- Quickdraw McLaw
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- Head over to SCOTUSblog to follow the latest on the end of term news and decisions of the Supreme Court, including a reinstatement of the Trump travel ban. [Las Vegas Sun]
- DUI ignition locks are coming. [Las Vegas Weekly]
- Lauri Thompson, a UNLV law professor and local attorney, was also once part of GLOW. [LawNewz]
Any news about ATMS? Last we heard was from an ATMS associate who indicated that ATMS has moved to an undisclosed location that was in pretty bad shape. Any updates???? Please tell me that Dave Mortensen is working in some shit-hole office ….
When my office was in Hughes Center I'd often see Lauri Thompson walking to or from the parking garage. She has a penchant for skirts and shoes that make it very clear that her dancer's legs are still there. Always makes my lawyer hot list.
I'd like to bend her over a barrel and show her the 50 states. Lawyer HOT!!
Jesus 12:29. A little over the top man.
Remind me not to use your restroom, gross.
To all of the foreclosure practitioners, United States Supreme Court refused Cert on Bourne Valley this morning. So the same statute is unconstitutional in Federal court and constitutional in state court.
Here comes the flood of cases that were held back by all the stays in state court. And now all these cases will need to be worked through discovery and go to trial.
Gonna be a shit-show (again).
Total shitshow with Federal cases going one way and state cases going the other way. Just keep billing.
Seems like SCOTUS has been applying the "We don't want to deal with it" standard for cert more often lately.
Does this mean federal court cases are effectively over? Summary judgment in favor of the banks? I don't practice this area of law, but it's an interesting legal conundrum.
I once saw Lauri give a very good and informative lecture on sports and intellectual property. The "Super Bowl Shuffle" came up and she got a lot of blank stares from the audience (most of whom were toddlers in 1985). She then proceeded to flawlessly bust a move (while wearing the skirt and shoes referenced by 9:47) and then segued back into her lecture without missing a literal or figurative beat. I was impressed.
Do you know the muffin man, the muffin man??? I wonder if ATMS new building serves hot muffins with tea.
Last I heard, the Muffin Man was seated at the table in the laboratory of the Utility Muffin Research kitchen.
Since there's people here who enjoy ATMS getting a good beating, Bulla sanctioned them pretty hard on Friday for their client failing to follow through on discovery and depos. Bulla making them pay for opposing counsel's travel and board to out of state to conduct depos now.
Article in the RJ which is quite insulting to the intelligence, and which is quite elitist in tone.
The headline is that Nevada is among the worst states for working mothers. That is, of course, a highly legitimate issue. But instead of profiling real life cases of struggling, single working mothers, they focus on a married couple where both are successful attorneys. And the female attorney received 12 weeks of paid maternity leave, while the whole time the male attorney apparently remained fully employed and fully-compensated the whole time.
This attorney, who is also married to an attorney, is probably in the upper one percentile of the most fortunate and successful working mothers. Why devote virtually the entire article to detailing her supposedly difficult plight(which, in itself, is a ludicrous premise)
when there are hoards of single working moms struggling at the poverty level?
Maybe because attorney working mothers also suffer and struggle. Everyone struggles to make ends meet, not just the working poor. Are your "single working moms" paying $1350 a month for the next 15 years to pay back student loans? Are your "single working moms" paying $647 per month for healthcare for themselves and two children (and that is with my employer subsidy)? Add to that daycare for both my children at $1500 per month. I may make six figures, but at the end of the day, after taxes, housing, food, daycare, healthcare, and my student loan payments, I'm broke. I often wonder why I leave my children in the care of others for 10 plus hours a day when in the end, I have nothing to show for it but a thankless career.
Just quit. Give up. The whambulance is on the way to retrieve your sniveling butt.
