- Quickdraw McLaw
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Not only is 2020 a presidential election year, it’s also a judicial election year with all of the seats on the Eighth Judicial District Court bench up for grabs. The window for filing starts today and goes through the close of business on Friday, January 17. You can see who has already filed here. If you are interested in filing or have questions about the process, you can get more information on that here. We have seen that several candidates have already put up advertisements and signs. Last time we had a general judicial election like this in 2014, 21 of the departments ended up with no challenger–essentially giving those judges/candidates a free pass to the next term. This time the Legislature has added 6 departments in family court which tend to draw candidates like moths to a flame. There should also be a few open seats with judges who decided to retire or not to run for reelection. What are your predictions? What judges should definitely have a challenger? Any guesses on how many departments are uncontested? There are also two spots on the Supreme Court up for reelection and one spot on the Court of Appeals. Any predictions on those? And don’t forget the five justice court openings throughout Clark County…will those be hot races?
Here's one of those things that I never learned in law school, but wish I had: the role insurance of all different types plays in litigation.
Anyone know of a good resource for when / how / whether you as a defense attorney should have clients notify / submit a claim to their insurance and when /how you as a claimant's attorney should notify a defendant's insurance (if you can find out pre-litigation whether there is any insurance)?
Looking at issues involving things like E&O insurance for nonprofit board members, or contractor's bonds, or insurance for trustees, etc.
You should notify them early and often. They will often deny initially and you will have to follow up. Maybe consult with a coverage lawyer who can point you in the right direction, but generally speaking, if there is any chance of coverage, you should put the insurers on notice.
The clients insurance policy will dictate the requirements of notice of a claim. The definition of when a claim arose, or arises, can be tricky so they need to notify and you should stay out of that process other than advising them to do it. As a general rule I ALWAYS place in an email to the client that they should tender any and all claims to all policies immediately, if they have not already done so. Typical claimants counsel will have already made claims direct to the business prior to litigation – if you haven't, you should have. Sometimes a claim is not the filing of a lawsuit – but rather notice to the EEOC or NERC, etc. Always tell clients to notify their carrier(s). Always tell employers/businesses to do the same if you rep a claimant.
I am in commercial litigation where so claims I defend are very rarely covered by insurance. I still always tell clients to put their carrier on notice and tender the claim. I typically do this and a litigation hold letter right at the beginning.
As of 11:14, there are 46 filings. I wish we had a cheat sheet of who was represented by which political consultant–i.e. Dave Thomas or Tom Letizia. It is important to remember that candidates have a week or two after this period to withdraw their filings so someone could appear to have drawn an opponent and then have that opponent withdraw and proceed unopposed.
Look at the filing information and see how many are "c/o Letizia Agency". Was surprised to see Carli Kierny retained Letizia.
As the NSC has held that a judge can not be recalled and the legislature only meets every other year for 120 days rendering impeachment illusory, no judge should ever be elected by default. To allow such an outcome effectively disenfranchises the voters despite the immense power a judge has over the electorate's freedoms, liberty and property. The system should be amended to add a "no" option and require an unopposed judge/candidate to still receive a majority of the votes cast to be declared the winner. an incumbent doing a good job should have no difficulties meeting such a burden yet give the voters the ability to remove a judge they don't believe should have the position but is unopposed.
Until such a change to our laws is enacted, no judge/candidate should ever be allowed to remain unopposed.
This is your retired Vegas lawyer in St. George – I check in on this blog from time to time – mostly to remind myself how much I do not miss the legal situation/stress in Vegas – it seems so stressful – I do miss my friends but some visit from time to time – there is some wisdom in repeating advice and confirming what people have said throughout time and that is to take a little slower today and try not to worry so much about work. I realize that is easy to say from the outskirts of St. George on a nice day with not much to do – but I truly wish I would have done it more and echo what those old people before me have said and so – take it slow my friends – SGWW
Here is a question for your discussion: Should a judicial candidate be automatically disqualified, or just unmercifully ridiculed for maintaining an AOL email addy on her candidacy filing?
Asking for an ALLF
Family Court, for all intents and purposes, actually has about 12 vacancies–six new seats, four retiring judges, and at least two low-rated controversial judges guaranteed to attract opposition(which, to a large extent, has already occurred).
BTW, there is a candidate who is a former judge, who was defeated in a retention election, who now has a billboard on the highway and represents themselves as being "Judge." Not "Former Judge" or "Retired Judge" but "Judge."
