Job levels won't rebound in state until 2013

Be prepared for a long haul. California won't be returning to pre-Great Recession job levels until 2013. And it will have lost more jobs - over 1 million - than any other state in the union. Almost twice as many as the next-hardest hit, Michigan.

This according to the latest forecast from IHS Global Insight, due to be released via Webcast today. But the Tarnished State is not the only one projected to take a long time to recover. Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Rhode Island and Connecticut will have to wait until "after 2015," says the report.

That's probably small comfort to California's budgeteers as they wrestle with the state's downward revenue projections.

MBA BY THE BAY: See how an MBA could change your life with SFGATE's interactive directory of Bay Area programs.

To tune in the Webcast, which will be repeated during the day if you miss the first one, go to www.ihsglobalinsight.com.

Madoff-in-reverse: An investment adviser sues his onetime client and wins.

Late last week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a $25.8 million award against Sandy Lerner and Leonard Bosack, the immensely wealthy co-founders of Cisco Systems Inc., in favor of their one-time partner and investment manager, David Soward. The couple had fired and then sued Soward for umpteen millions, claiming he had improperly documented two private loans he had taken out, along with a variety of other alleged misdeeds.

They also took all of Soward's financial share of the partnership for themselves - a step way too far, an arbitration panel subsequently judged. The panel also found the pair had "acted with malice and oppression," which Soward's lawyer, Daniel Sharp of San Francisco's Folger Levin & Kahn LLP, translated for me as a "three-year scorched-earth campaign" against his client.

The panel, whose ruling was upheld by both a federal district court in 2008 and the Ninth Circuit last week, slammed Cisco's co-founders with the whole nine yards - punitive as well as compensatory damages and attorneys fees.

Soward, who lives in San Francisco, has been unemployed for most of the six years he's been fighting with Lerner and Bosack. Who, after all, would prospective employers call for a reference, even though he made Cisco co-founders at least $280 million over the course of their 11-year relationship, according to a court exhibit.

That seems not to have been enough for the couple, who are expected to file for a rehearing on the ruling. "I got the full force of their take-no-prisoners attitude," said Soward. "It's been a very difficult process."

Tough call: Who needs to hassle with mortgages and what-not when you get a $2.4 million "dream house" off Golden Gate Park for free, or scoop up $1.8 million cash in lieu?

Such is the choice Vivian Heinzel of San Carlos, winner of this year's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Grand Prize raffle, has to make by 5 p.m. today. While Heinzel ponders, YBCA is counting its winnings, the approximately $1.3 million the San Francisco nonprofit garnered from the raffle for its hard-pressed budget in these hard times.

To see who else won what, go to www.sfraffle.com. If you missed out, there's always next year, when the raffle returns.

Puffs of smoke: "Marijuana Economics: The Pros and Cons of California's Cash Crop," is the topic under discussion tonight at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club. Panelists include El Cerrito Police Chief Scott Kirkland, and psychiatrist Eugene Shoenfeld, formerly a.k.a. Dr. Hip Pocrates. More information at www.commonwealthclub.org.