Judge Sandra Pomrenze will not be removed from a custody case for making an “insensitive” comment about a child’s hair. [RJ]
Dotty’s settled an ADA suit for $3.5 million. [KNPR]
In light of the recent deaths of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, we are sharing the number for the National Suicide Prevention Hotline, again. If you are feeling down or are even thinking about hurting yourself, please reach out for help: 1-800-273-8255
Pomremze comments were racist, period. Gonzales should have disqualified her. She is biased. Joke.
Guest
Anonymous
June 11, 2018 6:00 pm
Nappy in describing hair is racist? Really? Bigger question, why the hell are litigants bringing issues of hair before a Family Court Judge. Check out the video.
Oh, for crying out loud, 1:33. Did you read the article? Did you watch the video? Did you read 11:24's excellent comment? POC Mother of Bi-racial daughter is in court bitching about the daughter's hair, and how non-POC Father isn't properly caring for it. It's not "messy." It's perfectly natural hair for her ethnicity. Since the daughter isn't present in court, the Judge asked about the hair, asking "is it nappy?" Mother's attorney says "yes" and Judge suggests meeting up with a hair stylist.
Guest
Anonymous
June 11, 2018 6:24 pm
Parties will often act self-righteously and morally indignant in order to distract from their own responsibility.
These parties may well spending a few thousand per side, on attorney fees, money which can and should be used to enhance their child's life.
But, instead, because they apparently lack the ability to discuss or agree on even the most basic matters, expensive(yet utterly ludicrous) litigation results.
The judge then suggested the obvious–which should have been suggested by the parties and/or their attorneys rather than diving immediately into expensive, yet utterly pointless litigation–that the parties should make a joint appointment with the salon so the father can see how to tend to their child's hair.
That all said, it is interesting that when the judge asked if the child's hair can be described as "nappy", Mom's attorney immediately responded "yes" yet Mom is not complaining about her attorney adopting the judge's language.
Heaven forbid if these parties have to ever deal with legitimate, serious issues involving their child–such as an injury or illness. If they are frittering away their money and their time and energy on something so inane as arguing about how to cut and style hair, how would they ever be able to handle such serious issues?
That's what the real take away should be here, IMO. The parents are involved in an inane conflict, which they pay handsomely for and which the attorneys seem to encourage. The focus instead should be on greatly enhancing their parenting, communicating, and decision making skills, so they can raise their child in the best fashion possible.
But rather than taking at least a minimum of accountability for a poor relationship between the parents, it's much easier to indulge one's moral indignation and trot out the soap box and protest signs.
Mom filed a motion referencing that Dad does not know how to tend to hair that is frizzy, coarse and has entanglements. Then when the judge asked if it can be described as "nappy", and then Mom's attorney readily agrees that it is "nappy", then Mom wants us to believe that the judge's conduct is shockingly outrageous?
Agreed that the judge never should have suggested or used the term–particularly since it was used in such a super-charged racial and, in fact, racist, fashion by radio host Don Imus about a dozen years ago.
But let's have some sense of proportion.
Guest
Anonymous
June 11, 2018 6:32 pm
^^ Wins the blog today
Guest
anonymous
June 11, 2018 6:38 pm
Amen, 11:24.
Guest
Anonymous
June 11, 2018 6:43 pm
11:24 is on point – spend one day in family court and you'll see all kinds of BS like this. Much of it is perpetuated by attorneys who are all too happy to suck up every resource a family has fighting over such idiotic things as a child's hair care instead of actually taking care of their child. Judge made a mistake…she might not have known it was the wrong word to use…but I don't think she meant it maliciously. I think she was trying to steer the two idiots down the right path since their attorneys clearly weren't.
I do only Family Law. It's not the attorneys. We have so much work there is never a temptation to drag things out. The problem in over litigating is that clients insist on fighting over EVERYTHING. I have had dozens of clients start the conversation with "I'd rather pay you everything we have than see him/her get a penny." Believe me or do not, most of my family law attorney friends and I would rather settle cases but when they want to fight over the smallest of details, it is going to drag out.
