- Quickdraw McLaw
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There are a lot of comments on this blog about what’s wrong with the practice of law in Nevada. Whether it be the behavior of opposing counsel or the pointless CLE requirements or the annual boondoggle convention, a lot of you have ideas about how things should be done. Here’s a question for you? Why don’t you do anything about it? If all of us are in agreement that the CLE classes don’t accomplish anything then why are we still doing them? Why do we allow the Board of Governors to keep setting a convention in far away locations that is only attended by 150 people–over half of which are being paid for by the bar or the courts? The list is long, but what needs to change first? What would be the easiest thing to change? Who among you will be the change?
The easiest change is that there needs to be a house cleaning at the Board of Governors. Look, it is Jr. High Student Council all over again. The CCBA people move over to the State Bar BoG. They climb the ladder until they are President-Elect, then President then past President working with the Bar Foundation. They continue the same patterns as last year. They drink Diet Coke and have Jason's Deli catered in and accomplish nothing. It is not broken to them because this is just part of the social climbing exercise for them.
I am going to run for BoG. I am going to appear to be a gadfly because instead of advocating for all of the good work that the SBN does and can do, I am going to advocate that it all needs to be destroyed and burned down and rebuilt from the ground up. Abolish the Annual Meeting beyond an afternoon in a ballroom at the Golden Nugget. No big inauguration dinners. LRIS gets disbanded because the SBN does care about it any longer. CLE from the SBN starts being electronically transmitted to members at a fraction of the current cost. OBC is fired. I don't care what Hardesty wants and commands; his cabal with Hunterton is over. If the Supreme Court wants to control discipline, they can take over the responsibility and the cost.
Is this a Howard Beale moment? I don't know but enough is enough. It was one thing when the State Bar was viewed as ineffectual but the dues have gone so high, the services have declined and the State Bar is now hurting people unnecessarily. Enough is enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh3TXsx8B40
@8:47 – If you run on that platform, I will vote for you forever.
Hear hear! I have not bothered voting in a BOG election in probably a decade, for all of the reasons stated above. It is the same people and BS over and over again. A few candidates looking to shake things up will definitely get my attention, and my vote.
I admire 8:47's desire to drain the swamp. I see the likelihood of it ever happening as near zero. Too many deeply-entrenched stakeholders.
I've been admitted since 1996 and making the Bar smaller and more efficient has been a topic of discussion since before I even thought about going to law school. And what's happened instead? Bar membership expenses continue to increase, CLE expenses continue to increase, and the Bar becomes gradually more and more intrusive while also becoming less and less responsive. Former Bar presidents become judges and the cycle continues.
The judges currently traveling on the Bar's dime are former "leadership" members of the Bar. Current "leadership" members of the bar who are now traveling on the Bar's dime just keep doing what's always been done, knowing that they will some day be judges who travel on the Bar's dime. And those of us who practice law but would rather have a lit blowtorch shoved up our ass than ever attend any Bar function keep paying for it.
Does the Bar need to dial it way-the-f*ck back? Absolutely. Will it ever happen? Probably not.
Stupid f*cking busybodies.
People complain about a broken system, or at least a highly flawed one,but then, due to disinterest or apathy or whatever, if they vote in BOG elections they keep voting in the same incumbents.
The incumbents will send out re-election material boasting of their so-called accomplishments, along with the tired cliché "but there is more to be done" and a promise that they will continue to address new challenges with the same greatness they applied to former challenges.
As 8:47 suggests, vote for those who are true outsiders, and, rather than working within the system, want to implement broad-based change to actually become responsive to average bar members.
Now, as to this website indicating rather than complaining, we should get involved, here's the problem. Local law publications do encourage attorneys to become involved, but when they attempt to be appointed to useful committees, it seldom occurs. The elitist, entitled ones who control the system protect their turf from outsiders.
I will just vow to vote against every incumbent. If somebody runs on a platform like 8:47, I will jump on that train.
