Lowering The Bar A Little

  • Law

  • Justice of the Peace Deborah Lippis announced Monday that she won’t seek reelection next year. And James Dean Leavitt is already calling dibs on her seat. [RJ]
  • Nevada lowers the bar for passage of the bar exam. [RJ]
  • The Justice Department is going to take on affirmative action. [Las Vegas Sun]
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Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 3:49 pm

Prepare for the deluge when Nevada makes the bar easier! Every failure in California will come here. What advantage is the UBE to Nevada attorneys. Most don't want to go to Illinois, Iowa, or New York. Ironically, the pass rate in some jurisdictions that adopted the UBE has dropped. What will the Boyd Dean say then. The pass rate for Boyd is about where it was years ago before they tweaked the exam.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 3:58 pm

Everyone in the criminal law world knows that James Dean Leavitt should not be allowed to practice law…but he's supported by almost 300 lawyers to be a judge? I call BS…

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 5:25 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Here's what I don't understand….how can all of these attorneys support him if it isn't even clear which seat he wants? I know a lot of the attorneys listed. Most would never support him, the rest likely wouldn't support him until they know which seat he's gunning for in the election. I call BS too.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 5:27 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

My apologies. Probably should have read the article first. I see now he's picked his spot. But again, without knowing his opponents, seems odd anyone would throw their support behind him.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 5:39 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

My name is on the list. I don't support him. He called me to tell me he was running. I told him that was surprising to me and that I wish him well. If he took that to mean I am ok with being listed as a campaign supporter then he is lacking in judgment. Will be awkward when my name appears on his opponent's list of supporters.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 5:52 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

I am on the list too and I wanted to see who was also running for the seat. Now my name is on his list of supporters. This is BS

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 6:00 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Where is this list?

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 6:01 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Sounds like a good basis for a bar complaint to me.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 6:02 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

I would take him over some of the rakes over at the RJC.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 6:09 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

This campaign is going to be a Heidi Almase, part deux all over again. Rock will make his plastic appearance again.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 7:35 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

where is the list of attorneys supporting him???

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 7:58 pm
Reply to  Anonymous
Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 8:06 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

My name is on there and I am not supporting him. Wtcb, Jimmy???

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 8:11 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

I am voting for Porkchop Leavitt, because I like his foo man choo. Man has a helluva barber.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 8:15 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Hey, if Buck Wong can support this guy then so can I!!!

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 8:17 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

What is a foo man choo?

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 8:43 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

JD's campaign website touts him as a "highly regarded Las Vegas attorney" and a "powerful advocate in court." Is this a joke?

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 9:12 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

In his statement announcing his candidacy, Leavitt should have mentioned Judge Lippis and her long service to the community, and
how based on such history he wants to do the department proud, etc.

For someone who has served as long as Lippis has, she appears to have, relatively speaking, not too much in the way of prominent enemies or significant controversy. She is generally well-rated and well-regarded and has been for a quarter century. She has many supporters, including prominent members of the defense bar.
I think it is an oversight for Leavitt to only talk about himself in his statement, and not even mention Lippis for even one sentence. Since he is the first one out of the gate, he should avail himself of this opportunity to lay the ground work to see if some of her significant support and connections can start flowing his way.

And considering that he is a politician, and presumably has skilled consultants, I'm surprised they mishandled this opportunity.

So, unless I'm really mistaken as to Lippis' reputation and historical support being fairly solid, I think Leavitt was a bit self-absorbed, and showed a clear lack of political acumen and sophistication ,not to at least pay a passing nod to the person who has held the seat and honorably served for 25 years.

If I am generally right that Lippis' reputation is fairly decent, then if Leavitt and his consultants cannot recognize the short comings of his announcement and commit to improve on their approach in the future, his campaign will be fatally marred with a very arrogant "me first and me only" approach. For example, one can't go to an endorsement interview and boast only about themselves, without showing respect or recognition for the goals and accomplishments of the organization in question.

Colleagues of mine are far more blunt and simply dismiss him as a "moron" for not mentioning Lippis. I think that is a very harsh assessment, but if he does not learn from this, and insists that he made the right decision not to mention Lippis, then I will probably join my colleagues in their view of him as a politician.

For all I know, he might make a decent judge, but if he runs a totally selfish, self-aggrandizing campaign then we will never find out.

On the other hand, people are reading this now and dismissing me as being hopelessly naïve for believing a totally selfish, arrogant approach impedes one being elected. Admittedly, we can all name many totally self-absorbed, arrogant individuals who were ultimately elected.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 9:25 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

You got me at Trevor Hayes. If he supports Jimmy, I am all in.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 9:35 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

My favorite part of this is that LIppis quote in the article, "“It’s time for the young people to get in there and bring fresh ideas,” she added."

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 9:35 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Did Jimmy support hiring out of town lawyers to negotiate UNLV"s new stadium?

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 9:39 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Dude does have nice set of handle bar$. He must belong to a haberdashery.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 9:41 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Treavor Hayes is a douche.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 9:51 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

The link for Leavitt's endorsements isn't working on my computer. Did he already take it down?

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 9:57 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Hayes also wanted out of town attorneys to handle UNLV stadium. Bunch of clowns do not support for Las Vegas.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 9:59 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Who is his campaign manager? Dave Thomas?

