0001
1
2
3
4
5 SUPREME COURT OF NEVADA
6 COMMISSION ON MULTIJURISDICTIONAL PRACTICE
7 PUBLIC HEARING
8
9 Grant Sawyer Building, 555 East Washington Boulevard
10 Las Vegas, Nevada 89101
11
12 Friday, September 28, 2001, 9:00 a.m.
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24 Reported by: Wanda L. Barnes, CCR 676, RPR
25
0002
1 APPEARANCES:
2 THOMAS R. C. WILSON, Chairman
3 HON. JAMES B. AMES
4 BRIDGET ROBB PECK
5 MARGO PISCEVICH
6 HON. JAMES W. HARDESTY
7 JUSTICE NANCY A. BECKER
8 HON. RONALD D. PARRAGUIRRE
9 JOHN H. MOWBRAY
10 GLORIA J. STURMAN
11 NANCY ALLF
12 ALLEN W. KIMBROUGH
13 WILLIAM A. TURNER
14 RICHARD MORGAN
15 NEIL G. GALATZ
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
0003
1 PUBLIC SPEAKERS
2 PAGES
3 DENNIS L. KENNEDY 5 - 16
4 DANIEL J. MC AULIFFE 16 - 37
5 DREW CASS 37 - 48
6 JOHN REDLEIN 48 - 54
7 TROY WALLIN 54 - 63
8 EVA G. CISNEROS 63 - 66
9 TOM BIGGAR 66 - 78
10 SHIRLEY PARRAGUIRRE 78 - 83
11 DEBBIE AMIGONE 83 - 84
12 LEON MEAD II 84 - 98
13 ANTHONY DE MINT 98 - 103
14 JARED SHAFER 103 - 109
15 BERNA L. RHODES-FORD 110
16 KYM CUSHING 111 - 119
17 CHARLES W. SIMMONS 119 - 126
18 CAM FERENBACH 127 - 132
19 ROB BARE and 132 - 142 NORMAN KIRSHMAN
20
21
22
23
24
25
0004
1 CHAIRMAN WILSON: I think we'll try and call
2 this to order.
3 I'm Spike Wilson. I have been asked to chair
4 the meetings of the Supreme Court Commission on
5 Multijurisdictional Practice.
6 We had a hearing in Elko County last week;
7 the Las Vegas hearing is today; and next week we'll be
8 meeting and conducting a hearing in Reno, Nevada.
9 We have a rather tight agenda and we'll take
10 folks in order that they appear on the agenda and try
11 and move it along. It looks like it's going to be a
12 full morning, but at the same time I don't want to limit
13 your comment or limit questions the committee may put
14 for clarification.
15 I hope this meeting will be a substantive
16 discussion because it's a learning experience for the
17 commission and your testimony is necessary and, believe
18 me, it is valuable.
19 I'm going to ask each of the commissioners to
20 introduce himself or herself and then we'll get started.
21 MS. PECK: Bridget Peck from Reno.
22 MR. ADDISON: Matthew Addison from Reno.
23 MS. PISCEVICH: Margo Piscevich from Reno.
24 HON. HARDESTY: Jim Hardesty from Reno.
25 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Spike Wilson.
0005
1 JUSTICE BECKER: State Justice Nancy Becker.
2 HON. PARRAGUIRRE: Ron Parraguirre, Las
3 Vegas.
4 MR. MOWBRAY: John Mowbray, from Henderson,
5 Las Vegas, Carson City and a little bit of Reno.
6 MS. STURMAN: Gloria Sturman, Las Vegas.
7 MS. ALLF: Nancy Allf, Las Vegas.
8 MR. KIMBROUGH: Allen Kimbrough.
9 MR. TURNER: Bill Turner, Las Vegas.
10 MR. MORGAN: Richard Morgan, dean of the Boyd
11 Law School, Las Vegas.
12 MR. GALATZ: Neil Galatz, Las Vegas.
13 CHAIRMAN WILSON: All right. Welcome
14 everybody.
15 Let's get started. Dennis Kennedy.
16 Welcome, Dennis.
17 MR. KENNEDY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
18 members of the committee. I'm Dennis Kennedy. I am a
19 member of the firm Lionel Sawyer & Collins.
20 In the written materials that I submitted I
21 set out briefly my background and experience in this
22 area and the ideas and suggestions that I have for the
23 committee are due in some degree to my experience on the
24 disciplinary committee in southern Nevada, which I
25 chaired for three years, and on matters in this area
0006
1 that came before the disciplinary committee.
2 I have also since leaving the disciplinary
3 committee represented clients in two unauthorized
4 practice matters that came before the state bar where I
5 think all of the issues and concerns that I raise in the
6 written materials arose, and I -- the point of my
7 appearance and my written submission is this.
8 There are some areas of great importance that
9 the committee should consider in whatever
10 recommendations it makes to the Supreme Court, and I've
11 set those out individually in the written materials.
12 Briefly, they are that any regulation of the
13 multijurisdictional practice of law has to address these
14 issues.
15 The first is competence.
16 As the committee knows, Nevada requires
17 graduation from an ABA accredited law school, and in any
18 regulatory scheme for the multijurisdictional practice
19 of law that matter has to be addressed.
20 As the committee knows, in California lawyers
21 are allowed to practice without an ABA accredited law
22 school. Nevada sets its level somewhat higher than
23 that.
24 That's something that any regulatory scheme
25 for a multijurisdictional scheme in Nevada has to
0007
1 address, the issue being are we going to permit
2 graduates of non-ABA accredited graduates to come here
3 to practice under such a scheme.
4 Nevada has a CLE requirement including both
5 substantive law and ethics. Not all other states has
6 those schemes. Nevada deems it important enough to make
7 continued bar membership dependent upon completion of
8 CLE, and that's something that the committee has to
9 consider, and that is are you going to place those same
10 requirements on foreign lawyers who come to Nevada, and
11 if you are, how are you going to enforce that, how are
12 you going to make sure that those lawyers have completed
13 those requirements.
14 The second item is discipline. That's a
15 significant item. As the committee knows, any foreign
16 lawyer who applies to take the bar in Nevada undergoes a
17 thorough investigation of history and background, and
18 one of the focuses of that information is the history of
19 discipline in other jurisdictions.
20 If you're going to adopt a scheme that allows
21 lawyers to come to Nevada and practice, that scheme
22 would have to provide for some investigation of a
23 lawyer's prior disciplinary history because it's fair to
24 say that a lawyer with a significant disciplinary
25 history who will apply to take the bar in Nevada in all
0008
1 likelihood might not be allowed to take the bar at all.
2 That same standard it seems to me would have
3 to be applied to foreign lawyers who want to come here
4 and practice under some multijurisdictional scheme, and
5 yet how that scheme would implement that requirement and
6 ensure that scrutiny is something I just don't have an
7 answer for; but it's something if the committee is
8 willing to adopt that sort of scheme, the committee
9 would have to consider and would have to answer that
10 question.
11 Much the same is true about character and
12 fitness. In applying to take the bar, lawyers, foreign
13 lawyers, undergo a rather rigorous character and fitness
14 in Nevada, yet in a multijurisdictional setting a lawyer
15 would not have to undergo that character and fitness at
16 all.
17 Again, if there's going to be a scheme to
18 allow multijurisdictional practice, some sort of
19 character and fitness requirement has to be put into
20 place, and I would suggest to you from my own experience
21 that simply saying, well, if the lawyer has passed the
22 character and fitness requirements of another state,
23 then he ought to presumptively come into Nevada.
24 That won't work.
25 In the days that I was the chairman of the
0009
1 Southern Disciplinary Committee before the formal
2 establishment of the character and fitness committee,
3 which we now have the chairman, was the character and
4 fitness committee, and if someone's application fell
5 out, then it was the chairman's responsibility to
6 conduct an investigation and do an interview and do a
7 hearing, et cetera, et cetera, and in one instance a
8 lawyer who had been licensed in California for some time
9 had his bar application fall out and it was referred to
10 me for a character and fitness evaluation.
