Yes I am doing pro bono work during the pandemic for exactly the reason indicated above: demand is up. My mortgage is paid. My rent is paid on my office. I am surviving. Many people are not. It is just 2 cases but will hopefully get these people pointed in the right direction.
Guest
Anonymous
May 20, 2020 5:00 pm
I only do provide bono work with Nevada Legal, because they are nicer than Legal Aid and Babs Buckley.
NLS is so much more difficult to deal with than LACSN. However I might be biased because NLS actually had a staff attorney show up at an unemployment hearing and represent an ex-employee of our firm who had been caught repeatedly looking at dating websites and porn on the employee's computer. The employee lost on a for cause basis. NLS then came and solicited our firm to do pro bono through them. Yeah no.
11:11– Yeah have to agree that you really came across as a jerk. Time is a valuable commodity; money is a valuable commodity. If a legal aid organization took a position adversarial against my firm, I would not think twice about allocating where I donate my time and money elsewhere. It is not retaliation; it is common sense.
I volunteered at the VA at or right before pandemi. I continue to volunteer despite the horrid Bar and BOGs, because I have class. It is the right thing to help other people.
I agree, the true heroes of our profession are the attorneys who do provide bono work. I go to the annual luncheon, and I see the same names every year, the true class as you say. These are usually solos I see who the Nevada Supreme Court goes after. Screw the NSC.
10:09. There are some quality candidates who are vying to unseat current Bogs. I am fairly certain voting is over soon.
Guest
Anonymous
May 20, 2020 5:44 pm
I always have active Pro Bono cases in my firm, but almost never from the Pro Bono Project. I found that the people who come to me from no referral source are in greater need then those assigned through the Pro Bono Project. I also like that I get no recognition for this work.
Exactly. I know people who do tons of pro bono but won't even report it on their annual bar forms. I remember hearing someone joke about "the sheet of shame" at LACSN where they track firms they think aren't doing pro bono and I was completely disgusted.
I am not voting for anyone who allows Hardesty to be a chancellor, regents or Nevada Supreme Court Justices.
Guest
Anonymous
May 20, 2020 7:40 pm
I'm taking several extra cases through the LACSN. The way I figure it, if I was a doctor, I'd want to be volunteering for extra shifts and helping any way I could. Since I can't help on the medical front, I'd like to think that volunteering through LACSN is the professional equivalent.
Guest
Anonymous
May 20, 2020 10:12 pm
As far as Steven Horsford, I'm not taking a position on whether that affair should induce him to resign and/or abandon his re-election attempt.
But I am confused by the moral selectivity that always seems to surround matters when sitting married politicians get busted for an affair.
In the few cases where the politician decides to leave his wife and marry the paramour, if he is successful in obtaining a fairly quiet, uncontested divorce(and thus no salacious details are made public as to his marriage), people tend to react as follows: it's a private matter. Most adults are eventually divorced at some point. The marriage simply didn't work. Perhaps he will find lasting happiness with his new wife.
But in the cases where the guy tries to preserve his family, the girl friend makes things very public, and the politician gets barbecued by the press and public, often to the extent it ends their political career.
And perhaps in many cases the guy deserves his career being destroyed. Male politicians leveraging their positions of power into sexual affairs with much younger impressionable woman, who by comparison, have almost no power or status, raises many serious issues.
But it seem in the relatively few cases where the guy actually leaves his wife for the girlfriend, and obtains a quiet drama-free divorce from his wife, there seems to be no real repercussions when compared to the situations where the politician decides not to abandon his family.
Horsford's children would presumably be far better off if their dad remains with them and makes amends, if he is sincere about wanting the family to heal from what he put them through. But had he dumped his children to be with this young woman(who makes no secret of the fact she loved Horford and wanted to be with him) his children would have presumably been far worse off for it.