For those with minimal political experience, nothing will happen if there is not a SLATE of candidates to run for BOG. And those candidates need work tirelessly at two tasks: #1- Reach out to EVERY member of the bar and tell them that if they get off their butts and vote then this time it WILL make a difference. #2 -The membership needs to vote for the ENTIRE slate to make it happen. Do this or nothing will change.
You might be right. This is why rotations of candidates is such a pisser because you never can throw all of the bums out.
Chuck with Love Connection is a buffoon.
847 has my vote
I would love to go to more Bar conventions and be a part of it. But lets look at the costs for you and your spouse to attend. $590 for you, $175 for your spouse, $1,000 in hotel for the 3 nights (Yes, Chicago is expensive), plus airfare, plus etc. You are looking at $2,500 minimum.
Lets look at what other states offer. One other state I am member of offers FREE access to the bar practice manuals and other resources. How would you like to have access to the civil practice manual and other resources for FREE. Wouldn't that certainly elevate our practice if every attorney had access to the checklist and exact procedure as to how to do something.
The first thing I would do is add more elevators at the RJC.
LOL.. The original design called for more elevators until it was modified to eliminate 2 banks of them.
Absolutely agree.
New indictments filed in Guardianship mess. In addition to April Parks, a Metro police officer and an attorney charged.
https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/courts/las-vegas-police-officer-3-others-indicted-in-elder-abuse-case/
Noel Palmer Simpson was charged awhile ago. This is the RJ recycling the same story to avoid having to write more than three new paragraphs. The Melton part is news. The rest has already been published.
I actually filed a motion in another state years back to eliminate the useless CLE requirement. Despite several comments submitted supporting it, and despite my utter destruction in reply of the state bar's opposition, the motion was of course denied. The problem is state bars set up CLE entities that end up employing several people whose jobs depend on CLE requirements. Those people end up being pals with the state bar officials, if not the supreme court justices. Fat chance fighting one of those cabals.
Nevada CLE is not controlled by the State Bar. It is totally independent of the State Bar. CLE answers only to the Nevada Supreme Court.
The State Bar has its own profit center providing CLE.
The Nevada CLE Board 'may' be independent but due to court-approved changes effective this year, the line is increasingly blurred. The Bar is now collecting the annual CLE administrative fee on the annual dues statement. And because of new CLE accreditation protocols, the Board is now seeming to tacitly direct members to Bar-sponsored CLE programs that are exempt from paying the newly-imposed $500 annual fee required of participating third party CLE providers.
Claggett tags a NW HOA for $20 mill. Given the total BS that went on with respect to the experts, I'm guessing this gets walked back.
Case No.?
Please enlighten in re the BS. I also heard he never presented any specials or a life care plan; it was all pain and suffering plus punitives.
Thompson v. Playland, Inc., et al. Case No. A-14-697688-C.
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Who was the judge?
Hardy. This is the case where he sanctioned defense counsel 91k after a very unclear sidebar.
All of the decisions are abuse of discretion. This case does not get remanded and punitive are allowed. I tend to believe the best appellate counsel in the state who was there to help with jury instructions over some clown on a blog who is actually tonscated to do a trial. And no, a short trial does not count.
9:06 is Claggett. Decisions that ignore the facts, and misapply the law are an abuse of discretion. Look it up. The Eighth is doing that all the time. Left and right, and the NSC needs to reverse and remand. That is your job. The Court of Appeals is doing it.
What facts were ignored and what law was misapplied?
9:06 is absolutely Claggett. No Sean, there is actually a statute that prohibits punitive damages against HOAs. I like and respect Dan a lot but on this one you made a mistake.
Yes I do HOA law; no I don't have anything to do with either of the firms in this case other than I took an interest because word had leaked that Hardy was out of control. Hardy was not out of control. Hardy was completely under your control, which good for you in the short run. But you know quite well the evidentiary rulings that the CoA or NSC are going to look at Hardy sideways about. Honestly this record makes Hardy look really bad.
Dan who?
Dan "the best appellate counsel in the state who was there to help with jury instructions".
