RFK, Jr. presidential bid on the Nevada ballot in November, pending challenge period. [RJ]
GOP sees another setback in Nevada court on election lawsuit. [RJ]
Hearing held, but no ruling yet in suit challenging Green Party’s ballot status in Nevada. [TNI]
Nevada Supreme Court ADKT 0386 order repeals the rule regarding a bench-bar committee–meaning if you want to communicate to the court you need to be involved in the appellate section of the bar. It’s just one of seven administrative orders issued yesterday you can check out at that link.
Can someone explain why the process and cost of obtaining hearing videos reverted back to the 1990’s. Until recently, you could pay $20 and get immediate access to hearing videos online. Now, you have to send a runner to pick up a CD or thumb drive, pay for the CD and thumb drive, pay for the runner and wait two weeks. Why?????? Why does this profession insist on doing things in such stupidly inefficient and expensive ways???????
I had a trial recently. I need video of one of the days. I asked ahead and was told it would be faster if i provided a thumbdrive. I brought a thumbdrive. got the video on the drive same day (within hours). sometimes it helps to be courteous and personable to the clerks.
Professor Joan Howard of Boyd wrote a book called “Shaping the Bar” and serves on the Boar of Bar Examiners in Nevada. She espouses the bar exam discriminates and is a gate keeper. She is big part of the proposed revolutionary changes to the bar exam.
Does she not understand that the entire point of the Bar Exam is to serve a function of gatekeeping in order to ensure that never Joe and Sally can get into a field that directly impacts the livelihood of people?
“She espouses the bar exam discriminates”
It is the current fashion to say such things, and in this instance gives Ms. Howard a way to gain notice and maybe academic self-esteem.
However, race, gender etc. do not matter on a knowledge based examination. You either know the subject matter or you don’t.
I’m not a fan of running down Boyd professors. Dean Howarth was a very good professor when I was a student at Boyd many moons ago. If she is promoting this, then I think we should give due consideration to her position and perspective.
She’s only been at Boyd since July 2024 according to her LinkedIn profile, so how is it that she was a very good professor when you were a student at Boyd many moons ago?
She was Assoc. Dean and taught at Boyd for many years prior (particularly when I was there 05-08) and after I left. So, perhaps she just returned from other academic pursuits.
Has Joan Howard ever passed a bar exam?
My former firm hired a UNLV law professor (not from the law school just undergrad) to draft an Nevada Supreme Court Opening Brief. He supposedly graduated from law school but never took a bar exam. The brief consisted of exactly one paragraph. No table of contents, no table of authorities, no legal authority, just one paragraph. Some of these UNLV professors are complete jokes.
The current bar exam has not done a good job of gatekeeping. There are plenty of bad lawyers who have passed the test. On the other hand, some people who are great attorneys in their field struggled with the exam, especially in areas where they will never practice. The exam does very little to measure work ethic, honesty, research ability, and dozens of other aspects of practice that have nothing to do with multiple choice questions or essays on obscure topics. It’s worth trying a new approach.
Guest
Anonymous
August 6, 2024 11:11 am
It’s important to note that when the Academy was faced with choosing between maintaining academic standards and maintaining revenue a decade ago, they chose revenue. Consequently, the quality of applicants deteriorated. Not surprisingly, bar exam pass rates began to fall. UNLV Boyd was one of the schools that compromised academic standards for revenue. Academics have proven to be unreliable partners when it comes to promoting and protecting competency in this profession.
It’s not just their craven compromises for revenue either. The only thing that keeps students focused on professional classes in law school is the bar exam. With fewer black letter law subjects on the bar exam, students will waste more of their time on fluff, circle jerk academic classes that have nothing to do with the practice of law and very little to do with the law itself.
And of course most of these academics have little to no experience actually practicing law. It ought to be required that a law professor has 10 years experience in any area of law they teach. Instead, we have creatures of the Academy, with no experience, training the next generation of lawyers. Why do we allow this?
