Judge Michael Villani reaffirmed his sentencing of disbarred attorney Barry Levinson. As you may recall, Levinson received a harsher sentence than he agreed to when Villani chose to ignore a plea deal. Lawyers practicing criminal law, please weigh in. Did Villani do the right thing? [RJ]
Closing arguments are set in federal court for Monday in the Oracle vs. Rimini Street trial. [Las Vegas Sun]
A Carson City judge tossed out an effort to repeal Nevada’s new tax package. [Fox5Vegas]
Yesterday in Tam v. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 131 Nev. Adv. Op. 80, the Nevada Supreme Court in a 7-0 decision upheld the medmal noneconomic damages cap as constitutional, held that a single cap applies per incident regardless of the number of plaintiffs and defendants, and held that the cap applies to both professional negligence and medmal claims.
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Anonymous
October 2, 2015 4:13 pm
Re: Levinson – Villani certainly acted within his discretion. Whether he did the "right thing" is subject to debate. Levinson is going to be in prison for a very long time; if he really is as deathly ill as he wants the court to believe he is, Villani's choice to not follow the plea won't make much difference.
Independent of the allegations specific to his criminal cases, Levinson is a guy who treated people poorly. It isn't too much to ask that an attorney be minimally civil. It has been a long time since I've had dealings with Levinson; but I cannot recall any time when he acted even minimally civil. And his unpleasantness never seemed to really move his cases forward. There are guys who can use unpleasantness to rattle opposing counsel and gain advantage by doing so. Levinson wasn't competent enough to do that. He was just unpleasant for the sake of being unpleasant. I suppose that if one is going to be a prick as an attorney, he should at least use it to his clients' advantage.
And all of this is independent of the fact that he apparently stole a lot of money from his clients.
Villani did what Villani does. If E. Brent Bryson didn't know that Villani wasn't going to follow the GPA then he is a bigger buffoon than I thought. Villani will always do whatever allows him to generate positive publicity, and if he gets to fuck over a defendant in the process, well that's just gravy.
Yesterday in Tam v. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 131 Nev. Adv. Op. 80, the Nevada Supreme Court in a 7-0 decision upheld the medmal noneconomic damages cap as constitutional, held that a single cap applies per incident regardless of the number of plaintiffs and defendants, and held that the cap applies to both professional negligence and medmal claims.
Re: Levinson – Villani certainly acted within his discretion. Whether he did the "right thing" is subject to debate. Levinson is going to be in prison for a very long time; if he really is as deathly ill as he wants the court to believe he is, Villani's choice to not follow the plea won't make much difference.
Independent of the allegations specific to his criminal cases, Levinson is a guy who treated people poorly. It isn't too much to ask that an attorney be minimally civil. It has been a long time since I've had dealings with Levinson; but I cannot recall any time when he acted even minimally civil. And his unpleasantness never seemed to really move his cases forward. There are guys who can use unpleasantness to rattle opposing counsel and gain advantage by doing so. Levinson wasn't competent enough to do that. He was just unpleasant for the sake of being unpleasant. I suppose that if one is going to be a prick as an attorney, he should at least use it to his clients' advantage.
And all of this is independent of the fact that he apparently stole a lot of money from his clients.
Good riddance to him.
Villani did what Villani does. If E. Brent Bryson didn't know that Villani wasn't going to follow the GPA then he is a bigger buffoon than I thought. Villani will always do whatever allows him to generate positive publicity, and if he gets to fuck over a defendant in the process, well that's just gravy.
E. Brent Bryson is a media mooch. Not that good of an attorney, either.
"There are guys who can use unpleasantness to rattle opposing counsel and gain advantage by doing so. Levinson wasn't competent enough to do that."
You just described 1/2 the family bar, lol. Maybe if they rant and jump around like monkeys the judge will ignore the facts and law.