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 10:10 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Says on the flyer Letizia. This is for Leavitt.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 10:39 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Justice has a name, Harmony, I mean Letizia. There goes his street cred.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 3, 2017 2:32 am
Reply to  Anonymous

The link to his endorsements is about 90% men.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 3, 2017 4:07 am
Reply to  Anonymous

Because private criminal defense attorneys are 90% men.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 3, 2017 3:21 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

2:59 and 3:10 — Watch out, Thomas and Letizia are now one. Just ask Janeice Marshall.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 3, 2017 4:56 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

I heard that Judge Lippis is retiring early so there will have to be a special appointment. Leavitt started broadcasting that he is running in 2018 to scare away people from putting their name in for appointment seat

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 3, 2017 5:16 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

She isn't retiring early. She's announcing her intention not to run again. Everything I've seen says she's planning to work out her remaining term.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 3, 2017 6:05 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Nope, she will be gone by October. James Dean has no shot at that appointment.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 3, 2017 7:08 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

The article says she is not planning on running again but I heard the same thing as 11:05, she is retiring early

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 3, 2017 7:14 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

The only people who are scared of Jimmy are the people who he put on his endorsement list who are not supporting him.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 4:08 pm

Assholes with agendas, NOT working attorneys, want it to be easier to pass the NV bar.

I feel the same way about this garbage as I do about Boyd raising the curve from B- to B+ the year or so after I left. The reason pass rates are down is because only fools would be attending law school after 2010.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 4:54 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Upvote

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 9:17 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

It's not too easy to pass the NV bar. It's not the test's fault that the pool of applicants that apply to Boyd is worse today than it used to be.

Take CA, it has a lowish pass rate, but all of the good schools have a really high pass rate. The low rate in CA is caused by all of the tier 3 and 4 schools, who likely shouldn't be lawyers in the first place. The good students still do well.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 4:09 pm

What a blowhard, "decrease enrollment by a certain percentage" yeah. 1% is a certain percent.

Dan Hamilton, dean for UNLV’s Boyd School of Law, counters that recent Boyd
students have met or exceeded the school’s admissions standards.

“Every law school in this day and age is faced with a choice: Do you stay
the same size essentially and lower admission standards, or do you shrink
and maintain standards? Like many, many other law schools, we’ve made the
strategic decision to decrease enrollment by a certain percentage to
maintain admissions standards,” Hamilton said.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 6:04 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

So a more honest statement would be something like, "we've made the strategic decision to decrease enrollment ever so slightly so as to reduce admissions standards by a slightly less drastic margin."

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 6:49 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

These guys don't care one wit about the welfare of their debt-laden students or the unsuspecting public upon whom incompetent graduates are unleashed. They just want to keep the federal student loan money flowing to support their outrageous salaries. They do very little work and yet are paid obscenely.

I believe you are being very dishonest, Dan Hamilton. Oh, and by the way, a drop from 156 (67th percentile) to 153 (55th) is fairly significant. UNLV is admitting less qualified students. Nobody should be stunned that bar passage rates have dropped.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 6:51 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Daniel W. Hamilton's total compensation is $400,000 a year. $400k!!!!!

The guy has some serious skin in the game!

http://transparentnevada.com/salaries/2016/university-nevada-las-vegas/daniel-w-hamilton/

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 7:01 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Apparently, at least per an email circulating from the Law School, the article wrongly reported an incorrect LSAT score. They're saying it has been updated but I didn't look too closely.

Still, I'd say that so many things have changed things that were great about Boyd. The night program has been relegated to the sidelines and they have more and more traditional students. The increased tuition scared good people away as well, I'm certain. I'd have never gone to Boyd at the current cost. I simply couldn't go into that kind of debt.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 7:11 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

The numbers used in the article came from Boyd's own ABA disclosures. The law school is full of shit. The 75th percentile LSAT is 159. This is a composite of full-time (160) and part-time (157).

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 3, 2017 12:39 am
Reply to  Anonymous

I think the dip in LSAT scores is happening at all law schools except maybe the top 10-14. At the school I attended in 2007, the 75th percentile was 164. Now its 162 and has been at that level since about 2015.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 5:14 pm

Yes, please lower the bar standards. Look at Boyd 2011 to 2017.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 2, 2017 6:36 pm

I think the Boyd grads from 2013 are retarded.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 3, 2017 4:14 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

I love this guy and his constant beef with Boyd 2013 grads. Pretty sure he got dumped by a Boyd '13 grad and he's never gotten over it.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 3, 2017 4:49 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

No no I rogered him to no end and then put him away wet.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 4, 2017 5:04 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

2013 Boyd grads probably make up the most impressive cohort the school has seen, in terms of graduate placements and scores.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 3, 2017 9:14 am

Look at past exams – haven't tested commercial paper in nearly a decade, and even then only as a sub-issue in cross over questions. Gonna take more than that

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 3, 2017 3:30 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

I agree with you. Not requiring applicants to have to study commercial paper is a red herring. That's not going to make the exam easier. The SCON could have just as easily said it was going to drop the requirement to know Admiralty or Roman Law from the exam. Oh, I forgot, those aren't tested either.

Anonymous
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Anonymous
August 3, 2017 4:07 pm
Reply to  Anonymous

Nope. There was a full commercial paper question in summer of 2013. They brought out all the stops for the Boyd '13ers.