11 This lawyer had a history in California of
12 tax liens, and his history of tax liens was a few days
13 or a few weeks before the sale he would pay off the lien
14 with interest and go on about his business; but for
15 years he had tax liens all which had incurred right
16 before the sale.
17 I told him I'm very concerned about this,
18 because if you practice in Nevada, you'll have a trust
19 account, you'll have client's monies, your history of
20 tax liens and paying them off right before the sale is
21 some great of concern to us.
22 And his response was: California was never
23 concerned about it. That was his explanation.
24 He did not take the bar because I was not
25 satisfied with that explanation, and I thought based on
0010
1 that history and no good explanation that he would be a
2 threat to his clients in Nevada.
3 The fourth concern that the committee would
4 have to address is that of professionalism, and, simply
5 stated, lawyers that practice in Nevada are members of a
6 relatively small legal community and we practice with a
7 high degree of professionalism; and one of the things
8 the committee has to be concerned with is foreign
9 lawyers may not share the concerns for professionalism
10 that Nevada lawyers have, and there isn't any way to
11 require that lawyers behave professionally, but the
12 norms of the legal community have their own force on
13 that, and the lawyers who practice in a small community
14 tend to realize that being a professional and being
15 honorable is one of the keys of success in practicing
16 law.
17 I don't know how the committee would ensure
18 that foreign lawyers would operate within those same
19 norms that all of us as Nevada lawyers operate within.
20 It's not an answer, I don't think, to say, well, if the
21 lawyer does not operate professionally or in the
22 community's norms, he won't be successful and will have
23 a difficult time and he might get sanctioned by courts,
24 et cetera et cetera, that's all fine.
25 But those are all post hac things, and the
0011
1 interest of Nevada in regulating lawyers is not served
2 by waiting until there are problems and then dealing
3 with them, especially in the situation like this where
4 you're adopting a regulatory scheme.
5 You've got to adapt a scheme, I think, that
6 ensures that these standards and norms are going to be
7 met by anyone who comes here, not simply to ensure that
8 someone who doesn't fly with them might be served after
9 the fact. That doesn't serve the interest of clients,
10 nor does it serve the interest of the legal community,
11 as I said, in this state which depends on the
12 professionalism and the professional behavior of its
13 members.
14 The other item, advertising, I think I
15 covered in the written materials. Simply, if you're a
16 Nevada lawyer, you're subject to certain rather strict
17 and comprehensive requirements regarding advertising.
18 However, if you are a foreign lawyer, the foreign lawyer
19 in the state of licensure is not going to be covered by
20 those requirements.
21 That foreign lawyer, especially if he or she
22 is in a city near the border, can -- in another state
23 can essentially do whatever he or she please with
24 respect to Nevada and not be subject to those
25 advertising restrictions.
0012
1 Question?
2 MS. STURMAN: Mr. Kennedy, a point of
3 clarification, do you feel that the concern about
4 multijurisdictional practice should apply both to those
5 who are here to do litigation and work directly in our
6 court system only or should the consideration also be
7 those who come here to do transactional work, corporate
8 work, perhaps in-house counsel?
9 I wasn't clear if you were just addressing
10 the litigation field or --
11 MR. KENNEDY: Real good question.
12 With respect to out-of-state lawyers who come
13 to do litigation and who come to -- a lawyer with an
14 office out of state who do transactional work, there
15 have to be restrictions who apply to both of them.
16 The current restrictions or regulations which
17 we have with respect to litigation are pretty good
18 because you have rule 42 which requires an application,
19 a notice to the state bar. The state bar does an
20 investigation into the lawyer's history. That is all
21 presented to the court, and then there is -- I don't
22 want to call it an adversarial hearing, but there is an
23 opportunity for the state bar to present its findings to
24 the district court and for the other side to raise any
25 issues that have come up, and I think in the litigation
0013
1 context the practice of out-of-state lawyers is pretty
2 well regulated.
3 In the commercial context it, unfortunately,
4 is not, but that's an extremely difficult area and I
5 know that's an area that bar counsel has struggled with
6 over the years.
7 It is very, very difficult when lawyers are
8 crossing state lines to do commercial transactions.
9 Technically when they come to Nevada and engage in the
10 practice of law in a commercial transaction, they're
11 engaging in the illegal practice of law. I know the
12 restatement takes a position on it and the ABA takes a
13 position on, it. But that doesn't have an easy answer
14 at all.
15 But it is an area where the same concerns are
16 present. I mean you can have -- you call them, you
17 know, the foreign state's worst lawyer, if he comes here
18 to do litigation, he's not going to get his rule 42
19 application.
20 CHAIRMAN WILSON: I guess the doubles is in
21 the details, how do you administer the standard of
22 practice on the part of the transactional field when
23 you're not under the jurisdiction of a trial court who
24 admits you under pro hac vice under certain conditions.
25 MR. KENNEDY: That's correct.
0014
1 Mr. Chairman, I know based on my experience
2 the bar counsel who I have a lot of respect and
3 admiration for in the work that he does, his efforts
4 have been or his philosophy has been, look, there's no
5 way I can regulate this because I don't know who is
6 coming in and who's not, but the state's bar position,
7 as I understand it, has been if there is a complaint, I
8 will then act on the complaint.
9 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Do you think that's
10 adequate?
11 MR. KENNEDY: Uhm, no, I don't think it is.
12 CHAIRMAN WILSON: The more difficult question
13 is what should we recommend in lieu of the status quo?
14 MR. KENNEDY: That's right. As I said, you
15 know, I don't have an answer to that.
16 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Okay.
17 MR. KENNEDY: It's easy to say --
18 CHAIRMAN WILSON: I know where you're going.
19 MR. KENNEDY: I faced it from both sides
20 while being on the disciplinary committee and while
21 representing clients in front of disciplinary committee.
22 CHAIRMAN WILSON: I don't want to cut you
23 off. I have one further question, whether you have a
24 view with respect to the practice by in-house counsel
25 who represent in effect a single employer client.
0015
1 MR. KENNEDY: Yes, I do. That's a good place
2 for me to conclude my remarks.
3 I don't think that in-house counsel present
4 the same sort of problem that we're talking about. The
5 ABA in the ABA annotated rules of professional conduct
6 has a section on this, and I agree with it. The ABA
7 says it doesn't present the usual problems because this
8 is an individual who is licensed to practice law
9 somewhere else who is an employee of an entity in the
10 state, and the dangers of that individual putting, say,
11 unsophisticated clients in jeopardy is almost
12 nonexistent because that individual is an employee of an
13 entity. That entity has control over him.
14 If the entity is unhappy with the work that
15 he's doing or she is doing --
16 CHAIRMAN WILSON: You would recommend that
17 person not be required to take the bar exam?
18 MR. KENNEDY: That's my feeling.
19 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Do you recommend that
20 person nonetheless should be required to register for
21 the bar as an in-house counsel subject to the same
22 ethical rules and principles as those in private
23 practice?
24 MR. KENNEDY: Yes, I do.
25 Supreme Court rule 99 as interpreted by the
0016
1 Nevada Supreme Court in Waters versus Barr says if you
2 are practicing in Nevada, you are under the bar's
3 jurisdiction because in that case the individuals were
4 United States attorneys who were not admitted. They
5 said we're practicing in federal court, and the bar of
6 the Supreme Court said: Doesn't matter to us. You're
7 practicing law in Nevada. We have jurisdiction over
8 you. The state rule under rule 99 does have
9 jurisdiction over federal counsel.
10 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Mr. Kennedy, thank you very
11 much.
12 Kurt Faux.
13 Kurt Faux.
14 All right. We'll pass. If he
15 Patricia Curtis, please.
16 Is Patricia Curtis here?
17 Well, we're back on schedule.
18 Daniel McAuliffe, Snell & Wilmer.
19 MR. MC AULIFFE: Patricia is my partner.
20 Maybe she thought I was going to fill in for her.
21 CHAIRMAN WILSON: You've just been nominated
22 solo, alone and all by yourself.