The concept that comes to mind is "client control"
Guest
Anonymous
June 11, 2018 6:44 pm
Sandra Pomrenze has a long history of making insulting, demeaning comments to litigants and to attorneys. Don Imus got in trouble years ago for describing the hair of a young woman as "nappy." Pomrenze should be well aware that the phrase has racist connotations. She is an insensitive bully who has no business sitting in Family Court. I am glad that she is retiring in 2021. It is too bad she cannot leave sooner.
Have you ever counted (as a percentage) the number of family court "judges" who have been in trouble? It is amazingly high: think Del Vecchio, Steve Jones, Fine, etc. etc.
All of you — for heck's sake, a little perspective here. Give Sandy a break. It's clear from the video that she didn't mean anything derogatory. Certainly, the attorney representing the poor offended client didn't take any adverse meaning from the word, either. OK, so white people don't get every nuance of black slang. Big deal. The same can be said for any ethnic groups' jargon. Did you ever hear one black person call another the "N" word in casual conversation? They don't take offense. But don't try using that word in jest to an African American if you're white. Judge Gonzales made the right call.
Gonzales did not make the right call. Pomerenze should have been disqualified for the racist comment. A violation of a judicial canon is automatic disqualification. Gonzales could be implicated for ignoring canons as well.
Thank you to the people who are speaking out against this. It is racism, and Gonzales should have disqualified her. It does not matter my race and what I post.
It isn't racist. But in the world of feelz everything is RAYCISSS! I can't even! This is so traumatic! No, it wasn't racist. No, the word "nappy" isn't racist either. Maybe a bit tone deaf in the context, but still not racist. And certainly not a violation of any judicial ethical canon. That's just retarded. Whoops. I'm such an ableist. I can't even AGAIN! I promise to provide a contribution to the local Snowflakes R Us chapter.
Your boy Adelson wrote the story. It is a racist comment. I blame Gonzales for keeping her on the case. She would not disqualify Steve Jones while He was sleeping with a DA appearing before him.
Guest
Anonymous
June 11, 2018 7:45 pm
I know some posters don't care about national firms, but I think this ATL dig on Greenberg Traurig is funny as hell:
I particularly like how he calls GT out for acting like this has anything to do with looking out for associates. As if not giving a raise now has any impact on whether the firm will can lawyers if/when the economy turns.
This seems dumb. I do not see what GT has to benefit from this. No one considers them a market leader, so it isn't like taking this stand is likely to influence firms from following Milbank's lead. Covington couldn't slow down $180, so I have no idea what GT thinks it gains by this kind of public opposition. It just makes them look cheap or struggling.
GT is just putting lipstick on a pig. They can't afford to match, so they came up with this transparent attempt to spin it as positive. Most of it doesn't even make sense.
They don't list local comp on Nalp, but I would be surprised if they are paying more than local and regional peer firms.
Guest
Anonymous
June 11, 2018 8:45 pm
Election day tomorrow. I'm surprised my favorite posters haven't been on here notifying the world that Judge Cadish has cut the tag off every single mattress she has ever purchased. The pillows too.
Cadish might be one of the few to check Hardesty. The best candidate to have pushed back against Hardesty would have been if Gonzalez would have run but she wants nothing to do with Carson City and Jim's Private Playground.
Looks like Tao and Cadish will be the two candidates.
Guest
Anonymous
June 11, 2018 9:25 pm
Speaking of tags on mattresses and pillows, and apropos of nothing, I am one of the older codgers who the younger bloggers insist must be on my five year plan not to die.
But with those qualifiers in place, I will point out the most important issue mentioned on this blog in months. Pillows, rather than being filled with foam, were once filled with down and feathers. Once your head nestled in a pillow filled with feathers, you were asleep within five minutes.
And now that I have had my say, in deference to the younger bloggers, I will return to my five year plan not to die. No guarantee I will last the while five years, but with my feather pillows anything is possible.
My pillow is a wooden board. Because feathers and space shuttle foam are for pansies.
Guest
Anonymous
June 11, 2018 9:29 pm
2:25 appears to be hanging on by a thread, but I find the post to be somewhat charming in its borderline insanity.
I remember those pillows from my Grand Ma's house.
Guest
Anonymous
June 11, 2018 9:34 pm
2:25 PM uses an @aol.com email address in the bar directory, but I respect him/her anyway.
Guest
Anonymous
June 11, 2018 10:08 pm
"Eliminating bail would take time and would require changing the Nevada Constitution, Wolfson said.