12:27 p.m. I feel your pain. Hopefully, your job will afford you more time off / flexible schedule. I have a 3 1/2 year old and was starting to get really depressed by leaving her so much. Today, I took her to a gym camp and she will be there till 3pm. I live down the street so I am working from home and will pick her up at 3 p.m. and play with her the rest of the day. I am tired of wasting my life in traffic and not seeing her until she is about ready to go to bed. Life is about balance. Obviously, this is not what a get to do everyday, but I have learned to take it when I can. Good luck to you and your family.
Why don't you just find a good man to marry to be a stay-at-home Dad? I know lots of men who would love to stay home and take care of kids all day.
Whaboom!!!!!!
Wow 12:27. The struggles you have are real. Why does everyone seem to play the "poor me" routine? If you don't like your life, then change it. Be innovative, take a risk and follow your passion. It is simple, not easy, but simple. We all make choices in life. You have chosen your path, but if your are not happy – change it.
1:44 vastly over-simplifies almost everyone's life.
1:44 has it completely correct. Life is all about determining what is important to you, and what things you are willing to compromise/give up to obtain the important items.
If spending greater time with your children, you may have to sacrifice on the financial areas, but many families raise their children without expensive camps, private schools, elite daycare, etc.
"Everyone struggles to make ends meet, not just the working poor." Many, but far from "everyone." People have varying planning skills and different priorities. Some people choose their school based on price and availability of aid or choose a different career if the student loans will be too great in a certain direction. They choose where they live based on affordability. They plan families around their finances and the ability of the parents to care for the children. They choose housing and vehicles that result in money left over at the end of the month, so they won't have to live hand-to-mouth (a lot of flexibility in this area). These are choices. Coming from a lower working class background gave me enough sense and patience to live below my means while saving, go to a law school with reasonable costs, wait to start a family, etc. Normal people are rolling their eyes at a 2-attorney family complaining about expenses. Most working class people would not even consider the woman in the article to be a "working mother," which to a working class person means a mother who has no choice but to work to make ends meet.
This is all true. However, it's also true that the middle class has been continuously eroded for the past three decades (or more). It is becoming harder and harder to have money left over at the end of the month, even for an attorney making six figures.
11:55 here again. I hear what 12:27 is saying and my situation, and expenses, are eerily similar, and it does not leave much over at the end of the months.
But, I still contend that we, and others who are fortunate enough, and yes, work hard and sacrifice enough, to achieve being
attorneys, are not the people who should have been the face of the article.
Most of us will advance and earn more throughout the years(eventually making student loans and the sacrifices of the early, lean years a distant memory). But for the masses of working mothers out there, those mothers will actually become less employable and less healthy as they age. Therein lies the difference. Most attorneys have a real ability through hard work and perseverance to improve over the years. Young mothers at the poverty level do not.
That all said, 12:27 insists it was appropriate to profile this working mom who is an attorney. If so, they should have at least not picked one who is married to an attorney as well. They could have found one who is the sole or primary support of the household. But, no matter how dire the young women in the article claims her plight is, there are two attorney salaries coming into the household. Therefore, I still maintain it was absurd to select her as the face of the suffering masses as to this (very legitimate) issue.
I think the real problem is the title of the article. It appears that the author is trying to make a point that high quality, affordable child care is severely lacking in Nevada, but just did a really crappy job of writing.
12:27 pm here, I am in no way "insisting" that it was appropriate to profile an attorney couple in the article. My gripe was with 11:55am's preposterous notion that only single working moms at the poverty level struggle. I am a single mother of two that makes six figures, but struggles to make ends meet. I'm not looking for sympathy, nor do I want it. But do not for a second believe that just because I'm an attorney that somehow made all money troubles go away.
Come on! It's the RJ. It's not NYT or WaPo. It's a good story for local news. Get over your "case of the Mondays."
This is an interesting discussion. I can empathize with those attorneys working hard for $100k and supporting two kids and paying for child care. It's hard, and it sucks. And structural changes should be made to bring down the cost of education, among other things.