23 MR. MC AULIFFE: That's happened before.
24 I thank you commissioners for giving me the
25 opportunity to talk to you this morning. My name is Dan
0017
1 McAuliffe. I am a partner in a Phoenix based firm,
2 Snell & Wilmer, LLP, but we also have offices in Tucson,
3 Orange County, Salt Lake City and Denver and now sort of
4 in Las Vegas.
5 What I want to talk to the commission about
6 briefly is how you address the issue of the
7 multijurisdictional law firm which I think is part and
8 parcel of the multijurisdictional practice issue as a
9 whole.
10 My remarks are necessarily going to address
11 the provisions of Supreme Court rule 199 because it does
12 impact the entry into Nevada of multijurisdictional
13 practices.
14 So in the interest of full disclosure, I will
15 advise the commission I'm also lead counsel in the
16 litigation that our firm has instituted to have Supreme
17 Court rule 199 definitively declared unconstitutional
18 both because I think it's beside the point and also
19 outside the fairness.
20 I'm not here to talk about rule 199's
21 constitutionality. What I would like to discuss is its
22 wisdom and its effectiveness in serving the interest of
23 the citizens of Nevada who are in need of legal
24 services.
25 If I can digress for a moment, let me share
0018
1 with you very briefly the experiences that I have had as
2 a lawyer practicing in Arizona since -- no one is going
3 to believe this, but since 1973. I look a lot younger
4 than that.
5 In Arizona in 1973 forward we experienced a
6 period of phenomenal population and economic growth, not
7 dissimilar to what has started here in Nevada and will
8 probably continue.
9 So there are lessons to be learned, I think,
10 from what's happened in Arizona here for the people of
11 Nevada.
12 When you look at the papers, when they report
13 what are the fastest growing areas in the country, it's
14 always a race between what's first, Phoenix or Las
15 Vegas. That rapid growth in the '70s and the '80s
16 produced at least in Phoenix a number of things that
17 affected the legal community. One was a sharply
18 increased demand for legal services which outstripped
19 the resources of the existing legal community.
20 When I started at Snell & Wilmer in 1973 I
21 was lawyer 35. We now have 350.
22 Far more importantly, clients from other
23 sections of the country started doing business in
24 Arizona as they are now starting to do business in
25 Nevada, and they wanted to, I think naturally, continue
0019
1 the relationships which they had established in their
2 home base of operations with the law firms they were
3 familiar with. They knew these people. They trusted
4 them. They wanted them to do their legal work.
5 As a consequence we saw the opening in
6 Phoenix of local offices for a lot of multistate firms.
7 Some of them exist there today; some of them didn't
8 survive.
9 One thing we didn't see was economic hardship
10 visited upon the existing Phoenix firms, nor did we see
11 -- and I know where I speak, I was -- had an experience
12 similar to Mr. Kennedy's. I'm the chair -- I was the
13 chair of the disciplinary commission down in Arizona for
14 a period of time.
15 I was also the chair of the judicial
16 disciplinary commission for a while which gave me some
17 degree of pleasure; I am an author of treatises on
18 Arizona legal ethics; and much more I'm the chair of
19 Arizona professional committee which is in charge of
20 making sure that lawyers behave like adults, which they
21 don't often do.
22 One recommendation I have, you got to teach
23 them what the standard of practice is and how you behave
24 on things that are outside the rules. We didn't see a
25 rampant disregard of our ethics rules or harm visited
0020
1 upon clients served by these new law firms.
2 Phoenix firms reacted competitively and grew
3 to match. In fact, the two largest firms in Phoenix
4 today were the two largest firms that were in Phoenix in
5 1973, Snell & Wilmer and Lewis & Rocker.
6 Far more importantly, both our bar and
7 community were significantly enriched in the long run by
8 the presence of these firms in other states.
9 What I have observed about the behavior of
10 multijurisdictional law practices -- and I deal with
11 them a lot -- is they have a sincere desire to be good
12 citizens, to make positive contributions to communities,
13 and Arizona clients benefit from their arrival.
14 The fact of the matter is large
15 multijurisdictional practices in many instances have
16 resources that are necessary to handle certain types of
17 legal engagements competently. That's just a fact.
18 Let me give you an example. When I leave
19 here today -- I should point out also I am a member of
20 the state bar of Nevada and have been since 1993.
21 MS. STURMAN: Then of course, Mr. McAuliffe,
22 you know it's pronounced Nevada.
23 MR. MC AULIFFE: When I leave here today I am
24 going to meet with an individual who contacted me
25 earlier in the week which has massive litigation pending
0021
1 in the Nevada courts and wants to engage our firm to
2 handle it, and they want us to handle it for this
3 reason. They have been in touch with five Nevada firms.
4 One has a conflict of interest. The other four have
5 told this person we simply can't handle it, we don't
6 have the horses to do that.
7 CHAIRMAN WILSON: I am not interrupting, but
8 as I said before the devil is in the details.
9 Recognizing the advantages of a client in
10 Nevada of retaining a multistate law firm with the
11 professional resources and standards you described, I
12 guess the question comes down to the more difficult one,
13 which is not appreciating what your firm brings to the
14 table, it is how do we distinguish between the firm of
15 your ethical standards and professional abilities on the
16 one end and the storefront on the other who has a matter
17 or two, which markets legal services and then sports
18 them to another state to actually do the work? You know
19 what I'm comparing.
20 And my question is --
21 MR. MC AULIFFE: I don't think you do
22 distinguish between the two. I think they ought to be
23 subjected to the same rules.
24 CHAIRMAN WILSON: I guess my question is what
25 should the rules be which would govern your practice and
0022
1 govern that practice so to avoid the problems of that
2 example.
3 MR. MC AULIFFE: That is a difficult
4 question.
5 CHAIRMAN WILSON: And, unfortunately, it's
6 the question that we have to deal with and it's --
7 MR. MC AULIFFE: My point really was going to
8 be telling us we can't use our name is not the answer.
9 That doesn't address the problem one way or another.
10 JUSTICE BECKER: Just to clarify, too, what
11 we're talking about, our concern is with a law firm from
12 out of state that hires someone who has just passed the
13 bar, doesn't have a lot of practice experience, just to
14 have a Nevada lawyer be a front person for the firm, and
15 that under those circumstances the firm isn't really
16 operating to open a branch office or expand its business
17 but is just hiring a name, if you will, and a Nevada
18 license. And that's our concern.
19 CHAIRMAN WILSON: That's what I meant by
20 storefront.
21 MR. MC AULIFFE: With respect to the larger
22 firms, the notion that we would use a non-Nevada lawyer
23 to have the final say on handling an issue for Nevada
24 clients would be both on our part stupid and dangerous.
25 We don't do things that are stupid and dangerous, but
0023
1 some lawyers do.
2 There are in the code -- in the code there
3 are restrictions that do apply to law firms. Law firms
4 have a responsibility under 5.1 of the model code -- I
5 believe Nevada has adopted that -- to make sure that
6 there are policies and procedures in place to ensure
7 that the lawyers in the firm comply with the rules of
8 professional conduct, one of which is competence.
9 I would have no problem whatsoever with a
10 requirement that law firms opening offices in the state
11 of Nevada be required to register with the state bar of
12 Arizona -- state bar of Nevada, I'm sorry, and to advise
13 the state bar of Nevada as to policies and subject
14 themselves to the jurisdiction of the state bar of
15 Nevada and advise the state bar of Nevada of what
16 policies and procedures they have in place to ensure
17 that there will not be the unauthorized practice of law
18 and that people who are practicing law from that firm in
19 the state of Nevada comply.
20 CHAIRMAN WILSON: What policies and
21 procedures would you recommend that ought to be required
22 by rule to guarantee what you're suggesting we ought to
23 guarantee?