'It’s something that I would look at, but it can’t be done overnight,' Wolfson said."
What is this nonsense? The Constitution only talks about bail twice. One time it says that you can't have "excessive" bail, and one time it says that all crimes must be bailable except murder. Neither of those bans "getting rid of bail", and the excessive bail clause arguably pushes in favor of it.
I guess he's making a semantic argument that "bailable" presumes that bail has to exist? But that still doesn't make sense, because there are plenty of crimes where you get released OR, and so bail has practically already been abolished.
No one who knows anything about Wolfson thinks "he's a constitutional scholar, I'm sure he's right about that." He's a politician who has handled only a few jury trials in the last two decades and hasn't researched the law in three. He's slightly better than David Roger, but not much. If he had any desire to reform the system, bail would be gone and a better system would be in place. He's a big part of the problem (JP's who are afraid of the bondsmen are the other big obstacle).
His office regularly uses bail, along with overcharging, to pressure defendants to plead. There is nothing in the Nevada constitution which prevents the office from taking the position that since cash bail has nothing to do with appearance rate or safety, they will not seek bail at all. Wolfson has never taken one step to fix any of the inequities in the system, instead he has simply agreed with his Deputies in an office with no moral compass.
Guest
Anonymous
June 12, 2018 4:09 am
I would like to thank the judge who fucked up my client's case so bad that you gave us a great appeal. Your fucks up are now public record.
Vague-descriptors-and-a-thinly-veiled-attempt-to-hide-the-judge’s-identity-except-from-anyone-who-has-appeared-before-that-judge-numerous-times or it didn’t happen, bro
Guest
Unknown
September 21, 2018 2:50 pm
Remove Judge Sandra Pomrenze!!!!
Justice should be made !!!!!
Pomremze comments were racist, period. Gonzales should have disqualified her. She is biased. Joke.
Nappy in describing hair is racist? Really? Bigger question, why the hell are litigants bringing issues of hair before a Family Court Judge. Check out the video.
Yes, saying somebody's hair is nappy is racist.
If nappy is unacceptable, which adjective should we substitute for nappy?
Kinky?
Hows about just not commenting on someone's looks? Or, if it is a concern of the court for the purposes of making a decision, messy?
Oh, for crying out loud, 1:33. Did you read the article? Did you watch the video? Did you read 11:24's excellent comment? POC Mother of Bi-racial daughter is in court bitching about the daughter's hair, and how non-POC Father isn't properly caring for it. It's not "messy." It's perfectly natural hair for her ethnicity. Since the daughter isn't present in court, the Judge asked about the hair, asking "is it nappy?" Mother's attorney says "yes" and Judge suggests meeting up with a hair stylist.
Parties will often act self-righteously and morally indignant in order to distract from their own responsibility.
These parties may well spending a few thousand per side, on attorney fees, money which can and should be used to enhance their child's life.
But, instead, because they apparently lack the ability to discuss or agree on even the most basic matters, expensive(yet utterly ludicrous) litigation results.
The judge then suggested the obvious–which should have been suggested by the parties and/or their attorneys rather than diving immediately into expensive, yet utterly pointless litigation–that the parties should make a joint appointment with the salon so the father can see how to tend to their child's hair.
That all said, it is interesting that when the judge asked if the child's hair can be described as "nappy", Mom's attorney immediately responded "yes" yet Mom is not complaining about her attorney adopting the judge's language.
Heaven forbid if these parties have to ever deal with legitimate, serious issues involving their child–such as an injury or illness. If they are frittering away their money and their time and energy on something so inane as arguing about how to cut and style hair, how would they ever be able to handle such serious issues?
That's what the real take away should be here, IMO. The parents are involved in an inane conflict, which they pay handsomely for and which the attorneys seem to encourage. The focus instead should be on greatly enhancing their parenting, communicating, and decision making skills, so they can raise their child in the best fashion possible.
But rather than taking at least a minimum of accountability for a poor relationship between the parents, it's much easier to indulge one's moral indignation and trot out the soap box and protest signs.
Mom filed a motion referencing that Dad does not know how to tend to hair that is frizzy, coarse and has entanglements. Then when the judge asked if it can be described as "nappy", and then Mom's attorney readily agrees that it is "nappy", then Mom wants us to believe that the judge's conduct is shockingly outrageous?