The reality is still that someone making $100k and support two kids–even after paying for childcare, is above where most people are. My first job was making $60k a year, and I had four kids. My income did escalate quickly, but I also remembering having similar if not exact feelings. So I hustled and worked hard to make more.
Then, I had the opportunity to be in a position doling out welfare to people in need. and I realized how great I actually had it. I was never gambling a paycheck just because winning was the only way I would make my bills. I wasn't sleeping around for special favors from creditors, friends or "benefactors". I may have not been putting money away to save, or in some months, may have been digging a deeper hole with credit cards. But I also wasn't in danger of being evicted any day, even though I was behind on my mortage and in over my head on my house. Through those experiences it became clear to me that one person's "needs" are quite different from another person's "needs". I knew some people who were constantly selling their stuff to make their bills, or buying stuff at garage sales cheap to turn around and sell it for a profit. Hard way to make a living. Certainly much harder than my $100k+ desk job.
Good luck to everyone out there struggling.
"Normal people are rolling their eyes at a 2-attorney family complaining about expenses." – I don't think the attorney interviewed was complaining. She gave a lot of credit to her firm and recognized she was the exception. I don't see anywhere in the article where she complained about anything. Plus, it's the RJ. Who knows what she was asked versus what came out in the article.
I agree with 12:41. The RJ could have/should have picked a more appropriate subject for the article, but I don't think the attorney was trying to compare herself to a poverty level working mom. I've heard from many people that her firm's work life balance is really exceptional.
Hey 12:27(3:16) It's 11:55(2:31). Please concentrate on reading a little closer. As far as the "preposterous notion" that only single working mothers at the poverty level struggle, I never said that, nor did I remotely imply it, nor did I ever think it.
In fact I absolutely conceded, and enthusiastically agreed with your point that even attorneys earning a good income could struggle due to enormous student loans, crippling day care and private school costs, etc., etc., etc.
I was merely making the point that when presenting an article on struggling working moms, they should not have profiled a home where both
parents live in the home in an intact marriage, both are full-time attorneys, and the mom receives 12 weeks of paid maternal leave. Despite your struggles and challenges,and admittedly mine as well, are you really so shut off from the world not to realize 90%+ of working moms in the county are far, far worse off? Many of them do not have a spouse or partner, drift from one minimum wage job to another, and if they take off to have a baby they simply don't get paid. My point was that they should have profiled a couple of those people, and not a home with two attorney incomes.
I hate to insult you, but you are so dogged and obstinate about some crystal clear truths I must surmise at least two things:
(1) That, despite your purported struggles, you are somewhat elitist and insulated from the real world. Do you have real flesh and blood clients with real problems reflected in the community, or are you some research/ number-crunching moll, or whatever?
(2) Until you refine your skills, and learn to, at least on some rudimentary level, understand what you are hearing and reading, you should not appear in court nor should you write briefs on behalf of clients. You will get devoured by the first judge you aggressively argue with while you are actually agreeing with them. Most of them(or, at least many of them) are reasonably patient and will allow you to make a record when you don't agree with them. But if a judge says the key to an issue is A, B &C, and you tell him/her how "preposterous" they are for believing that, imagine how they will react when you aggressively argue against them and say the key to an issue is A, B & C–exactly what the judge just said.
Might be a good idea to save such knee-jerk, hyper-aggression to those you actually disagree with on important matters. To attack and condemn people as "preposterous"–who pretty much made the precise observations you did and are largely in agreement, does not bode well for your future.
I think you are being a bit harsh on the commentator, but I think you are essentially correct in your premise that the article should not have focused on the couple and the situation that it did.
I think a lot of this unpleasant debate could have been avoided, as 2:39 indicates, if the article had selected a different headline, different lead-in paragraph, etc. If the main point is about the expensive costs of the daycare and the like, that should have been made clear right from the top and in the headline.
Instead, by headlining it about how working moms struggle, and then to focus on a couple both of who are full-time attorneys working for salary(neither is in private practice with over-head. Both are always guaranteed their pay check like clock work), really misses the boat.