24 MR. MC AULIFFE: That very much varies
25 according to the size of the firm and I think that's
0024
1 something I would leave to the discretion of the state
2 bar of Nevada.
3 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Please understand -- and
4 you're leaving it to our discretion to recommend it to
5 the Supreme Court and the purpose of this hearing is to
6 ask you specifically what you might recommend would be a
7 suitable rule that, one, would not be oppressive, two,
8 would be wise, and, three, effective.
9 MR. MC AULIFFE: Require them to register
10 with the state bar of Nevada.
11 CHAIRMAN WILSON: You're not talking about
12 the Nevada admitted lawyers; you're talking about your
13 lawyers in Phoenix?
14 MR. MC AULIFFE: No, require the firm, the
15 firm as the entity, require the firm to advise the state
16 bar of Nevada what policies and procedures they have in
17 place.
18 CHAIRMAN WILSON: What would you recommend
19 those to be?
20 MR. MC AULIFFE: Well, I can tell you what we
21 do.
22 CHAIRMAN WILSON: That would be helpful.
23 MR. MC AULIFFE: Okay. We have a managing
24 partner in each office who must be admitted in the
25 jurisdiction. We have a client review committee which
0025
1 screens everything for conflicts of interest. We have a
2 ethics committee which lawyers are obligated to consult
3 with when an ethical issue arises. We have a lawyer
4 quality committee which has the responsibility for doing
5 quality control.
6 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Okay. I understand those.
7 Those are fairly generic and appropriate.
8 What is your policy with respect to lawyers
9 resident in Phoenix of your office performing legal work
10 for clients who are here in Nevada?
11 MR. MC AULIFFE: They may not do it without
12 the supervision of a Nevada lawyer.
13 CHAIRMAN WILSON: What are the requirements
14 and criteria for that supervision?
15 I'm not challenging what you say. What I'm
16 trying to do is flesh out the issues of this discussion,
17 to find out what may be workable, whether the idea has
18 no effect or value or whether it's something we ought to
19 talk about.
20 MR. MC AULIFFE: The Nevada lawyer must be
21 responsible to the advice to the client or the final
22 filings in the filing before the court.
23 I'm a litigator, but, for example, if I have
24 a lawsuit up here -- and I've had a number of lawsuits
25 up here -- I use a non-Nevada lawyer to draft a set of
0026
1 interrogatories or request for production of documents?
2 For sure I will. For sure I will.
3 Will I file that? Will I allow that lawyer
4 to put it in front of me and have me sign it and file
5 it? Absolutely not? Because Judge Parraguirre is going
6 to haul me up there and say: What do you think you were
7 doing?
8 I will look it over, and that's one of our
9 requirements. Whatever jurisdiction we operate in, a
10 lawyer admitted in that jurisdiction must approve any
11 work product, any advice to a client before it goes out
12 the door.
13 MS. PECK: Does that include transactional?
14 MR. MC AULIFFE: Yes. And we track that by
15 knowing -- we track that by -- the managing partner
16 tracks -- I don't know if you need to get into this
17 level of detail, but the managing lawyer tracks that,
18 and who has the last time recorded, you can tell whether
19 that rule has been complied with.
20 MR. MOWBRAY: Your firm has presence in many
21 jurisdictions. Do any of the bars in those
22 jurisdictions have mechanism of the type Commissioner
23 Wilson was addressing?
24 MR. MC AULIFFE: No, not that I'm aware of,
25 but we wouldn't have a problem with it. We have Utah,
0027
1 Colorado, California, and they do not have any such
2 restriction.
3 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Indulge me a minute. If we
4 were to recommend ultimately this is good public policy
5 in terms of the profession's activity in this thing,
6 what would be the essential requirements of a rule which
7 would define your firm's responsibility, the Nevada
8 lawyer's responsibility and the lawyer's in your Phoenix
9 office responsibility with respect to representation of
10 a Nevada client?
11 MR. MC AULIFFE: I think the --
12 CHAIRMAN WILSON: The threshold issue here is
13 assuming the public policy is what you're talking about
14 is a good idea and the rules should provide for it and
15 sanction it, how do we distinguish between and how do we
16 provide an adequate enforcement measure between the
17 storefront operation, which is not in good faith, which
18 is a sham, how do we define the obligations so we can --
19 MR. MC AULIFFE: I'm going to take this from
20 the ethics opinion coming from Arizona, which I'm
21 familiar with, which is what does or does not constitute
22 the unauthorized practice of law.
23 I think the rule 8, taking the assumption
24 you're going to require the law firm to register, there
25 could be a requirement and we would have no problem with
0028
1 a requirement that any legal services rendered for a
2 Nevada client or involving issues of Nevada law be
3 performed or supervised by a lawyer admitted to the
4 state bar of Nevada.
5 That would be the requirement. Determining
6 whether it was being complied with would have to be the
7 subject of investigation.
8 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Of course that's an
9 after-the fact matter which as a practical matter would
10 only arise in the event there was some kind of
11 disciplinary complaint which puts the issue on the table
12 and then you would have an investigation I.
13 MR. MC AULIFFE: Mr. Wilson, naively I --
14 naively I believe that 98 to 99 percent of the lawyers
15 in this country take the rules seriously, look at the
16 rules and comply with them. The problem is the one
17 percent that gets all the press.
18 CHAIRMAN WILSON: That's true. But I'm
19 testing the proposition. As I said before, please
20 indulge me, our job is to test the proposition, and the
21 test is what -- what in terms of disclosure and
22 enforcement would you recommend to ensure not just the
23 bar and the court and the public that you've got
24 adequate accountability and compliance on the part of
25 lawyers in Phoenix doing work on a Nevada law through
0029
1 your Nevada office for a Nevada client.
2 I'm not being adversary.
3 MR. MC AULIFFE: I think the rules I just
4 suggested to you would be adequate for the circumstances
5 with respect to trying to have a proper prophylactic
6 measure in effect that ensures rules are complied with
7 rather than have a disciplinary measure after the fact.
8 The only way to do that I think, Mr. Wilson,
9 is to have someone from the state bar in Nevada sitting
10 in every law office in the state, and I think that's
11 unworkable.
12 CHAIRMAN WILSON: I would agree with that.
13 MR. MC AULIFFE: Sometimes some problems can
14 only be dealt with after the fact. I take comfort in
15 the fact if people know what the rules are, this is the
16 rules you have to comply with.
17 I think if you're going to have a law office
18 in the state of Nevada, I think 99 percent of the people
19 are going to follow the rules.
20 MR. GALATZ: I have a particular problem with
21 attorneys coming out of Phoenix doing personal work
22 here. We start to set a deposition. We hear the guy in
23 Phoenix has to set that. Then there is a document
24 that's due and nobody seems to know where the documents
25 are, and there is a major problem of communication
0030
1 coordination. The offices they use seem not well run.
2 That's an internal problem to some degree,
3 but it's a problem from my point of view because I wind
4 up, either myself or secretary or both of us, spending
5 endless time chasing down what would normally be a
6 rather simple thing.
7 And, yes, I know I can file my motion in
8 front of Mr. Biggar and seek sanctions.
9 I have concerns as a practical matter with
10 the problems of multiple offices dividing
11 responsibility, this associate in Phoenix is doing work
12 on it, this one here is doing some, meaning nobody knows
13 what's going on.
14 How do we handle that other than telling me I
15 can go to Mr. Biggar and get sanctions?
16 MR. MC AULIFFE: That can happen to you
17 dealing with a person holding a Nevada license.
18 MR. GALATZ: I haven't had that problem
19 nearly as often as I have with people from Phoenix.
20 MR. MC AULIFFE: What I suggest you do,
21 because it tends to be fairly unworkable to always go to
22 the disciplinary process or go to a court, we have
23 something we call a peer review committee which
24 functions -- what they do, you call them up, you refer
25 the matter to them and say, look, it's not unethical,
0031
1 but it's really a pain in the you know where. It's
2 unfortunate. And they get on the phone with the person
3 and either call the managing lawyer or the partner in
4 charge and say get control of this. And it's extremely
5 effective.