I always love these critiques. It seems like these posters have little idea what happens at law school these days and certainly not at Boyd. Boyd places a heavy emphasis on writing and practical skills (there are courses on legal writing (which also focuses on aspects of legal practice like negotiating and client counseling), pre trial and post trial litigation, including specialty classes like opening and closing arguments, there are multiple clinics through which students often practice under the supervision of licensed practitioners, and there are plenty of courses on legal theory.
The practical classes are taught by some of the City’s most experienced lawyers or visiting profs with substantial experience. The legal theory classes are taught by your more traditional professors, who sometimes also have substantial past or present experience, but who also bring research, and clerkship experiences to bear. Sometimes the podium classes are taught by experts in their field.
If you genuinely think more than 25% of Boyd grads take those types of experiential classes, you’re absolutely kidding yourself.
Trial Ad, pretrial lit, advanced research classes, etc. always had approximately 10 student TOPS. They’re not mandatory, and Boyd grads overwhelming will take the one or two experiential classes necessary to graduate and then completely focus on bs academic, niche topics that have no actual applicability to the real world.
I know of maybe 4 or 5 ACTUAL practicing litigation attorneys that graduated in ‘23, and that’s being generous.
@11:50
“Boyd places a heavy emphasis on writing and practical skills (there are courses on legal writing (which also focuses on aspects of legal practice like negotiating and client counseling)”
And there you have it. If Boyd does all these things already, then why is it necessary to include this fluff stuff as part of the NextGen exam?
-As an aside, meaning no offense to my brothers and sisters, it appears to me that legal writing in Nevada is somewhat lacking, a state of affairs for which Boyd may have some responsibility.
The Dems are truly Goebbelian masters: Make up a story about a guy that isn’t true, then make a joke about the thing you made up that wasn’t true, then watch your lickspittles lap it up while they deride the opposing side for being uneducated cult members. This is true genius.
Oh come on. Both sides do it. Don’t feign outrage. Just like how all dems want “open borders” whatever the F that means, and third trimester abortions. The parties love to run with a good strawman because people don’t have the time or willingness to sift through the BS to see what’s really true.
Hear me out on this. Yeah, I’ll be the first to admit that there’s no evidence that JD Vance had carnal relations with his couch. But, if we’re being totally honest, there’s also no evidence that he DIDNT.
not sure where you got outrage from that. calling something true genius is admiration. watching how the dems manipulate self-declared critical thinkers into adoring sycophants who chant their slogans, and repeat their trope, while they brazenly malign their opponents as jingoistic boobs is truly amazing. it is not as amazing what the republicans accomplish because their constituency, generally, is unabashedly, and often self-declared, anti-critical thinking.
Guest
Anonymous
August 6, 2024 4:32 pm
Elon Musk – “Boycott Bud Light!”
Also Elon Musk: “Boycotts violate antitrust laws”
Something about the benefit of the rule of law but never the consequences…
Guest
Anonymous
August 6, 2024 4:38 pm
Fellow attorneys/blogsters–We need to submit comments against this new fangled bar exam. Law professors from Georgia filed comments supporting Nevada’s version of NextGen bar exam. Boyd law professors also filed comments in favor of Nevada’s proposed new bar exam.
The new bar exam will have no essays!
Here is the link-
The court invites written comment from the bench, bar, and public regarding how the court should proceed in the administration of the Nevada bar examination and licensing procedures for attorneys practicing in Nevada. Comments may be submitted to Elizabeth A. Brown, Clerk of the Supreme Court, 201 South Carson Street, Carson City, Nevada 89701. On July 5, 2024, the Nevada Supreme Court entered an order inviting public comment in this matter until August 8, 2024, at 5:00 p.m. The time to file comments from the bench, bar, and public has been extended until August 16, 2024, at 5 p.m. Comments may be submitted to the court in hard-copy format or electronically to nvscclerk@nvcourts.nv.gov.
The comments on ADKT 0594 are stacked in favor of Nevaa’s version of the Next Gen Bar Exam. Please take a minute to read the comments. The majority of posts on the blog are against these radical changes. I urge everyone to submit comments. It is very easy.