That all said, politicians never learn. They can lie, bankrupt the country, embroil us in pointless wars, and still get re-elected, but the public will not forgive extra-marital affairs. The public will get them for that(See "Ides Of March"). Getting involved in an extra-marital affair will eventually explode into a public mess, and it is one thing the public won't forgive.(Exceptions would be Bill Clinton's extra-marital affairs not derailing him, or Trump's colorful past not hurting him. But those mere mortals who are not Clinton or Trump, they will pay the price for such conduct)
I don't have a particularly strong opinion about this one way or another as far as the politics go, but this is one of the most well reasoned comments in the history of this blog.
All that said, a man who just up and leaves his wife, and especially his kids, for another woman is usually a giant piece of shit. Sometimes those giant pieces of shit are still effective public servants. Humans are complicated.
4:24,and this complexity is always at the root of these matters, particularly when some insist on framing it in terms of two extreme polar opposite moral choices, and that we must either be in one camp or the other. This destroys all nuance and the shades of gray that dominate most moral dilemmas.
So, although 4:24 graciously gives 3:12 the commendation as being the best post in some time, 4:24 actually edges out 3;12, and here's why:
We are constantly challenged with this dilemma, and it is drummed into us that we have a shifty, self-serving moral barometer, and that we are trying to excuse hideous conduct, when we suggest that human nature is often not a black/white, yin/yang, yes/no, bad/good choice.
On a talk radio program this morning, the commentator insisted that we could not trust the congressman to represent our interests if he can't even be trusted to be faithful to his own wife. But honesty and honor are more malleable concepts than they appear. There are in fact people who cheat on their spouse who would never be dishonest in any financial sense. There are people who cheat on their spouse who are the first to help others in times of need such as natural disasters.
So,4:24 has the champion post because it is a rare human being who can so effectively separate their personal/moral views from the dynamics of logic and reality.
Many of us(including me and 4:24) view a guy as a POS for leaving his wife and children, but the hard truth is that some of these guys have real honor and decency in other facets of their life. As 4:24 points out, humans are complicated, and we will never really understand it beyond that observation. It's just the way it is, and always will be.
4:24 and 4:48–yes there are people who behave this way but are honorable in other facets of their life.
But most of the time people who act this way have other moral challenges and may be somewhat narcissistic, opportunistic and not reasonably empathetic to the needs of others.
Now, granted, there are often sound reasons to leave a marriage. But when it's situations where a successful man leaves a loving, supportive wife, and children who adore him and need him, to be with some young attractive woman, usually there are problems that reach well beyond one's lack of marital monogamy.
Often that is not someone we can rely upon to care enough about others or to make reasonable and limited personal sacrifices in order to help others.
My observations are just general in nature, and not a commentary on Horsford's specific situation. I will never even remotely know all the things I would need to know about the congressman's situation in order to legitimately judge his conduct. But for many voters who previously intended to support the congressman, what has now been reported, and what has now been admitted, will supply them sufficient "moral" fodder to influence their decision as to whether to continue to stand by him.
Heard some real good things from people in his district, but if his marital/domestic woes are more important to those voters than how effective he can or can't be for the district, that is a call they will make.
4:32 is right about Horsford having a lot more baggage, and it goes at least as far back as when Horsford was running the job training programs for the culinary. The late Jim Rogers had Horsford pegged. But also 4:32, the decade long affair is more than "roving eye," no?
That is why, at the age of 55, I am single. I am having the best time of my life right now. But when I was in my twenties and thirties, women would not give me the time of day, because I was 40 looking 16 (and short). Hell, I used to get carded buying liquor consistently into my early fifties. Now, I have transcended cute to handsome, and I'm making up for it by banging all the strippers I can. (Also, looking like a short high schooler, I could never launch a successful career as a trial attorney. "He's just a kid!" I never had "the look.") But my point is this: People look askance at you if you've never married. Indeed, it's more acceptable to be married and divorced (even multiple times) than to have never been married. Being single all your life is political dynamite, too.
I hope you find a good woman to settle down with and have lots of babies.