6 MR. GALATZ: We have another committee to
7 help solve this problem. It's another possible
8 solution.
9 MR. MC AULIFFE: In Arizona it has been
10 extremely effective, and there's a very similar
11 operation which is surprisingly effective to my mind
12 because it's not a unitary bar in Massachusetts.
13 JUSTICE BECKER: Mr. McAuliffe, does the
14 state of Arizona have a rule that allows them to
15 actually sanction or initiate disciplinary proceedings
16 against a law firm as an entity?
17 MR. MC AULIFFE: Yes. We have adopted a rule
18 5.1 of the -- well --
19 JUSTICE BECKER: I don't think 5.1 --
20 MR. MC AULIFFE: The answer to that is no.
21 What has happened in Arizona is sanctions
22 being -- rule 5.1 is the rule that I mentioned earlier
23 that says the law firm has responsibility. It has been
24 invoked in at least two cases that I'm familiar with as
25 a basis for imposing sanctions against a managing
0032
1 partner or what they call a supervisory partner.
2 I read that case very carefully because I'm
3 the chair of our ethics committee and I think I fall
4 under the category of people the ax might fall on
5 against someone in a managerial position for the failure
6 to have those policies and procedures in place.
7 But we do not have a rule that permits the
8 imposition of sanctions against the law firm pro se.
9 JUSTICE BECKER: Do you see a problem with
10 that rule if we would allow or encourage -- because your
11 point is in today's world clients in Nevada may want to
12 seek representation from either a law firm that has a
13 branch office in Nevada or even a law firm for
14 transactional business that has a specialty outside of
15 Nevada that they feel could represent them better than
16 perhaps a Nevada lawyer.
17 Now, whether that's true or not, that's their
18 perception, and what you're saying is the -- that client
19 ought to have that opportunity. So the issue is if we
20 present that opportunity by redefining the unauthorized
21 practice of law, do you have any objection or see any
22 problem with having those law firms register and then
23 the law firm is subject to sanction rather than the
24 individual managing partner or supervising attorney?
25 MR. MC AULIFFE: I will tell you that I
0033
1 personally don't.
2 I will also tell you I know there has been a
3 significant amount of resistance to propositions of that
4 nature. In Ethics 2000, which is the effort currently
5 underway to rewrite the ABA's model rules of
6 professional conduct, there was a provision which
7 authorized the imposition of sanctions against law firms
8 and there was a huge debate. It never even got to the
9 House of Delegates.
10 CHAIRMAN WILSON: But do you think it's a
11 good idea?
12 MR. MC AULIFFE: Depends on how it's enforced
13 and depends on what defalcations can lead to the firm.
14 The concern that has been raised to me is the firm
15 becomes subject to sanctions because someone in some
16 far-flung office just loses it and gos off the farm
17 without any warning whatever.
18 JUSTICE BECKER: It's their employee.
19 MR. MC AULIFFE: I know. That's what the
20 concern is.
21 Personally I don't have a problem with it.
22 The firm is responsible for what their people do.
23 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Judge Hardesty.
24 HON. HARDESTY: The problem seems to me with
25 that response is the underpinnings of your proposal are
0034
1 all the committees that Snell & Wilmer has in place to
2 provide assurances that these events are going to occur.
3 The question that I was going to pose has to
4 do with smaller firms, the one- or two- or three-person
5 law firm who doesn't have a plethora of committees,
6 ethics committees and the like in place at Snell &
7 Wilmer.
8 What's the appropriate approach for that?
9 Because, frankly, that's perhaps the bigger concern on
10 the citizens of Nevada about hiring an individual.
11 We've had some examples provided to us in the Elko
12 hearings where a smaller firm of one or two people hire
13 a first year law student to act as their representative
14 in Nevada and they perform legal services for Nevada
15 citizens which maybe are significantly substandard and
16 these firms aren't going to have committees like you
17 have talked about.
18 What about that situation?
19 MR. MC AULIFFE: My description of what the
20 firm has sounds grandiose. What it boils down to is
21 it's only seven people.
22 HON. HARDESTY: Maybe they should be subject
23 to sanctions.
24 MR. MC AULIFFE: Well, we are large enough so
25 that we tend to become bureaucratic, and some degree of
0035
1 bureaucracy is necessary. They've got an analogue to do
2 it.
3 It can be the breakfast meeting. I'm
4 familiar with some small shops in Phoenix. They have
5 the weekly breakfast meeting where they review every
6 case in the office and who's doing what. It's not
7 called an ethics committee. It's not called quality
8 control committee. Someone is managing that law firm.
9 And if someone is not managing that law firm, there's
10 nothing wrong with imposing a requirement that they do
11 it.
12 HON. HARDESTY: Just one other area.
13 The litigation side has some supervision in
14 the courts and the like. The more illusive problem
15 seems to me to be the transactional problem, and
16 Mr. Galatz just talked about the litigation problem.
17 What do you do in a situation where you're
18 trying to negotiate a large transaction, you're getting
19 the run-around by foreign counsel in the negotiations?
20 Running to the state bar is probably going to harm the
21 negotiations and harm your client's transaction.
22 What do you do in that situation?
23 MR. MC AULIFFE: I don't know. It's a
24 terrible, terrible problem. I know it goes on. Perhaps
25 you call the managing -- I know what happens sometimes
0036
1 down in Phoenix. You just call the managing partner or
2 the head of the practice group and say: I want to know
3 what your younger lawyer is doing, what your other
4 lawyer is doing. Sometimes that's effective. Sometimes
5 a call to the peer review committee is effective.
6 HON. HARDESTY: Isn't the truth of it, there
7 isn't much relief?
8 MR. MC AULIFFE: It's a very difficult
9 problem to keep tabs on because, you know, before I was
10 admitted up here I did practice law up here for one of
11 my clients who built the building across the street and
12 several other casinos across the street -- several other
13 buildings. That's not a casino across the street.
14 Before I could walk into a court I had to pay
15 and give information, and so there was a mechanism for
16 keeping tabs on me. The fact that I was doing it and
17 what I was doing and the transactional thing, it takes a
18 phone call or an e-mail message.
19 I don't envy you. I would not want to be in
20 your position to try and come up with a regulatory
21 solution to that problem. It mystifies me.
22 CHAIRMAN WILSON: I need to move our
23 calendar. Thank you for coming.
24 MR. GALATZ: I have a question, if I may.
25 Do you have any thoughts or comments
0037
1 regarding extending pro hac vice to mediation,
2 arbitration?
3 MR. MC AULIFFE: I think you should do it.
4 I've handled three arbitrations up here for the former
5 Nevada Power Company, and none of them was the law firm
6 on the other side from the state of Nevada and in every
7 one of them we had problems.
8 MR. GALATZ: It doesn't bother you if we
9 extended that?
10 MR. MC AULIFFE: Absolutely not.
11 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Thank you.
12 Drew Cass, please.
13 MR. CASS: Thank you for the opportunity to
14 make some brief remarks.
15 My law firm is the Law Office of V. Andrew
16 Cass, an affiliate of Broening, Oberg, Woods, Wilson &
17 Cass, which is a mouthful to say and a name we would
18 like to reduce if possible.
19 We operate a Nevada office that has
20 approximately 10 attorneys, three waiting for bar
21 results, have about 35 employees.
22 The way that we operate doesn't implicate
23 many of the more difficult issues that the commission is
24 going to have to grapple with. We are a completely
25 autonomous practice firm that is a litigation firm. We
0038
1 don't do transactional work. I'm a shareholder in the
2 firm. I'm the managing attorney of this office, and so
3 from a practical standpoint the Nevada office of my law
4 firm is a group of Nevada lawyers. We all live here.