I feel compelled to speak if for no other reason than my own conscience. I’m LDS and Hoige is not living up to the principles of our Faith by hurting the children clients of those attorneys he unfairly persecuted in the name of building his career. I Pray he reconsiders his path.
I’m LDS and no fan of Hooge, but we’re lawyers. Passionate advocates, and all that. Criticize the man for prosecutorial overreaching, for lack of experience, for vindictiveness in the pursuit of his vision of justice, but the man’s faith is not a subject of conversation.
My friend I truly don’t understand what you’re saying. He represents himself publicly as strong in the faith yet destroys families in my humble opinion. I’m not here to fight with a stranger and I’m a convert. Tell me how I err please.
Unless you know the man’s heart, you’ve got no basis on which to make the claim. Do prosecutors break up families? Do family law attorneys? Or is it the role of each family member to build up strong foundations so that when the winds blow, the rains fall, and the floods rise, the house stays still?
Strong families can endure job changes, public discipline or even imprisonment, although the harsher the punishment, the harder it is on everyone involved.
I’m LDS and I have concerns about recent goings on at the OBC. Going after Hooges faith is lame and unacceptable. I don’t know him but he seems like a decent guy, a good family man. There are plenty of ways 4:58 PM isn’t “living up to the principles of our faith either.” Step down from the Rameumptom, 4:58 PM and go back to the salt mine.
If 4:58’s faith compelled him to speak on this, so be it.
Guest
Anonymous
August 7, 2024 8:31 am
ADKT 0594-If you disagree with Nevada’s proposed new fangled bar exam, please submit comments. This is a radical proposal. The bar exam as we know and as it has existed is being abolished and being replaced by a pass through exam. There are no essays on this new format. They are replacing it with a 100 multiple choice foundation law exam. No trusts and wills on the exam. Then performance tests after the third year. Students can not study or prepare for these performance tests. Sounds like a pass through exam, Nevada deserves better.
Most of the comments are from law professors in support of the new format. Here is the link-
The time to file comments from the bench, bar, and public has been extended until August 16, 2024, at 5 p.m. Comments may be submitted to the court in hard-copy format or electronically to nvscclerk@nvcourts.nv.gov.
people only want to complaint about it privately… lol. I can’t wait for the change. My friends from California are planning to move out here to help me create a new firm!
Guest
Anonymous
August 7, 2024 8:41 am
I gave up on Hooge when he allowed the OBC to be used to reprimand and embarrass Dennis Prince. The allegation was that Prince misused a firm credit card, statements of which were examined in detail each month by the firm administrator, in order to capture costs and obtain reimbursements. If there was an issue regarding which partner was charging what expenses on the card, that was a private matter and should not have part of a Bar Complaint, let alone a Public Reprimand. And clearly, I am not Dennis Prince.
That complaint was fueled by a very powerful lawyer in town. That very powerful lawyer funds judicial campaigns. Hooge has made no secret that he wants to be a judge. The dots connected themselves on this one.
No secret? He applied for Department 7 a couple years back. It’s how I learned he was a real estate agent before law school, which explained quite a bit for me.
You can choose to not believe me as I’m an anon on a blog. But when I decided to move to phoenix about 2 years ago, I’d say Hooge was about 1/3 of my reasoning as I planned to open a solo family law practice and had researched the history under him. Very happy down here and still occasionally do some law in nv not too susceptible to bar complaints. Just my 2 cents.
Can someone explain why the process and cost of obtaining hearing videos reverted back to the 1990’s. Until recently, you could pay $20 and get immediate access to hearing videos online. Now, you have to send a runner to pick up a CD or thumb drive, pay for the CD and thumb drive, pay for the runner and wait two weeks. Why?????? Why does this profession insist on doing things in such stupidly inefficient and expensive ways???????
I had a trial recently. I need video of one of the days. I asked ahead and was told it would be faster if i provided a thumbdrive. I brought a thumbdrive. got the video on the drive same day (within hours). sometimes it helps to be courteous and personable to the clerks.
