- Quickdraw McLaw
- 41 Comments
- 152 Views
- Carson City District Court Judge James E. Wilson, Jr. ruled that a reporter was not protected under Nevada’s shield law until he started paying dues to the Nevada Press Association. [TNI]
- The Supreme Court issued an order on ADKT 499 which means more work for certifying you did you CLEs.
- The US Supreme Court ruled that World Bank can be sued. [KNPR]
- The trial date was moved back for the man who sold ammo to the October 1 shooter. [LasVegasNow]
- SB127 would add two seats to the Clark County Commission. [Nevada Current]
- Some of you are discussing this in the comments, but why can’t the State Bar of Nevada maintain a functioning, updated directory of attorneys?
I changed offices in August, and updated my information with the Bar within a couple of weeks following my move. They didn't change my directory listing until after I paid my dues in early January.
The just went with a new vendor and updated everything a couple of weeks ago. When I called to ask, they were very reasonable and said once the bugs are worked out the site will be updated weekly. If you've ever had to change vendors with a lot of data, it takes time. They fixed my as soon as I called so I guess they can do it manually also. Nothing to see here.
To 9:49 – They told me the same thing when I changed firms… a year ago. I had to call and pester them to update my info, which they did after a few weeks. So I'm not buying it – unless maybe they have got an even newer vendor!
I think this is a classic case of a govt agency getting duped by an incompetent but slick contractor, because the govt has no qualified people to oversee these types of projects and call contractors out. And the govt entity is too embarrassed / worried about the blow back of misspending public funds if they admit that they got duped.
Unless I'm missing something, an attorney directory seems like a pretty simple thing. I've done some web development as a hobby, and I'm pretty sure I could build a decent directory. I'm half tempted to offer to do so for the bar, pro bono. 😉
I paid my dues over a month ago, and my address is still not updated.
I'd file a change of address form with them.
I did. And nada. But this is the same State Bar that on their LRIS forms tells attorneys to call Lori Wolk, who left the State Bar 3 years ago.
Instead of always complaining about the employees at the bar, how about if we use a day to give a shout out to the ones that are helpful and want to do what's right. I've spoken with and met more than a few people that work there and they genuinely want to help.
I like Vanessa Dalton. She is about the only one. Shelley Young, no.
No thanks.
Vanessa is just fine which is why she is on the telephones. Cathi Britz is extremely nice and helpful. Shelley Young is, well I cannot say anything nice about her. Actually I cannot say anything nice about anyone else at the SBN other than Vanessa and Cathi.
Vanessa is a cool customer.
I have always liked Vanessa and Janeen. I believe Janeen has left. Vanessa has the patience of a saint.
It looks like Janeen is now at Lipson Neilson, which is where David Clark also wound up. They defend lots of attorney malpractice cases. Good move for her I'm sure.
I heard Janeen moved to Colorado and the "Lipson Neilson" thing was just an of counsel position for those few occasions when she is in town. The entire OBC is being run by people who prove the adage that the only thing worse than malicious power is incompetent malicious power.
We've had vicious OBC. And we've had idiot OBC. But I don't know that we've ever had a vicious idiot OBC.
Until now.
Janeen is a full-time attorney at Lipson Neilson. You will not find a better attorney or person to work with.
Thank you, Janeen. You allowed my attorney to fuck me over. Pleasure working with you.
Janeen is not full time at LN but she is a good of counsel-like addition and can tell you stories of how screwed up the OBC is.
Still no word on a replacement for Bulla? When's she out the door?
I think she began her new assignment last Monday (3/4/19).
As to her replacement.. Don't expect that for quite some time. Before the county will allow the court to begin the process of hiring a replacement hearing master, the value of the buy-out of her unused sick and vacation time has to be burned off. Depending how much accrued time she had that was sold back to the county, it can be weeks or months for that to occur. Until then, the only option the court has to replace her is to reassign an existing hearing master to hear discovery matters.
I guess that's my question: what's happening with the matters currently pending? Who is assigned to hear those motions? I have several upcoming hearings and I'd like to know who will be presiding.
Erin Truman
It's my understanding that they can't advertise for her position until June 1st. I didn't hear why, but it sounds like the buyout of vacation time must expire end of May then. I have a hearing tomorrow morning and it is assigned to Erin Truman.
Efficiency at its best.
The product of the interplay between the court running it's operations and the county budgeting process and control of the purse-strings. The court gets to determine who it hires for open positions, but the county determines when and if positions exist and/or can be filled.
Without going into extensive details, there is an interlocal agreement between the county and the court that address their relationship. Among the terms, the court can only hire someone for a position when it exists and is available for filling. When the court wants to fill a position, it has to request permission from the county by way of a PAR. Only when a PAR has been granted may the court proceed to hire someone.
7:27, sure it sucks to have a position unfilled for a few months, but you do understand that government agencies have very specific budgets that are pre-set every fiscal year, right? So are you proposing that the govt hire someone for a job when it doesn't have the money in the budget to do so? That hardly seems "efficient."
Is anyone aware of who is still in contention for the magistrate position?
Anyone go to that CLE today to listen to Dan Hooge talk? Wondering how it went and what people think of him.
Is it Dan or Ryan, wait. It is Napoleon Dyanamite.