5 We don't commute back and forth. We have local
6 employees.
7 CHAIRMAN WILSON: What other cities do you
8 practice?
9 MR. CASS: Just Phoenix. I moved up here,
10 established the office in 1994, been practicing law for
11 17 years, almost half of it now in Nevada.
12 So really the single rule that is implicated
13 by our presence in Nevada is the rule 199 issue, and
14 from a self-interested standpoint that's the issue that
15 I would like to talk about briefly.
16 The rule 199 problem, the law firm name
17 issue, of course, has been the subject of litigation.
18 We filed a lawsuit, we were dismissed on procedural
19 grounds any case that went to the Ninth Circuit.
20 I think it's notable that rule 199 has been
21 both the subject of a state bar committee evaluation in
22 which a state bar committee in 1994 concluded that the
23 rule was unconstitutional and has also been the subject
24 of injunctions by both the United States District Court
25 and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
0039
1 CHAIRMAN WILSON: What rules do you think
2 ought to cover the substance of your practice and your
3 relationship with the Phoenix office and your
4 relationship with both Nevada clients if that is to be
5 the policy of this state?
6 MR. CASS: I think Mr. McAuliffe's comments
7 were very instructive. I think there's some very thorny
8 issues that arise when there is the practice of law
9 being directed from a distance. We don't have those
10 issues in my firm.
11 I think that the primary line of defense
12 against these problems has got to be the existing
13 ethical rules in which individual lawyers who are
14 practicing in the state of Nevada, whether they're
15 licensed here or not, are subject to discipline if they
16 violate the rules.
17 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Should the rule be that the
18 lawyer in your Las Vegas office be as a matter of fact
19 primarily responsible for the conduct of that Nevada
20 case representing a Nevada client?
21 MR. CASS: I think that every lawyer who
22 appears in a litigated matter is fully subject to the
23 jurisdiction of the court.
24 CHAIRMAN WILSON: That wasn't my question.
25 My question was -- the problem is who is primarily
0040
1 responsible for the conduct of the work of the firm,
2 whether it's in Phoenix or Las Vegas. You were saying
3 you're autonomous. You don't account to somebody who is
4 calling the shots in Phoenix. You manage your own
5 affairs and are in control of your clients.
6 Should that be the rule?
7 MR. CASS: I think that there should be
8 responsibility of a Nevada lawyer for a Nevada matter,
9 yes.
10 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Primary responsibility?
11 MR. CASS: That's a difficult question. I'm
12 not sure.
13 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Your practice -- you're
14 suggesting you made an internal decision the Nevada
15 lawyer is going to be responsible for the Nevada client,
16 and that's a good practice, you follow it, you adopted
17 it as a firm policy. That's what you do.
18 My question is do you recommend that to the
19 committee for the purpose of recommending a rule to the
20 Supreme Court?
21 MR. CASS: I think it's clearly the most
22 prudent thing for a lawyer to do.
23 CHAIRMAN WILSON: I agree with that. My
24 question is a jurisdictional one. Should that be the
25 policy of the rule?
0041
1 I am not being adversary. I'm trying to test
2 this thesis. We're supposed to recommend what ought to
3 be a rule or not be a rule. The most difficult question
4 is should that be the policy of law, should we recommend
5 it.
6 MR. CASS: I'm not sure you should recommend
7 a black letter rule that the final word on a legal
8 recommendation has to come from a lawyer who is licensed
9 in Nevada. I think ultimately the lawyer who takes the
10 position in court certainly has to be licensed and I
11 think that a law firm at its peril sets up an operation
12 where someone not qualified to undertake those legal
13 services is the one performing those legal services, and
14 I think if a --
15 CHAIRMAN WILSON: That goes to the numbit of
16 the problem?
17 MR. CASS: It does. It does. But the
18 question is how can -- how can the bar control the
19 activities of people that aren't present or practicing
20 in the state? They're either practicing here or they're
21 not, and the question then becomes what is the practice
22 of law and when does getting input from a distant office
23 constitute the unauthorized practice of law.
24 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Well, you've stated the
25 quandary.
0042
1 MR. CASS: I have. I wish I had come armed
2 with specific solutions to add to the play and I
3 certainly recognize the difficulty of it.
4 I do know that a rule which says, well,
5 regardless of these very difficult nuance problems, one
6 of the solutions we're going to impose is we're just not
7 going to let you practice under your firm name doesn't
8 direct you to practice under those firms.
9 JUSTICE BECKER: With regard to the firm name
10 rule, one of the concerns is that the Nevada resident
11 understand who they're dealing with, that they not be
12 mislead into thinking that all of their work is going to
13 be performed by individuals licensed to practice law in
14 the state of Nevada.
15 So if firms are allowed to practice under the
16 firm name, what would you suggest be added to the rule
17 in order to make sure that any Nevada resident dealing
18 with the firm is aware exactly of what they're doing?
19 Is it a part of the retainer agreement? Should it be
20 asterisked to the stationery?
21 MR. CASS: I think the committee that was
22 formed in 1994, one of their recommendations was to
23 adopt in whole or in part the rule that had been adopted
24 in New Jersey. I think it can be a combination of
25 things. I think certainty the letterhead cannot be
0043
1 misleading. And there are certainly rules which could
2 be put in place so that it is clear that if an
3 individual lawyer's name is on a letterhead, any
4 limitations of jurisdictional practice are noted on the
5 letterhead.
6 As far as retainer agreements, it would not
7 be harmful to have a rule that requires jurisdictional
8 limitations to be set forth in retainer agreements. I'm
9 not sure that really will solve much of the problem.
10 For one there is a lot of legal work that can be done
11 without a written retainer. Some work requires a
12 written retaining agreement.
13 I think the narrow thing that will be
14 addressed is that the public not be mislead that Baker &
15 McKenzie is not handling their case. I think a very
16 specific rule about what can or cannot be said on an
17 individual letterhead can solve that problem.
18 MR. GALATZ: From the way your firm is set
19 up, do I gather that your policy decision as a firm is
20 that there is valid reason to have local counsel
21 handling Nevada matters?
22 MR. CASS: Yes. We handle -- the Nevada
23 matters are handled solely by Nevada lawyers.
24 MR. GALATZ: Why do you think that's
25 important to have Nevada lawyers doing Nevada work
0044
1 instead of Arizona lawyers doing Nevada work?
2 MR. CASS: Well, I think that, first of all,
3 it's unethical to practice law --
4 MR. GALATZ: Right, but --
5 MR. CASS: From a practical standpoint, some
6 of the problems that you pointed out earlier in terms of
7 the practicalities of getting the day-to-day business of
8 law done, certainly when you add a layer of stages to
9 that it makes logistics more difficult.
10 MR. GALATZ: Communication. Any other
11 reasons?
12 MR. CASS: Well, I think from a business
13 standpoint you're not going to be serving the interest
14 of your clients very well if you are inefficient. And
15 so to be efficient from a business standpoint, to be
16 effective from a legal standpoint, at least for me, I
17 need to be in my office in Las Vegas, Nevada where my
18 practice is.
19 MR. GALATZ: Do you think knowing your local
20 bench and who your adversaries are locally presents any
21 benefit to your client?
22 MR. CASS: I think there is an absolute
23 benefit to the client with having lawyers who are
24 familiar with other members of the bar and the bench.
25 That doesn't mean that lawyers who practice primarily
0045
1 outside the state, but who otherwise become qualified to
2 practice in Nevada should not be allowed to practice
3 here.
4 If they have a disadvantage because they know
5 the judge, they don't the procedure, they don't know
6 their adversary counsel, they either can get themselves
7 up to speed and be effective. If they can't, the work
8 is going to go to somebody else. I think the
9 competition is going to take care of that.
10 Certainly a lawyer who practices in multiple
11 jurisdictions has a responsibility to do whatever is
12 necessary to serve the interest of his clients so
13 they're pleased from a business standpoint and comply
14 with any court laws.
