $4.2 million in damages claiming the law firm failed to identify risks associated with an alternative pension plan.

Mitchell E. Blum, M.D., F.A.C.S., has moved his practice from Carmichael to the Roseville office of Lifestyle Lift Centers at 1478 Stone Point Dr., Ste. 140. The move allows Dr. Blum to focus on his practice on face lifts, eye lid surgery, laser skin resurfacing, and procedures involving Botox and fillers such as Restylane and Juvederm.

Randel Evans, co-founder of Evans Investments Inc. and principal of the Roseville development group Church Street Station, LLC, has launched a residential development company in Katy, Texas, a suburb of Houston. The project, Blackhawk Homes of Texas, is being financed by investors who will earn 10% to 12% interest on short term investments. 

Funds deposited in joint bank accounts are now more secure because of a California appellate case won by attorneys of Sacramento's Murphy Campbell Guthrie & Allison. Reversing a Butte County trial court, the published opinion of the Third District California Appellate Court, Stevens v. Tri Counties Bank, makes banks more liable in administering joint bank accounts.