To any new lawyers reading this – always be courteous and personable to the clerks. They can make your life way easier.
A self deprecating smile and and a sincere thank you moves mountains at the clerk’s windows.
Regarding proposed bar exam modifications.
Law professors/other academics should have absolutely NO say regarding the proposed changes.
They aren’t the ones that are going to have to face the consequences of a lower barrier of entry.
I’ve never seen the term “psychometrics” used so much.
Professor Joan Howard of Boyd wrote a book called “Shaping the Bar” and serves on the Boar of Bar Examiners in Nevada. She espouses the bar exam discriminates and is a gate keeper. She is big part of the proposed revolutionary changes to the bar exam.
Does she not understand that the entire point of the Bar Exam is to serve a function of gatekeeping in order to ensure that never Joe and Sally can get into a field that directly impacts the livelihood of people?
“She espouses the bar exam discriminates”
It is the current fashion to say such things, and in this instance gives Ms. Howard a way to gain notice and maybe academic self-esteem.
However, race, gender etc. do not matter on a knowledge based examination. You either know the subject matter or you don’t.
It is a gatekeeper. It keeps out people not smart/dedicated enough to pass. Looks like it’s working as intended.
I’m not a fan of running down Boyd professors. Dean Howarth was a very good professor when I was a student at Boyd many moons ago. If she is promoting this, then I think we should give due consideration to her position and perspective.
She’s only been at Boyd since July 2024 according to her LinkedIn profile, so how is it that she was a very good professor when you were a student at Boyd many moons ago?
She was Assoc. Dean and taught at Boyd for many years prior (particularly when I was there 05-08) and after I left. So, perhaps she just returned from other academic pursuits.
She was my torts professor in 2001. She’s been associated with Boyd for a long time.
Has Joan Howard ever passed a bar exam?
My former firm hired a UNLV law professor (not from the law school just undergrad) to draft an Nevada Supreme Court Opening Brief. He supposedly graduated from law school but never took a bar exam. The brief consisted of exactly one paragraph. No table of contents, no table of authorities, no legal authority, just one paragraph. Some of these UNLV professors are complete jokes.
First, it’s Howarth, not Howard. Second, yes she passed the California Bar Exam and was a practicing attorney for several years.
Thanks Dean Howard. Even though we know that you never lettered in shit.
The current bar exam has not done a good job of gatekeeping. There are plenty of bad lawyers who have passed the test. On the other hand, some people who are great attorneys in their field struggled with the exam, especially in areas where they will never practice. The exam does very little to measure work ethic, honesty, research ability, and dozens of other aspects of practice that have nothing to do with multiple choice questions or essays on obscure topics. It’s worth trying a new approach.
It’s important to note that when the Academy was faced with choosing between maintaining academic standards and maintaining revenue a decade ago, they chose revenue. Consequently, the quality of applicants deteriorated. Not surprisingly, bar exam pass rates began to fall. UNLV Boyd was one of the schools that compromised academic standards for revenue. Academics have proven to be unreliable partners when it comes to promoting and protecting competency in this profession.
It’s not just their craven compromises for revenue either. The only thing that keeps students focused on professional classes in law school is the bar exam. With fewer black letter law subjects on the bar exam, students will waste more of their time on fluff, circle jerk academic classes that have nothing to do with the practice of law and very little to do with the law itself.
And of course most of these academics have little to no experience actually practicing law. It ought to be required that a law professor has 10 years experience in any area of law they teach. Instead, we have creatures of the Academy, with no experience, training the next generation of lawyers. Why do we allow this?
I’ve always found law professors very distasteful – with a few exceptions.
They don’t have the courage to put their necks on the line and step into the arena.
Yet they have many ideas on how the law should operate and have no problem criticizing practicing attorneys.
I always love these critiques. It seems like these posters have little idea what happens at law school these days and certainly not at Boyd. Boyd places a heavy emphasis on writing and practical skills (there are courses on legal writing (which also focuses on aspects of legal practice like negotiating and client counseling), pre trial and post trial litigation, including specialty classes like opening and closing arguments, there are multiple clinics through which students often practice under the supervision of licensed practitioners, and there are plenty of courses on legal theory.