Guest
Anonymous
May 20, 2020 10:33 pm
3:12. These guys, who engage in this conduct, IMO, don't deserve to continue in office. But that's my general view. Every situation is different. The devil is in the details
But I agree with the irony you point out. If the politician is lucky enough to get a quick and quiet divorce from his wife, and then marries the girlfriend, there is often not any super serious fall out. And yet under this scenario his children probably suffer greatly form his leaving the family home for someone else.
But in the instances where he refuses to leave his wife, and the affair then becomes public, the politician is often doomed, even though in this situation most of the time his children are better off in the long run when their dad stays in the home.
Now it could be a just result if his career ends, I don't know. But it is not fair or accurate to compare him to the John Ensign situation,as Horsford used no congressional or campaign funds(although even if he just used his salary, that in a way is public funds as we tax payers pay him a salary to represent us, not to pursue affairs).
And to compare him to that Rueben ihunen(spelling!)is also not accurate as that situation was based on purported sexual harassment of staff.
Guest
Anonymous
May 20, 2020 10:44 pm
3:33–he is Ruben Kihuen. And, in fact, he also served the same congressional district. First it was Horsford, but he lost re-election, and very narrowly, to Crescent Hardy(a rural conservative republican) in a Pro-Republican tidal wave, and then Hardy, after just two years in office, lost the seat to Kihuen, who had to yield the seat to fellow democrat Horsford due to Kihuen's own issues.
Seems like a seat that turns over often based sometimes on behavior of the occupant. But what is a shame, on its face, is that one seldom gets a second chance. Horsford got that rare second chance and won back the seat that he initially could not hold. But he may have now blown it.
The Court adopted the proposal of the Nevada Board of Bar Examiners to ditch the MBE and to conduct the rest of the exam online. Applicants can withdraw and request a full refund as long as requested more than five days before the first day of the exam, or applicants can defer their registration to the February or July 2021 administrations. Justices Stiglich and Silver dissented, as they would've rather delayed the exam until September.
I find this development absurd. IF the MBE is not necessary, then why not ditch it permanently? Either it's necessary or it isn't. When there's a problem, you don't indulge the problem.
Guest
Anonymous
May 21, 2020 3:15 pm
Regarding the need for legal services at Clark County Legal Services, I don't trust any of their claims or statistics.
Do you trust that the amount of legal needs and economically disadvantaged people needing legal services has increased? You don't have to trust LASCN statistics to trust that the need for pro bono publico services is skyrocketing.
May 21, 2020 at 9:19 AM – Dead on correct. Just in my own very small township, I have everything from strong arm evictions to an illegal foreclosure to deal with. LASCN and NLS both are badly needed.
"Economically disadvantaged people" = people who are facing the consequences of a lifetime (usually, generations) of bad decisions. Not every "skyrocketing need" deserves attention. Sometimes consequences makes better citizens. When I was a kid, our landlord and his crew knocked on our door and collected rent on the first of every month. If you didn't pay, they started packing your stuff up. Mom always had rent. Funny how that works.
The poors are the worst! Am I right? If only they were awesome like me, they'd have money and a broken soul from practicing law. Eviction yesterday, eviction today and evictions forever! Get your shit together poors!
11:57– Representing the worst in our profession. As Jordan indicates (who is no bleeding heart if you know him), illegal foreclosures and strong arm evictions in violation of the law are occurring to people who are guilty of no bad decisions other than renting from a landlord who violates the law. Yes "a lifetime of bad decisions" led 440,744 people to file unemployment claims during pandemic closures according to DETR.
Yes I am doing pro bono work during the pandemic for exactly the reason indicated above: demand is up. My mortgage is paid. My rent is paid on my office. I am surviving. Many people are not. It is just 2 cases but will hopefully get these people pointed in the right direction.
I only do provide bono work with Nevada Legal, because they are nicer than Legal Aid and Babs Buckley.