Agreed that the judge never should have suggested or used the term–particularly since it was used in such a super-charged racial and, in fact, racist, fashion by radio host Don Imus about a dozen years ago.
But let's have some sense of proportion.
^^ Wins the blog today
Amen, 11:24.
11:24 is on point – spend one day in family court and you'll see all kinds of BS like this. Much of it is perpetuated by attorneys who are all too happy to suck up every resource a family has fighting over such idiotic things as a child's hair care instead of actually taking care of their child. Judge made a mistake…she might not have known it was the wrong word to use…but I don't think she meant it maliciously. I think she was trying to steer the two idiots down the right path since their attorneys clearly weren't.
I do only Family Law. It's not the attorneys. We have so much work there is never a temptation to drag things out. The problem in over litigating is that clients insist on fighting over EVERYTHING. I have had dozens of clients start the conversation with "I'd rather pay you everything we have than see him/her get a penny." Believe me or do not, most of my family law attorney friends and I would rather settle cases but when they want to fight over the smallest of details, it is going to drag out.
The concept that comes to mind is "client control"
Sandra Pomrenze has a long history of making insulting, demeaning comments to litigants and to attorneys. Don Imus got in trouble years ago for describing the hair of a young woman as "nappy." Pomrenze should be well aware that the phrase has racist connotations. She is an insensitive bully who has no business sitting in Family Court. I am glad that she is retiring in 2021. It is too bad she cannot leave sooner.
Have you ever counted (as a percentage) the number of family court "judges" who have been in trouble? It is amazingly high: think Del Vecchio, Steve Jones, Fine, etc. etc.
Where is the ACLU in this? The comment is improper. I hope this woman lodges ethics completes as well.
Complaints
All of you — for heck's sake, a little perspective here. Give Sandy a break. It's clear from the video that she didn't mean anything derogatory. Certainly, the attorney representing the poor offended client didn't take any adverse meaning from the word, either. OK, so white people don't get every nuance of black slang. Big deal. The same can be said for any ethnic groups' jargon. Did you ever hear one black person call another the "N" word in casual conversation? They don't take offense. But don't try using that word in jest to an African American if you're white. Judge Gonzales made the right call.
Gonzales did not make the right call. Pomerenze should have been disqualified for the racist comment. A violation of a judicial canon is automatic disqualification. Gonzales could be implicated for ignoring canons as well.
What, now all of a sudden the "N" word is not racist because some African Americans use it? Really? There should be am ethics comp. filed.
5:09 — Obviously NOT African-American . . .
Thank you to the people who are speaking out against this. It is racism, and Gonzales should have disqualified her. It does not matter my race and what I post.
It isn't racist. But in the world of feelz everything is RAYCISSS! I can't even! This is so traumatic! No, it wasn't racist. No, the word "nappy" isn't racist either. Maybe a bit tone deaf in the context, but still not racist. And certainly not a violation of any judicial ethical canon. That's just retarded. Whoops. I'm such an ableist. I can't even AGAIN! I promise to provide a contribution to the local Snowflakes R Us chapter.
Yes, it is.
Nah.
Your boy Adelson wrote the story. It is a racist comment. I blame Gonzales for keeping her on the case. She would not disqualify Steve Jones while He was sleeping with a DA appearing before him.
I know some posters don't care about national firms, but I think this ATL dig on Greenberg Traurig is funny as hell:
https://abovethelaw.com/2018/06/greenberg-traurig-explains-why-its-too-cheap-to-raise-associate-salaries/
I particularly like how he calls GT out for acting like this has anything to do with looking out for associates. As if not giving a raise now has any impact on whether the firm will can lawyers if/when the economy turns.
This seems dumb. I do not see what GT has to benefit from this. No one considers them a market leader, so it isn't like taking this stand is likely to influence firms from following Milbank's lead. Covington couldn't slow down $180, so I have no idea what GT thinks it gains by this kind of public opposition. It just makes them look cheap or struggling.
GT is just putting lipstick on a pig. They can't afford to match, so they came up with this transparent attempt to spin it as positive. Most of it doesn't even make sense.
Salary increases precede a recession? So what? Is he saying he won't lower salaries and fire people like he did during the last recession? https://www.law360.com/articles/96584/greenberg-traurig-slashes-salaries. http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2010/02/al100gt.html.