The practical classes are taught by some of the City’s most experienced lawyers or visiting profs with substantial experience. The legal theory classes are taught by your more traditional professors, who sometimes also have substantial past or present experience, but who also bring research, and clerkship experiences to bear. Sometimes the podium classes are taught by experts in their field.
@11:50
Spoken like a Boyd administrator or professor, someone who is vested in the Boyd culture.
11:50 is definitely a Boyd professor lurking the blog.
Anonymous troll. Please stop with this nonsense. We have to practice with these grads, so we know that you are FOS.
If you genuinely think more than 25% of Boyd grads take those types of experiential classes, you’re absolutely kidding yourself.
Trial Ad, pretrial lit, advanced research classes, etc. always had approximately 10 student TOPS. They’re not mandatory, and Boyd grads overwhelming will take the one or two experiential classes necessary to graduate and then completely focus on bs academic, niche topics that have no actual applicability to the real world.
I know of maybe 4 or 5 ACTUAL practicing litigation attorneys that graduated in ‘23, and that’s being generous.
@11:50
“Boyd places a heavy emphasis on writing and practical skills (there are courses on legal writing (which also focuses on aspects of legal practice like negotiating and client counseling)”
And there you have it. If Boyd does all these things already, then why is it necessary to include this fluff stuff as part of the NextGen exam?
-As an aside, meaning no offense to my brothers and sisters, it appears to me that legal writing in Nevada is somewhat lacking, a state of affairs for which Boyd may have some responsibility.
Sounds like an Eglet Adams et al. partner writing a Glassdoor Review for his firm .
To a man/woman, my law school professors were amazing. Of course it was Oklahoma in the 90s . . . . so there is that.
Tim Walz made reference to JD Vance fucking a couch during his introductory speech. That’s some LBJ level ratfuckery. Hilarious.
That’s couchfuckery
The Dems are truly Goebbelian masters: Make up a story about a guy that isn’t true, then make a joke about the thing you made up that wasn’t true, then watch your lickspittles lap it up while they deride the opposing side for being uneducated cult members. This is true genius.
Oh come on. Both sides do it. Don’t feign outrage. Just like how all dems want “open borders” whatever the F that means, and third trimester abortions. The parties love to run with a good strawman because people don’t have the time or willingness to sift through the BS to see what’s really true.
Hear me out on this. Yeah, I’ll be the first to admit that there’s no evidence that JD Vance had carnal relations with his couch. But, if we’re being totally honest, there’s also no evidence that he DIDNT.
not sure where you got outrage from that. calling something true genius is admiration. watching how the dems manipulate self-declared critical thinkers into adoring sycophants who chant their slogans, and repeat their trope, while they brazenly malign their opponents as jingoistic boobs is truly amazing. it is not as amazing what the republicans accomplish because their constituency, generally, is unabashedly, and often self-declared, anti-critical thinking.
Elon Musk – “Boycott Bud Light!”
Also Elon Musk: “Boycotts violate antitrust laws”
Something about the benefit of the rule of law but never the consequences…
Fellow attorneys/blogsters–We need to submit comments against this new fangled bar exam. Law professors from Georgia filed comments supporting Nevada’s version of NextGen bar exam. Boyd law professors also filed comments in favor of Nevada’s proposed new bar exam.
The new bar exam will have no essays!
Here is the link-
The court invites written comment from the bench, bar, and public regarding how the court should proceed in the administration of the Nevada bar examination and licensing procedures for attorneys practicing in Nevada. Comments may be submitted to Elizabeth A. Brown, Clerk of the Supreme Court, 201 South Carson Street, Carson City, Nevada 89701. On July 5, 2024, the Nevada Supreme Court entered an order inviting public comment in this matter until August 8, 2024, at 5:00 p.m. The time to file comments from the bench, bar, and public has been extended until August 16, 2024, at 5 p.m. Comments may be submitted to the court in hard-copy format or electronically to nvscclerk@nvcourts.nv.gov.