I went. It was an unmitigated disaster. He told us about how Nebraska and California are going to systems where discipline is divided from State Bar functions because of the perception that self-regulated bars are not tough enough (yeah, that is not the reason that those functions are being divided. He made that up).
He said that he would like the change the policy that any suspension over 3 years is an automatic disbarment (except the NSC has expressly gone away from that model since disbarment is irrevocable now).
He said that he is going to start pushing for all suspensions to be over 6 months so that all suspensions require full-blown reinstatement hearings (which will make all suspensions at least 15 months roundtrip). However you will be happy to know that according to Dan, reinstatements take 30 days from filing to disposition by the Supreme Court (not a single reinstatement in the last year has taken 30 days).
At one point, he said that attorneys will be disbarred for taking earned on receipt retainers and then later said that "general retainers" are OK so long as they are not "really big" but then also said that he does not really have a line in his mind as to what is OK and what is disbarment territory. YMMV.
He ran two hypotheticals: (1) Attorney gets a $1000 fee advance for an investigation, puts the money not in trust but his personal account, pays his car payment with it, but does the investigation; (2) Attorney gets $1000 fee advance, gives it to his secretary who negligently puts it into his general account, Lawyer spends the money. Lawyer replaces the money into the IOLTA Account. What is appropriate discipline? OBC believes disbarment for the first and a letter of caution for the second. This my friends is why the Star Chamber rules.
I will say this– he appears to be an affable guy who has the mentality of a rural prosecutor in his own fiefdom. In other words, he is truly frightening at the helm.
Wait. What? This….. this hurts my head.
Does this mean no Flat Fees?
@11:26; A few observations about the topics you raised.
I have a difficult time forming an opinion on the 3 year+ suspension being upgraded to a disbarment. Without knowing how the OBC determines the sentence it seeks it is near impossible to determine what conduct equates to a 3 year suspension vs 35 month or 59 month suspensions. Perhaps if it was clearer what level of malfeasance (and prior history) is at issue it could be easier to form an opinion as to the merits of his proposal.
As to the idea of spinning off the actual adjudication of attorney discipline, I am in agreement with him that an independent judicial arm should be handling that portion, with OBC acting as the investigator/prosecutor before it. It has always seemed an inherent conflict of interest with the Bar serving as the licensing/ investigating/prosecuting/adjudicatory entity. I know that California has it's discipline cases adjudicated by a judicial arm (Bar Court) with full time judges. Having professional judicial officers is in my opinion superior to our system of having attorney panels sitting as finder of fact and law, having to look over their shoulders' that if they fail to keep OBC happy they may be next in the cross-hairs.
As to the hypothetical questions you posed: In the first example, what was the timing of the completion of the work and when the attorney deposited/spent the money. While I know on a formal basis pursuant to the rules it was a violation regardless of the timing, in my mind, if the work was completed contemporaneously with the violation it is a less serious issue (more akin to the no harm/no foul variety). The second hypothetical raises a few additional questions… What was the timing of the various events, Was the work completed, What happened to the funds after reimbursed to the IOLTA account, Was this a 1 time event or recurring issue (what training and safeguards are in place to prevent), etc.
Assuming arguendo, that all the facts are the same other than the funds were deposited by the attorney (rather than the secretary), were deposited into their personal account (vs. general account), was spent of the attorney's car (vs. office expenses), and the work was completed (or the funds remained in the trust account upon timely repayment), I would agree the discipline proposed by OBC to your examples appears to be disparate and star chamber-like.
12:20, I take flat fees all the time. The Bar has no problem with you taking flat fees. In my opinion, you can't take a flat fee and deposit it directly into your operations account, because NRPC 1.5 forbids unreasonable fees, and taking a fee for work you haven't done yet seems unreasonable. So, my practice has been to deposit flat fees into my trust account until it can reasonably be considered "earned." If I've done the work, it goes into the operations account, but not until then.
Where is the Bar Counsel on the Plunkett matter? Seriously. This craziness makes all Nevada attorneys look bad. The fact that a lawyer is even talking to others about having her client/boyfriend/lover/prisoner-fetish/whatever killed means she should not be practicing law until these things are fully vetted. The Bar goes crazy about an accounting error in a trust account, but apparently is doing nothing in this case. Disappointing.
Marisa Border
I have ZERO love lost for the OBC. Less than zero.
However to say that the OBC is doing nothing against Alexis Plunkett is just flat false. When she had her original criminal charge, OBC brought a Complaint. When the criminal action was dismissed by Villani, the Panel deferred to take action pending the appeal. OBC appealed. When the criminal complaint was reinstated by the Supremes, the Supremes also reinstated the discipline.
OBC has a pending action against Plunkett on the new allegations.
Dammit 11:03. Just let people yell at OBC. Who cares if it's accurate? Loud noises!
11:42– I understand the vitriol against the OBC. There are PLENTY of legitimate bases to have issues with OBC. Alleging things that are not true only dilutes the hundreds of legitimate issues which attorneys in this state should have with the OBC.
The State Bar should take advantage of that member login and allow attorneys to change their own info. They might include some kind of "approval" process on the back-end where they can click a button upon review. Are they outsourcing the site to some company or do they have in-house engineers that work on it?