Quite unethical.
Maybe instead of pussy-footing around, just name the person if, in fact, there is such an actual billboard.
Look closer as you are whipping down the freeway. Bill Gonzalez's signs all say "Former Judge." Then return your eyes to the freeway because I do not want to be hit by a distracted driver.
But I have to pussyfoot around because the person attempts to create plausible deniability(in my view), and, for all I know, may have succeeded in doing so. I didn't want to identify them directly until I could be 100% certain. So, as my travels would have it, I drove past the billboard again, within the last half-hour, and this time I pulled the car over so I could really examine the billboard.
It does, after all, include the word "former" before "judge", but the word "former" is on a separate line from "judge", and is in a much, much smaller font size with much thinner letters.
It appears to be designed so that the motorist going by at a rapid clip, and not really consciously looking at road side advertising, would only see "Judge" and never see the word "former." In fact, even after I pulled over and stopped the car completely, it still took me a moment to see the "former" part.
The "former" part, in addition to being in a much smaller font, and much thinner letters, is also in a different color–so that the letters virtually vanish into the background.
Graphically speaking, it is crushingly obvious(to me, at least) that the word "former" was only included because it must be included, but I believe there was an obvious, conscious effort to make it as inconspicuous as possible.
And from what I recall of past written opinions(advisory and otherwise) to avoid misunderstandings, "former" and "judge" are to be equally prominent.
So, although I have an opinion as to ethical implications of this matter, since I can't be certain as to whether a disciplinary board would rule it as a violation, I'm not going to single out the individual.
If it turns out I'm wrong, then I'm glad I didn't single them out. But if I'm right, it will come to the forefront soon enough.
At any rate, I will concede that this is probably small potatoes in comparison to the ethical issues which will be ultimately alleged in some of these judicial races.
The ethical opinion (Nevada Commission on Judicial Ethics) you may be referring to has to do with alternate and pro tem judges. The decision clearly states, in both cases, alternate and pro tem may be included before the word judge. No distinction is made as to type style or visibility issues between the words. By extension, someone who actually held the office of judge, can say 'former' judge. He had the title, he gets to use it. What you can not do, unless you are an incumbent, is wear a robe in any picture for campaign purposes.
The opinions related to use of alternate and pro tem in campaign materials were addressed in the Nevada Standing Committee on Judicial Ethics and Election Practices in JE06-014 and JE08-006. Alternate and pro tem yes, robe absolutely not.
I think 4:25 is correct as to the opinions on this issue.
I also agree with 4:02 that if the word "former", is a lot less prominent than "judge", and in a different font size, and smaller letters, that such may reflect a conscious attempt to have motorists focus on "judge" and hopefully not even notice "former."
That is probably the case, but probably not a violation. I may agree that it can be construed as an attempt to mislead(by creating the impression of current incumbency), but others could reasonably argue such intent cannot clearly be established merely by stressing the size and prominence of certain words and letters.
2:42 and 4:02 here. I do soften and qualify what I wrote in 2:42(that it's unethical), now that I realize that the word "former" is included(read: somewhat buried) in the sign.
But I still stand by what I wrote in 4:02,and do not totally retract my concerns, those being that I think it was designed so the word "former" would be as inconspicuous as possible to motorists moving by at a rapid clip, and that all they would really notice is "judge."
But if the candidate is complying by using the word "former", but is being as creative as they can about what they do want, or do not want to, emphasize, I can certainly understand those who say no violation occurred.
ALL politics is emphasizing what you want and de-emphasizing (or, outright discrediting) what you don't. This small 'former' and large 'judge' is nothing new under the sun. Will it result in a complaint? You bet.
What Supreme Court spot is open other than Gibbons? If it is Pickering, her opponent has my support.
I'm glad Judge Sullivan is running again. I heard a rumor that he was retiring.
Can someone please run in Depts 28 and 31? Pretty please?
10:17–then why don't you run? I don't even know, off the top of my head,
who is in those departments, but your approach reminds me of a recurring issue.
Certain attorneys will be disgruntled with the rulings on a particular case and then insist someone should run against such judge, which raises two questions. First, if you feel so strongly about it, fight your own fights and you yourself should sign up to run. Secondly, when someone does agree to run, upon urging of disgruntled attorneys, such disgruntled attorneys usually do little or nothing to support or contribute to such candidate.
Because I have zero personal desire to be an elected judge.