15 MR. GALATZ: All major clients potentially
16 can exert some influence on a law firm. I had an
17 impression -- and it's only an impression. There is no
18 -- I have no evidence, just an impression, but part of
19 the impression I get is the firms that cross
20 multijurisdictional lines, at least in some instances,
21 have been almost captives of one or two major clients,
22 and the fact that their firm goes across lines only
23 makes them a larger captive.
24 I don't have empirical proof. This is a
25 feeling from what watching and discussing.
0046
1 Have you any thoughts, comments on this
2 concern? Potentially a local firm can be controlled,
3 but it seems to be even more noticeable as an
4 impression. That's all I can give it is an impression
5 on the multijurisdictional?
6 MR. CASS: I haven't studied it. I think
7 certainly there seems to be a variety of types of firms
8 that are involved here. Certainly my firm which has
9 less than 40 lawyers in total is quite dissimilar to
10 Snell & Wilmer, which has, you know, hundreds of
11 lawyers.
12 And so I think that perhaps there might be
13 examples of firms who have come here who have as a
14 primary client some corporation, an insurance company or
15 some other entity that provides with it the lion share
16 of its business.
17 I'm not sure if that problem is exacerbated
18 by the fact that it's a multijurisdictional law firm. I
19 don't know that that's true.
20 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Judge Hardesty.
21 HON. HARDESTY: Mr. Cass, we kind of got away
22 from your primary presentation, which was the subject of
23 rule 199.
24 My understanding is that our Supreme Court is
25 going to ask this commission to make a recommendation as
0047
1 to any changes to that rule. Do you endorse -- I
2 believe it's ABA 7.1 and specifically under subparagraph
3 A there is an issue concerning firm names which are --
4 trade names. Could you comment on those two subjects?
5 I think I have the correct section.
6 MR. CASS: Trade name in terms of something
7 other than a lawyer name in the firm name?
8 HON. HARDESTY: First -- two questions -- do
9 you endorse 7.1 and, if so, do you have any
10 qualifications or concern about subparagraph A, I think
11 the section that contemplates the use of trade names in
12 lieu of an actual individual's name in the firm?
13 MR. CASS: I would have to review 7.1 to see
14 if it is consistent with the New Jersey rule which was
15 recommended.
16 HON. HARDESTY: So you're advocating the New
17 Jersey rule?
18 MR. CASS: I certainly view that as a
19 reasonable starting point. Okay.
20 With respect to the use of trade names,
21 honestly I've given no consideration to that. We've
22 never contemplated the idea of calling ourselves
23 something other than the name of our firm.
24 HON. HARDESTY: As a lawyer in Nevada what do
25 you think about that, like Joe Blow's Bankruptcy Shop?
0048
1 MR. CASS: I think it is extremely important
2 that the public not be mislead. I think it's extremely
3 important that the public not have a negative impression
4 of the professionalism of the members of the bar.
5 I also think it's important that law firms be
6 able to communicate with the public in a way that is
7 their choice. So in a way that doesn't answer the
8 question.
9 I think there has to be a balance struck. A
10 blanket ban on trade names, no, I don't think that would
11 be consistent with the rights of commercial free speech,
12 and I don't think a trade name in general is necessarily
13 misleading or unprofessional.
14 So I guess in answering your question, I
15 don't think that banning trade names in total would not
16 be a good idea.
17 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Thank you very much.
18 I'm trying to move this calendar. I do see
19 Judge Saitta in the audience. Do you with to speak?
20 JUDGE SAITTA: I do not. Thank you very
21 much.
22 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Thank you.
23 John Redlein.
24 MR. REDLEIN: Good morning.
25 John Redlein. I am currently employed by the
0049
1 City of Las Vegas with the City's Attorney's Office, and
2 as I made plain from the letter and the memo that I
3 submitted in advance to the committee my focus here is
4 very, very narrow. It's a concern that implies -- or
5 implicates I should say no anticompetitive concerns on
6 my part concerning my practice and it really is relevant
7 insofar as becoming a concern for me because of my
8 service to the bar and the state committee of moral
9 character and fitness and relates specifically to
10 unlicensed in-house practice.
11 I don't want to repeat the arguments and the
12 information that I have supplied in the memo, but I
13 would ask that the commission be cognizant of the fact
14 that we usually have a trio of alternative elements of
15 definition of practice of law, and that is the practice
16 of in-house eliminates the first and that is the
17 representation of a person in court.
18 The holding out aspect about whether or not
19 one represents oneself to be an attorney again avoids
20 the in-house practice of law because they haven't hung a
21 shingle and gone out and mislead anybody that they're
22 practicing in Nevada I do believe is relatively
23 unimportant because it isn't up until a fee is paid that
24 I think in this trade you could ever construe any
25 damage, and certainly the greatest potential for damage
0050
1 comes from that which flows after the fee is paid or
2 when actual legal work is undertaken insofar as giving
3 advice and drafting documentation.
4 Finally, I would ask you to discount the
5 argument that I have read of -- I've never had an
6 unlicensed attorney practicing in the state actually
7 offered to me, but I've read it and read of it being
8 used as an excuse about the sophistication of the client
9 weighing in this consideration.
10 In my mind that argument is utterly useless.
11 You can imagine --
12 MS. PISCEVICH: How? I have a question now,
13 though. What about sophisticated clients such as a
14 utility company or telephone company or someone -- for
15 example, they merge, Nevada and California merges with
16 Texas or something and they're only going to be
17 practicing for that client, but they obviously might
18 need to do regulatory work or something else? Do you
19 think that they should not be allowed to do what they're
20 trained to do which is a very specialized area without
21 taking the bar? Should they register and be subject to
22 the bar?
23 MR. REDLEIN: I believe that they should not
24 be able to practice law in the state without the benefit
25 of a license. Even on a narrow subject where they have
0051
1 some expertise on is still very, very dangerous.
2 To get back to the issue about the
3 sophistication of the client, I can imagine a range of
4 possibilities where the sophistication of the client
5 cuts directly both ways in this argument, ranging from
6 the unlicensed practitioner so bold to hang out a
7 shingle on the street saying I do divorces, I do wills.
8 The client may know this person is unlicensed, but says
9 that's why I like to go to him, because he's cheap.
10 MS. PISCEVICH: I'm not talking about that.
11 I'm talking about a lot of these things are federally
12 governed. A lot of the regulations you deal with are
13 federal. Obviously there will be some state. That's
14 what I'm saying.
15 Do you think that that needs to actually be
16 licensed to practice in Nevada if you're going to be --
17 I'm using a utility company as an example, but it could
18 be an interstate trucking company. It could be a
19 securities issue. There's a lot of issues that involve
20 more than just -- or a bankruptcy issue.
21 MR. REDLEIN: Your example is particularly
22 apt. I've had experience with that. It may be perfect
23 example because they're concerned about federal law and
24 FCC regulation primarily.
25 Yes, my argument that that lawyer is more --
0052
1 is -- the argument that that lawyer is more likely to be
2 of value to that firm -- to that client without the
3 benefit of a license is certainly present, can be made
4 and has some validity; but as you said in your question
5 clearly Nevada law is implicated often and you need to
6 understand that even the largest interstate
7 communication provider with its in-house attorney has
8 innumerable questions coming to them every day that
9 don't necessarily follow the interpretations of United
10 States Code.
11 MS. PISCEVICH: Can't you hire outside
12 counsel?
13 MR. REDLEIN: Of course you can. They
14 usually don't.
15 Let me go back to something that I believe
16 may not be plain insofar as what it means when I said
17 it, that is, the degree of the sophistication of the
18 client shouldn't enter into this evaluation. As I said
19 in one sense we might have a sophisticated client
20 insofar as that client is merely knowledgeable that the
21 attorney lacks a license and is therefore getting a
22 bargain for the services. That's a degree of
23 sophistication that the client is being hoodwinked.