If you're committed to clients, clients can't pay for raises? How can he square that with the firm's bragging–just a few months ago–about the firm's record revenues and profits per partner? Guess who's paying for that? https://www.gtlaw.com/en/news/2018/2/press-releases/greenberg-traurig-reports-4th-consecutive-year-of-record-results.
It's time when the best and brightest should be paid fairly based on all factors? So is he admitting his associates aren't the best and brightest?
It's time to have courage and step forward and innovate? Please describe the innovations of Greenberg Traurig.
Some practices don't justify higher rates? Is he saying his firm just doesn't have what it takes to justify higher rates?
They don't list local comp on Nalp, but I would be surprised if they are paying more than local and regional peer firms.
Election day tomorrow. I'm surprised my favorite posters haven't been on here notifying the world that Judge Cadish has cut the tag off every single mattress she has ever purchased. The pillows too.
Bro, you're on a legal blog. You should know that as long as you're the end consumer, you can snip the tags off.
for the lulzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Thank you, Cadish.
Voted for Tao.
Voted for Tao, too. Cadish and Hardesty at the Supremes at the same time? That would be a shit show.
Cadish might be one of the few to check Hardesty. The best candidate to have pushed back against Hardesty would have been if Gonzalez would have run but she wants nothing to do with Carson City and Jim's Private Playground.
Looks like Tao and Cadish will be the two candidates.
Speaking of tags on mattresses and pillows, and apropos of nothing, I am one of the older codgers who the younger bloggers insist must be on my five year plan not to die.
But with those qualifiers in place, I will point out the most important issue mentioned on this blog in months. Pillows, rather than being filled with foam, were once filled with down and feathers. Once your head nestled in a pillow filled with feathers, you were asleep within five minutes.
And now that I have had my say, in deference to the younger bloggers, I will return to my five year plan not to die. No guarantee I will last the while five years, but with my feather pillows anything is possible.
You can keep your pillows filled with the under feathers of demon fowl; my pillow is filled with material used in the SPACE SHUTTLE!
My pillow is a wooden board. Because feathers and space shuttle foam are for pansies.
2:25 appears to be hanging on by a thread, but I find the post to be somewhat charming in its borderline insanity.
I remember those pillows from my Grand Ma's house.
2:25 PM uses an @aol.com email address in the bar directory, but I respect him/her anyway.
"Eliminating bail would take time and would require changing the Nevada Constitution, Wolfson said.
'It’s something that I would look at, but it can’t be done overnight,' Wolfson said."
What is this nonsense? The Constitution only talks about bail twice. One time it says that you can't have "excessive" bail, and one time it says that all crimes must be bailable except murder. Neither of those bans "getting rid of bail", and the excessive bail clause arguably pushes in favor of it.
I guess he's making a semantic argument that "bailable" presumes that bail has to exist? But that still doesn't make sense, because there are plenty of crimes where you get released OR, and so bail has practically already been abolished.
Wolfson's office routinely uses bail as a pre-trial punishment. He has no interest in bail reform.
No one who knows anything about Wolfson thinks "he's a constitutional scholar, I'm sure he's right about that." He's a politician who has handled only a few jury trials in the last two decades and hasn't researched the law in three. He's slightly better than David Roger, but not much. If he had any desire to reform the system, bail would be gone and a better system would be in place. He's a big part of the problem (JP's who are afraid of the bondsmen are the other big obstacle).
His office regularly uses bail, along with overcharging, to pressure defendants to plead. There is nothing in the Nevada constitution which prevents the office from taking the position that since cash bail has nothing to do with appearance rate or safety, they will not seek bail at all. Wolfson has never taken one step to fix any of the inequities in the system, instead he has simply agreed with his Deputies in an office with no moral compass.
I would like to thank the judge who fucked up my client's case so bad that you gave us a great appeal. Your fucks up are now public record.
Vague-descriptors-and-a-thinly-veiled-attempt-to-hide-the-judge’s-identity-except-from-anyone-who-has-appeared-before-that-judge-numerous-times or it didn’t happen, bro
Remove Judge Sandra Pomrenze!!!!
Justice should be made !!!!!
https://www.thepostemail.com/2018/09/16/las-vegas-judge-awards-custody-to-alcoholic-domestic-abuser/