- Quickdraw McLaw
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- Prosecutors agreed to drop charges against a former Las Vegas businessman accused of money laundering and plotting to harm attorney Paul Padda. [RJ]
- Las Vegas signs on to resolution to not pay ransom in ransomware attacks. [TNI]
- Interviews to be appointed in Department 8 of the Eighth Judicial District Court take place next Monday and Tuesday. You can view the candidates’ applications here.
- If you want to see the unpublished orders regarding discipline of attorneys Chad Dennie and Andrew Taylor, they are available here.
- Nevada democrats will have the opportunity to caucus by phone next year. [Las Vegas Sun]
Re the 'not paying ransom' – that resolution sounds great until the city's systems become useless and the estimate to revert to the backups and recover without paying ransom vastly exceeds the cost to pay the ransom. Would you rather the city pay $2M in ransom and ~$1M in time to recover, or $6M-$8M to revert to backups and recover without having paid the ransom? Principles are expensive.
I can fight for either principle or principal. The former will cost quite a bit of the latter.
Prediction: Qualification and experience will have no bearing on the selection process for Dept. 8. Instead, the decision will be based exclusively upon the determination of which candidate can do the most good, politically, for the governor. Based on that, the chosen candidate certainly won't be male and probably won't be white.
Just a thought, if you are on the selection committee and have already put through a candidate that was not selected, do you put them through again?
Look for another 39 year old female DA PD or AUSA with zero civil experience.
My money is on 10:32 AM's prediction.
Same re: 10:32A
10:32 and 9:59 got it
So Dena Rinetti it is!
or a 65-year-old political hack using the prior appointments as cover
My last two arbitrators did not draft written opinions but only awards. This is beyond frustrating because I can't explain to my client why a third-party liked/didn't like their case. I was wondering if you you have arbitrators who for $100 an hour have gone above and beyond to provide a real service.
I am an Arbitrator and typically I do file both Decisions and Awards, but on a couple of occasions I only filed awards. After the case is done, why don't you contact the Arbitrator and see if he/she will share his or her reasoning with you?
I have served as an Arbitrator in dozens of cases. Where there is a liability dispute or a *significant* issue regarding causation or medical specials, I will usually draft an decision in addition to the award. But if it is just a straight-up value dispute in a rear-ender (for instance) I typically will not do a decision. I used to, but my sense is (and correct me if I'm wrong ID lawyers) that the insurance companies determine value based on Colossus or the like and don't really care about my opinion. If it's above a certain number, they will de novo it regardless. But, I will always prepare an decision if someone specifically asks for it after the hearing. If I can help a lawyer out in explaining the result to the client, then I'm happy to do so, but I'm not going to waste my breath talking to a computer.
There are a few arbitrators that suck. Who do you guys recommend?
I don’t want to name names. In general, I would stay away from cranky old people, anyone who appears to have no PI background, and anyone with “non-attorney” after their name.
For those of you who think that the judicial appointment process tends to provide us with much better judges than elections, and that therefore we should abolish elections and shift to a pure appointment process for all vacancies, please examine the quality of the 16 applicants for the Dept. 8 vacancy.
About a quarter of the 16 are of arguable worthy merit, while the other dozen constitute nothing more than a parade of worthless hacks–attorneys ranging in quality from utterly worthless to borderline mediocre.
Appointments are no panacea. We get good and bad judges from elections and we get good and bad judges from appointments.
One thing that appointments hopefully do accomplish is to prevent startling inept attorneys, and super-weird and disturbed attorneys, from being appointed. Hopefully, the appointment process weeds such people out, while elections don't always weed them out.
But many attorneys will argue that there are in fact a few startling inept attorneys who have been appointed to the bench.
Elections got us Elizabeth Halverson, Valerie Vega, Ken Pollack and Sandra Pomranze, Lee Gates, Nick Delvecchio (for us old timers). Shit shows, every one of them. EFF your elections. I trust a Gov that answers to their political parties and actual voters.