As you suggest, a far better, and far more common face, for the plight of working moms is some single mom who is a cashier. That situation is like a hundred or so times more common than a working mom in a two attorney marriage.
Wow, whaboom, you people need to get a life.
to all the single ladies I can pay you $150 an hour to make me holler. do that 3 times a week and you just paid for child care.
No one is interested in doing the wild thing with you, Jake.
To 6:36: You are the type of commentator who needs to get a life. You apparently have nothing intelligent to say about this or any other topic, nor can you even articulate why you feel this topic is not worthy of debate.
If you are the commentator who never has anything to contribute except a frivolous,yet sweeping condemnation of anyone who wants to discuss a subject with a degree of passion and intelligence, why do you even visit the blog?If you never weigh in on a topic, but merely attack anyone who wants to discuss a topic, why don't you get a life and expend your efforts elsewhere.
Why do people need to "get a life" because they choose to discuss some news story with a degree of passion and vigor? If you feel "get a life" is a sufficient explanation, I can assure you that for all those who weigh in on this issue, or the dozens of other issues, I can assure it is not sufficient.
So,Great One, why don't you enlighten me and the unwashed masses as to why we are stupid and wasting our time to discuss this and the other issues on the blog. Please inform me, and the others, as to what topics are worthy of debate and which would not generate your snide, juvenile condemnation. Again, Great One, I am too stupid to understand why this discussion, concerning the news article about working mothers, is of no interest and import. I suppose we need your permission in the future as to what issues we may discuss
If you have never weighed in on an issue except to condemn people for considering the topics sufficient of discussion, then you are the one who should get a life.
Go read a philosophical tome, or a great work of literature, and let us baboons discuss these topics you are convinced are stupid and insignificant.
Thank you for the rant.
My pleasure.
@11:55/5:36, the following is from your original post:
"This attorney, who is also married to an attorney, is probably in the upper one percentile of the most fortunate and successful working mothers. Why devote virtually the entire article to detailing her supposedly difficult plight(which, in itself, is a ludicrous premise) when there are hoards of single working moms struggling at the poverty level?"
Please explain how you were not saying that it is ludicrous for a mother (married or not) who makes above the poverty line("in the upper one-percentile…") to be struggling. Your own words, it's a "ludicrous premise." Nevermind. Let's move on to today's blog postings.
I have a suggestion, maybe those people who are making a good living, and struggling, go into these lower income communities and do some community service in the form of how expensive it is to raise a child. Welfare and minimum wage jobs don't quite cover the outrageous costs of diapers, formula, child care (which can exceed your weekly income if you're at minimum wage). Go out there and encourage them to get an education, build a budget, understand that there are some real hard core costs that come with raising a child. Yeah, I know, I'm an elitist. I was that mother who was married, had kids, then divorced, with half an income and a father who refused to pay child support, or contribute one dime to any of the costs of the children and I survived, worked, and yes, sadly, couldn't be there for my kids all the time, most times – and they survived and are productive young adults who got an education, know how to budget their money, know they aren't having kids anytime soon, if ever, and I'm ok with that. A little sad I may never have grandchildren, but I know they are fully aware of the responsibilities of having a child.
@10:26, Than you for sharing your story. I'm sorry for the many hardships that you had to endure, but you gave your kids far more than a privileged life ever could have… You gave them life skills and the ability to handle what life will throw at them at unexpected moments. They understand the value of money, the concept of sacrifice and the ability to budget and make informed choices. They also know the difference between needs and wants… something the majority of people, high income earners included, never seem to grasp.
Surprised nobody mentioned the criminal defense attorney who was indicted along with the Vagos motorcycle club members. Disturbing trend going after the lawyers who defend groups. Consigliere types. First the mafia now the biker lawyers. Granted the Vagos are no angels but they are entitled to a defense of their choice. The Vagos refer to their lawyers as "shysters."
https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/courts/los-angeles-defense-attorney-charged-in-racketeering-indictment/