NLS is so much more difficult to deal with than LACSN. However I might be biased because NLS actually had a staff attorney show up at an unemployment hearing and represent an ex-employee of our firm who had been caught repeatedly looking at dating websites and porn on the employee's computer. The employee lost on a for cause basis. NLS then came and solicited our firm to do pro bono through them. Yeah no.
You retaliated against a public-interest organization for representing a client by refusing to do charitable work with them, classy.
11:11 is a jerk. 10:15 is spot on.
My time is valuable. I am a woman in a high stress profession with children. I will volunteer with whatever organization I want. I am the volunteer.
11:11– Yeah have to agree that you really came across as a jerk. Time is a valuable commodity; money is a valuable commodity. If a legal aid organization took a position adversarial against my firm, I would not think twice about allocating where I donate my time and money elsewhere. It is not retaliation; it is common sense.
12:11 and 1:06 got it right.
I volunteered at the VA at or right before pandemi. I continue to volunteer despite the horrid Bar and BOGs, because I have class. It is the right thing to help other people.
I agree, the true heroes of our profession are the attorneys who do provide bono work. I go to the annual luncheon, and I see the same names every year, the true class as you say. These are usually solos I see who the Nevada Supreme Court goes after. Screw the NSC.
10:21+1 here. You have my support. I will start referring cases to pro bono law firms.
10:09. There are some quality candidates who are vying to unseat current Bogs. I am fairly certain voting is over soon.
I always have active Pro Bono cases in my firm, but almost never from the Pro Bono Project. I found that the people who come to me from no referral source are in greater need then those assigned through the Pro Bono Project. I also like that I get no recognition for this work.
Bless you.
Exactly. I know people who do tons of pro bono but won't even report it on their annual bar forms. I remember hearing someone joke about "the sheet of shame" at LACSN where they track firms they think aren't doing pro bono and I was completely disgusted.
The "Sheet of Shame" is a name that originated at the Access to Justice Commission by Justice Hardesty.
I am not voting for anyone who allows Hardesty to be a chancellor, regents or Nevada Supreme Court Justices.
I'm taking several extra cases through the LACSN. The way I figure it, if I was a doctor, I'd want to be volunteering for extra shifts and helping any way I could. Since I can't help on the medical front, I'd like to think that volunteering through LACSN is the professional equivalent.
As far as Steven Horsford, I'm not taking a position on whether that affair should induce him to resign and/or abandon his re-election attempt.
But I am confused by the moral selectivity that always seems to surround matters when sitting married politicians get busted for an affair.
In the few cases where the politician decides to leave his wife and marry the paramour, if he is successful in obtaining a fairly quiet, uncontested divorce(and thus no salacious details are made public as to his marriage), people tend to react as follows: it's a private matter. Most adults are eventually divorced at some point. The marriage simply didn't work. Perhaps he will find lasting happiness with his new wife.
But in the cases where the guy tries to preserve his family, the girl friend makes things very public, and the politician gets barbecued by the press and public, often to the extent it ends their political career.
And perhaps in many cases the guy deserves his career being destroyed. Male politicians leveraging their positions of power into sexual affairs with much younger impressionable woman, who by comparison, have almost no power or status, raises many serious issues.
But it seem in the relatively few cases where the guy actually leaves his wife for the girlfriend, and obtains a quiet drama-free divorce from his wife, there seems to be no real repercussions when compared to the situations where the politician decides not to abandon his family.
Horsford's children would presumably be far better off if their dad remains with them and makes amends, if he is sincere about wanting the family to heal from what he put them through. But had he dumped his children to be with this young woman(who makes no secret of the fact she loved Horford and wanted to be with him) his children would have presumably been far worse off for it.
That all said, politicians never learn. They can lie, bankrupt the country, embroil us in pointless wars, and still get re-elected, but the public will not forgive extra-marital affairs. The public will get them for that(See "Ides Of March"). Getting involved in an extra-marital affair will eventually explode into a public mess, and it is one thing the public won't forgive.(Exceptions would be Bill Clinton's extra-marital affairs not derailing him, or Trump's colorful past not hurting him. But those mere mortals who are not Clinton or Trump, they will pay the price for such conduct)
I don't have a particularly strong opinion about this one way or another as far as the politics go, but this is one of the most well reasoned comments in the history of this blog.