And Elissa Cadish
To:3:51. Believe it or not, Lee Gates and Vega were both appointed.
Hey 3:51, I’m old enough to remember when elections got us Gerard Bongiovanni. With that said, there have been horrendous appointments as well. I think it’s a wash.
The biggest benefit of straight appointment systems isn't the quality of the judges as much as the fact that appointed judges have less incentive to make political decisions. Since our appointed judges still have to run for reelection, we don't really get that benefit here.
@351 here. But elections KEPT them in place.
12:32–Yes.I can think of a few startlingly inept ones who have been appointed. But elections seem to supply a higher number of such substandard judges than do elections.
Yes, elections are not a panacea, but it is preferable to elections. Also, the quality of judges, election vs. appointment, is not the sole major consideration.
Another consideration is the vile process wherein judges are forced to aggressively seek financial contributions from lawyers who appear before them.
"Yes, elections are not a panacea, but it is preferable to elections." Huh???
They probably meant to write "appointments are not a panacea but are preferable to elections."
You obviously proof-read your briefs before you send them for filing(which all attorneys should do),but 12:38 did not do so.
But that said,I think 12:38 is right. Both appointments and elections have problems, but the election process is the worse of the two.
Appointments are clearly preferable to elections.
But I hold that view based on the above referenced process of how judges raise money for elections.
I do not necessarily believe that appointments always provide vastly superior choices to elections. And anyone who insists that appointments do provide much better options, need to review the list of applicants for the vacancy.
I think that in general the appointment process produces better judges than the election process, especially in areas that are so large that virtually no one knows the candidates. I think elections still work in the rurals, because it's much more likely that the voters actually know the candidates, and know whether a candidate is a nutjob or not.
In large areas, the committee does a good job of weeding out the real nutters.
Here's an out-there idea: a hybrid system where, instead of a primary, all the candidates apply and the committee picks the top 4 and those 4 go on the ballot.
Wow, Marquis Aurbach is posting a lot today about elections and how wonderful they are.
1:06–Unless they were deleted, I have not seen any posts singing the praises of judicial elections. The posts all essentially conced that elections suck, and appointments are better, but that the appointment process does not always provide us with wonderful results either.
did i miss something? what does MAC have to do with promoting elections?
One of the partners wzs cramming down our throats to support judicial appointments.
Question for personal injury attorneys (including defense): Are the judges letting in bio-mechanical experts and reports? I know the law as set forth in Hallmark v. Eldridge, 189 P.3d 646 (Nev. 2008) and its progeny, but how are the judges ruling as to admissibility? Thanks in advance.
Expert reports (from any discipline) are hearsay and inadmissible (not that all judges see it that way).
Off the subject, but who would you recommend as a Vocational Rehabilitation expert? We have 16 year old injured in a roll over. Thank you!
Is it true Eglet actually locked out Dennis Prince from the building?
I, like others above, fully expect an inexperienced political appointment. Of those I have had direct experience with on the list, I have the following thoughts (in alpha order):
Armstrong–would not support. All over the place and doesn't display the temperament or mental acumen needed for the job. Would be a disaster
Atkin–would support. Good credentials. Good attorney. Respectful.
Coffing–would support. Good common sense guy. good credentials. As long as he has someone else write his orders for him, he would be a very good judge
Parker–would support. good credentials and experience. Calm demeanor and respectful. Would make a good judge.
Reynolds. Good credentials. Respectful. My experience with him has been positive. thoughtful and thorough.
Yeagar. Would support. Very good experience. Good temperament. Good judicial officer.
With an appointed system, you wind up with a bunch of judges that you can do nothing about. You are stuck, stuck, stuck. Judges are seldom removed or disciplined for incompetence but rather for egregious misconduct. Appointed judges are meaner- take a look at the federal system. The elective system with appointments for vacancies provides a balance of both systems. An appointed system favors the public lawyers–the Deputy DAs. We need attorneys from private practice.