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All I want to know is did the bailiff serve liquor, okay?
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Anyone else read these comments and attribute them to an inability to lose gracefully?
Who was the loser?
Mama Fratelli in the really bad wedding address
Dress
12:21– No I attribute them to people who saw the trial. Sometimes courts are just bizarre in their rulings and have a clear bias. Hardy botched this trial and Claggett ran him clear over. Some of the rulings were just bizarre. Claggett did a masterful job of running over Hardy.
Our judiciary is a heap.
That is like winning at playing Fisher Price, Flags.
Clags
Hardy is honestly (and I cannot believe I am saying this) the worst judge on the bench. God I mean Michelle Leavitt is a train wreck, and Doug Smith has not paid attention to a case in years. But Hardy is just lost. And yet the Court gave him a Business Court assignment. Brutal.
I know worse….
9:25 what is statute? Blog readers are to lazy to go research it, so give us real details.
If you have Dan "the best appellate counsel in the state who was there to help with jury instructions", you will find it if you run those search terms in Lexis.
Lieutenant Dan.
Thanks to the actions the past three years of an overreaching, tone-deaf, and arrogant board of governors and bar management, Nevada lawyers are finally shaking off a desultory ennui to realize profound structural changes are necessary.
But the root of the problem isn't who is on the board or who is steering the ship. Throwing the bums out doesn't solve the root problem. At its core, the problem is in forcing lawyers to join a compulsory membership trade association as a precondition of earning a living in their chosen profession. We should not be forced to join the Nevada Bar Association in order to practice. What other professions are forced to abide by the same precondition?
Moreover, it's unfair to lawyers and to the public. This is because the Nevada Bar has a conflicted mission. It purports, on the one hand, to serve the public by going after unethical lawyers while on the other hand, acting to serve the interests of lawyers. As it happens, the Bar does a poor job at both functions. The solution? In the best case, it's to have a voluntary jurisdiction like 18 other states, e.g., Colorado, New York, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, New York, etc. The next best option is to carve out the regulatory functions from the trade association role. In either scenario, Nevada lawyers should not be forced to fund an unresponsive, non-customer-oriented, non-transparent, and unaccountable boondoggle-addicted trade association bureaucracy.
Fine, charge us for lawyer regulation and discipline but don't force us to pay for the rest of the crap most of us don't use or want. That's what happens in 18 voluntary bar states where lawyers are only required to pay for regulation and discipline. Membership in the respective state trade association is optional.
Last year, California's Legislature separated the state bar's core regulatory functions from its trade association role. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB36
In Wisconsin, Steve Levine, a frequent critic and former State Bar president, has petitioned the state supreme court to require the bar prepare two budgets. One would cover proposed expenditures of mandatory bar dues and the other voluntary bar dues. It would also more narrowly define the activities the bar can spend mandatory dues. In Arizona, the past three legislative sessions, lawyers have been trying to similarly bifurcate the Arizona Bar's regulatory and non-regulatory functions.
As in every state where this has been tried, entrenched legal elites on the court, self-interested bar managers, governing boards and bar sycophants, will vigorously fight any whiff of reform. Just the same, it's time Nevada's lawyers take up the fight. Contact reform-minded state lawmakers to run a bill next session.
Happy President's Day, you filthy animals. Happy to have Monday off!
Speak for yourself.
I'm a 3 year attorney and have found a lot of the recorded general credit CLEs to be quite helpful. I work in insurance defense and the firms I've worked for have largely had the "sink or swim" learning tactic and do not train associates.
The substance abuse and ethics CLE requirements are a complete joke.
For those without much political experience in whipping votes, if there isn't a SLATE of candidates for the BOG all the complaints and posturing will amount to nothing. A Reform Slate needs to be formed and then the entire group of candidates needs to reach out to the entire bar membership and send two messages: # 1 If you ALL get off your ass and vote this time it WILL make a difference. # 2 Everyone who wants change must vote for the ENTIRE slate. United we stand, etc.