All that said, a man who just up and leaves his wife, and especially his kids, for another woman is usually a giant piece of shit. Sometimes those giant pieces of shit are still effective public servants. Humans are complicated.
Horsford has a lot of other baggage other than a roving eye.
4:24,and this complexity is always at the root of these matters, particularly when some insist on framing it in terms of two extreme polar opposite moral choices, and that we must either be in one camp or the other. This destroys all nuance and the shades of gray that dominate most moral dilemmas.
So, although 4:24 graciously gives 3:12 the commendation as being the best post in some time, 4:24 actually edges out 3;12, and here's why:
We are constantly challenged with this dilemma, and it is drummed into us that we have a shifty, self-serving moral barometer, and that we are trying to excuse hideous conduct, when we suggest that human nature is often not a black/white, yin/yang, yes/no, bad/good choice.
On a talk radio program this morning, the commentator insisted that we could not trust the congressman to represent our interests if he can't even be trusted to be faithful to his own wife. But honesty and honor are more malleable concepts than they appear. There are in fact people who cheat on their spouse who would never be dishonest in any financial sense. There are people who cheat on their spouse who are the first to help others in times of need such as natural disasters.
So,4:24 has the champion post because it is a rare human being who can so effectively separate their personal/moral views from the dynamics of logic and reality.
Many of us(including me and 4:24) view a guy as a POS for leaving his wife and children, but the hard truth is that some of these guys have real honor and decency in other facets of their life. As 4:24 points out, humans are complicated, and we will never really understand it beyond that observation. It's just the way it is, and always will be.
4:24 and 4:48–yes there are people who behave this way but are honorable in other facets of their life.
But most of the time people who act this way have other moral challenges and may be somewhat narcissistic, opportunistic and not reasonably empathetic to the needs of others.
Now, granted, there are often sound reasons to leave a marriage. But when it's situations where a successful man leaves a loving, supportive wife, and children who adore him and need him, to be with some young attractive woman, usually there are problems that reach well beyond one's lack of marital monogamy.
Often that is not someone we can rely upon to care enough about others or to make reasonable and limited personal sacrifices in order to help others.
My observations are just general in nature, and not a commentary on Horsford's specific situation. I will never even remotely know all the things I would need to know about the congressman's situation in order to legitimately judge his conduct. But for many voters who previously intended to support the congressman, what has now been reported, and what has now been admitted, will supply them sufficient "moral" fodder to influence their decision as to whether to continue to stand by him.
Heard some real good things from people in his district, but if his marital/domestic woes are more important to those voters than how effective he can or can't be for the district, that is a call they will make.
Pleasantly surprised at the elevated discussion. Very sweet. No idea who the cat is, but I enjoyed the posts.
4:32 is right about Horsford having a lot more baggage, and it goes at least as far back as when Horsford was running the job training programs for the culinary. The late Jim Rogers had Horsford pegged. But also 4:32, the decade long affair is more than "roving eye," no?
That is why, at the age of 55, I am single. I am having the best time of my life right now. But when I was in my twenties and thirties, women would not give me the time of day, because I was 40 looking 16 (and short). Hell, I used to get carded buying liquor consistently into my early fifties. Now, I have transcended cute to handsome, and I'm making up for it by banging all the strippers I can. (Also, looking like a short high schooler, I could never launch a successful career as a trial attorney. "He's just a kid!" I never had "the look.") But my point is this: People look askance at you if you've never married. Indeed, it's more acceptable to be married and divorced (even multiple times) than to have never been married. Being single all your life is political dynamite, too.
I hope you find a good woman to settle down with and have lots of babies.