The comments on ADKT 0594 are stacked in favor of Nevaa’s version of the Next Gen Bar Exam. Please take a minute to read the comments. The majority of posts on the blog are against these radical changes. I urge everyone to submit comments. It is very easy.
This can be done by email.
nvscclerk@nvcourts.nv.gov
I feel compelled to speak if for no other reason than my own conscience. I’m LDS and Hoige is not living up to the principles of our Faith by hurting the children clients of those attorneys he unfairly persecuted in the name of building his career. I Pray he reconsiders his path.
I’m LDS and no fan of Hooge, but we’re lawyers. Passionate advocates, and all that. Criticize the man for prosecutorial overreaching, for lack of experience, for vindictiveness in the pursuit of his vision of justice, but the man’s faith is not a subject of conversation.
My friend I truly don’t understand what you’re saying. He represents himself publicly as strong in the faith yet destroys families in my humble opinion. I’m not here to fight with a stranger and I’m a convert. Tell me how I err please.
Still going haha I try to reflect well upon our Faith. Am I not responsible for that?
I do stand a little corrected. I agree with ur thoughts in his lack if experience etc maybe I am just disappointed. Sorry texting.
“Tell me how I err please.”
OK.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/nt/matt/7?lang=eng
Matt 7:1-5.
Unless you know the man’s heart, you’ve got no basis on which to make the claim. Do prosecutors break up families? Do family law attorneys? Or is it the role of each family member to build up strong foundations so that when the winds blow, the rains fall, and the floods rise, the house stays still?
Strong families can endure job changes, public discipline or even imprisonment, although the harsher the punishment, the harder it is on everyone involved.
I’m LDS and I have concerns about recent goings on at the OBC. Going after Hooges faith is lame and unacceptable. I don’t know him but he seems like a decent guy, a good family man. There are plenty of ways 4:58 PM isn’t “living up to the principles of our faith either.” Step down from the Rameumptom, 4:58 PM and go back to the salt mine.
If 4:58’s faith compelled him to speak on this, so be it.
ADKT 0594-If you disagree with Nevada’s proposed new fangled bar exam, please submit comments. This is a radical proposal. The bar exam as we know and as it has existed is being abolished and being replaced by a pass through exam. There are no essays on this new format. They are replacing it with a 100 multiple choice foundation law exam. No trusts and wills on the exam. Then performance tests after the third year. Students can not study or prepare for these performance tests. Sounds like a pass through exam, Nevada deserves better.
Most of the comments are from law professors in support of the new format. Here is the link-
The time to file comments from the bench, bar, and public has been extended until August 16, 2024, at 5 p.m. Comments may be submitted to the court in hard-copy format or electronically to nvscclerk@nvcourts.nv.gov.
people only want to complaint about it privately… lol. I can’t wait for the change. My friends from California are planning to move out here to help me create a new firm!
I gave up on Hooge when he allowed the OBC to be used to reprimand and embarrass Dennis Prince. The allegation was that Prince misused a firm credit card, statements of which were examined in detail each month by the firm administrator, in order to capture costs and obtain reimbursements. If there was an issue regarding which partner was charging what expenses on the card, that was a private matter and should not have part of a Bar Complaint, let alone a Public Reprimand. And clearly, I am not Dennis Prince.
That complaint was fueled by a very powerful lawyer in town. That very powerful lawyer funds judicial campaigns. Hooge has made no secret that he wants to be a judge. The dots connected themselves on this one.
No secret? He applied for Department 7 a couple years back. It’s how I learned he was a real estate agent before law school, which explained quite a bit for me.
Hooge talks regularly about his judicial ambitions. If you know him personally (and I do), this would be no secret to you
You can choose to not believe me as I’m an anon on a blog. But when I decided to move to phoenix about 2 years ago, I’d say Hooge was about 1/3 of my reasoning as I planned to open a solo family law practice and had researched the history under him. Very happy down here and still occasionally do some law in nv not too susceptible to bar complaints. Just my 2 cents.