3:12. These guys, who engage in this conduct, IMO, don't deserve to continue in office. But that's my general view. Every situation is different. The devil is in the details
But I agree with the irony you point out. If the politician is lucky enough to get a quick and quiet divorce from his wife, and then marries the girlfriend, there is often not any super serious fall out. And yet under this scenario his children probably suffer greatly form his leaving the family home for someone else.
But in the instances where he refuses to leave his wife, and the affair then becomes public, the politician is often doomed, even though in this situation most of the time his children are better off in the long run when their dad stays in the home.
Now it could be a just result if his career ends, I don't know. But it is not fair or accurate to compare him to the John Ensign situation,as Horsford used no congressional or campaign funds(although even if he just used his salary, that in a way is public funds as we tax payers pay him a salary to represent us, not to pursue affairs).
And to compare him to that Rueben ihunen(spelling!)is also not accurate as that situation was based on purported sexual harassment of staff.
3:33–he is Ruben Kihuen. And, in fact, he also served the same congressional district. First it was Horsford, but he lost re-election, and very narrowly, to Crescent Hardy(a rural conservative republican) in a Pro-Republican tidal wave, and then Hardy, after just two years in office, lost the seat to Kihuen, who had to yield the seat to fellow democrat Horsford due to Kihuen's own issues.
Seems like a seat that turns over often based sometimes on behavior of the occupant. But what is a shame, on its face, is that one seldom gets a second chance. Horsford got that rare second chance and won back the seat that he initially could not hold. But he may have now blown it.
The Nevada Supremes, by a 5-2 vote, entered an order today permitting modifications to the bar exam for the July 2020 administration: http://caseinfo.nvsupremecourt.us/document/view.do?csNameID=58947&csIID=58947&deLinkID=771346&onBaseDocumentNumber=20-19320
The Court adopted the proposal of the Nevada Board of Bar Examiners to ditch the MBE and to conduct the rest of the exam online. Applicants can withdraw and request a full refund as long as requested more than five days before the first day of the exam, or applicants can defer their registration to the February or July 2021 administrations. Justices Stiglich and Silver dissented, as they would've rather delayed the exam until September.
I knew I liked Stiglich.
Bye. Pickering.
At least we didn't do diploma privilege like Utah! Although for them, it's meaningless because their pass rate is usually north of 90%, unlike Nevada.
This is just for this coming bar, right? Not other bars.
Yeah, the Stig has grown on me.
I find this development absurd. IF the MBE is not necessary, then why not ditch it permanently? Either it's necessary or it isn't. When there's a problem, you don't indulge the problem.
Regarding the need for legal services at Clark County Legal Services, I don't trust any of their claims or statistics.
Do you trust that the amount of legal needs and economically disadvantaged people needing legal services has increased? You don't have to trust LASCN statistics to trust that the need for pro bono publico services is skyrocketing.
May 21, 2020 at 9:19 AM – Dead on correct. Just in my own very small township, I have everything from strong arm evictions to an illegal foreclosure to deal with. LASCN and NLS both are badly needed.
"Economically disadvantaged people" = people who are facing the consequences of a lifetime (usually, generations) of bad decisions. Not every "skyrocketing need" deserves attention. Sometimes consequences makes better citizens. When I was a kid, our landlord and his crew knocked on our door and collected rent on the first of every month. If you didn't pay, they started packing your stuff up. Mom always had rent. Funny how that works.
The poors are the worst! Am I right? If only they were awesome like me, they'd have money and a broken soul from practicing law. Eviction yesterday, eviction today and evictions forever! Get your shit together poors!
11:57– Representing the worst in our profession. As Jordan indicates (who is no bleeding heart if you know him), illegal foreclosures and strong arm evictions in violation of the law are occurring to people who are guilty of no bad decisions other than renting from a landlord who violates the law. Yes "a lifetime of bad decisions" led 440,744 people to file unemployment claims during pandemic closures according to DETR.
I feel bad for the hundreds of thousands of unemployment applicants who have not received a dime due to the Governor's incredible incompetence.