24 We can have the sophistication of the client
25 who can follow the unprofessional judgment in the
0053
1 corporate realm because there is a lack of licensure.
2 We could have the sophistication of the client not quite
3 go so far and implicate the situation where he says I'm
4 sophisticated enough to know as a member of this board
5 of directors if I ask legal and they tell me this is a
6 appropriate course of action for my publicly held
7 company, I'm not going to be implicated.
8 Finally I would suggest to you that one of
9 the tests of the relevance of the sophistication of the
10 client would be not to simply discount the practice of
11 law insofar as the element that involves going into
12 court, but to include it.
13 It's certainly not common for in-house
14 counsel, but it's useful in testing the sophistication
15 of the client issue if we think for a moment about
16 criminal law and representation in court. What possible
17 difference could it have -- and this might be the most
18 hideous damage that we could imagine -- that an
19 unlicensed lawyer is representing somebody when his life
20 is on the line for a murder prosecution in state court?
21 I can tell you I have also had that
22 experience in state district court on a murder for hire
23 case where an Arizona lawyer filed a pleading and stood
24 up and argued and I waited for him to open his mouth to
25 tell the judge I had check his licensure status.
0054
1 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Justice Becker.
2 JUSTICE BECKER: Mr. Redlein, I just wanted
3 to clarify something. Are you here today in your
4 individual capacity?
5 MR. REDLEIN: Absolutely.
6 JUSTICE BECKER: So we need to correct the
7 agenda that has your position listed because you're not
8 speaking as a -- in your capacity as an assistant city
9 attorney; is that correct?
10 MR. REDLEIN: Correct. The cover letter that
11 I submitted with my memorandum I made plain that I do
12 not speak for my fellow members of the subcommittee for
13 fitness and character and I do not speak for my clients.
14 I speak as a concerned member of the bar.
15 JUSTICE BECKER: Thank you.
16 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Thank you, John.
17 Robert Ryder.
18 Robert Ryder.
19 Cam Ferenbach.
20 Cam Ferenbach.
21 Maria Nutile.
22 MR. WALLIN: My name is not Maria, but I'm
23 here on behalf of our firm of our firm. My name is Troy
24 Wallin. I'm with the law firm of Curtis & Associates.
25 I just wanted to add a couple comments based on my own
0055
1 experience.
2 As you can see I still have a full head of
3 hair and most of --
4 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Some of us don't as a
5 matter of fact.
6 MR. WALLIN: I'm still a little bit new to
7 the bar and admitted --
8 CHAIRMAN WILSON: I thought you were speaking
9 to your qualification.
10 THE DEFENDANT: Hopefully you won't hold that
11 against me.
12 I'm admitted in Maryland and in Nevada and I
13 started my practice with a Washington, D.C. firm before
14 coming to Nevada and spending some time with Jones
15 Vargas and Kummer Kaempfer Bonner & Renshaw.
16 No. 1, being in Washington, D.C., as I'm sure
17 most of you are aware, you talked about fronting offices
18 where they have a local office that basically is doing
19 all the work out of state. I can tell you that's a
20 rampant practice and it's -- it usually occurs not from
21 firms that are even using the name or affiliated name.
22 It usually occurs you engage local counsel, you do all
23 the work out of state and you have them do all the
24 filing and the appearances as necessary.
25 So my point with that would be that if you're
0056
1 going to allow that, you might as well allow the firm to
2 use the name so the client knows who they're dealing
3 with.
4 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Should we allow that?
5 MR. WALLIN: No, I don't think you should
6 allow out-of-state attorneys to practice Nevada law
7 unless they're licensed to practice here. And I'm
8 saying that the practice is occurring and I'm not sure
9 exactly how you can cut back on that, but I'm saying you
10 can encourage the practice of law legitimately here by
11 allowing out-of-state firms by actually opening up
12 offices and using the name of the firm that is actually
13 doing the work.
14 MS. STURMAN: Mr. Wilson, may I ask a
15 question?
16 Further as corollary to the concern we have
17 about storefronts, you mentioned something there are
18 attorneys who don't reside in the state of Nevada but
19 who practice here.
20 Some of these people don't even have
21 storefronts. They have post office boxes or Mailbox
22 Etc. or Post Net locations, and they tell you, well, you
23 can serve me personally there at the Post Net offices
24 because the guy behind the desk will sign for it.
25 Is this what you're talking about? It's
0057
1 literally no physical presence in the state of Nevada at
2 all, but technically the person is admitted. They're
3 just practicing out of state.
4 MR. WALLIN: I'm more referring to actually
5 engaging local counsel that has a legitimate Nevada
6 presence but is a small law firm that isn't capable
7 supposedly, but physically present in Nevada, they're
8 able to accept practice. They just don't have the
9 capability to handle a larger case.
10 HON. HARDESTY: You're indicating a practice
11 that, frankly, I'm familiar with before I became a
12 judge. There's a lot of lawyers in Nevada who are
13 essentially operating as fronts for out-of-state
14 counsel; is that right?
15 MR. WALLIN: Exactly.
16 HON. HARDESTY: When that occurs, they're not
17 controlling the litigation. In fact a lot of them don't
18 even know what's going on. They just file the papers,
19 get a fee at the end maybe.
20 MR. WALLIN: Right. Hopefully they're doing
21 their due diligence and reviewing the documents.
22 HON. HARDESTY: But your experience is
23 different from that, isn't it?
24 MR. WALLIN: Again I was a young associate
25 and I just know I did Nevada law work at an out of state
0058
1 Washington, D.C. firm and we hired local counsel and we
2 did most of the work. They did the filing, they did the
3 appearances, and my assumption was they were reviewing
4 all the documents to make sure they were comfortable
5 with it, but most of the leg work was being done out of
6 state.
7 My point is if that's being done anyway, you
8 should allow those firms that are doing the work to have
9 a storefront here in Nevada so people can recognize
10 this.
11 MS. STURMAN: You were not associated pro hac
12 vice in those cases?
13 MR. WALLIN: No. Occasionally some of the
14 senior partners would become associated that wanted to
15 make an appearance, but a lot of times they would just
16 have local counsel do the appearances.
17 So that's one of my points.
18 My other point is as to Mr. Galants' comment
19 regarding the --
20 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Galatz.
21 MR. WALLIN: Galatz, excuse me.
22 With regard to the hassles of communication,
23 I just point out that there are a number of firms in Las
24 Vegas, one of which I mentioned that I used to work for
25 that have Reno offices, and I know there are specialists
0059
1 in Reno that were not available in Las Vegas that were
2 asked to do work that I would submit would be just as
3 difficult as an out-of-state firm to communicate and
4 coordinate with.
5 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Let me ask you the harder
6 question, and that is: What should the rule be? What
7 should the judicial policy be as to a lawyer's
8 accountability and who is doing the work and who has
9 been admitted and is otherwise qualified?
10 I understand what you're saying as to what
11 the practice is. One of the reasons I guess we all
12 ended up on this commission with instructions to have an
13 inquiry is there is concern about the practice, whether
14 the practice as you just described it is really in the
15 public interest and is a good thing or is not a good
16 thing.
17 So in a perfect world what would you
18 recommend?
19 MR. WALLIN: As a member of the bar and a
20 member of the public I would recommend whoever is doing
21 the work is accountable.
22 CHAIRMAN WILSON: How would you make them
23 accountable if they were in Washington, D.C. and didn't
24 have a ticket and referred the work to a Nevada counsel?
25 MR. WALLIN: I think hopefully if you allow
0060
1 firms to come in, then you have more to direct
2 accountability for the work that is being done.
3 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Why does this make them
4 more accountable?
5 MR. WALLIN: Because there is a name on the
6 line.
7 CHAIRMAN WILSON: What if the firm is
8 required to registered? For example, as some have
9 suggested, they have offices out of state, they have an
10 office in state, but the firm itself is registered and
11 the firm is subjected to sanctions if something goes
12 wrong. Is that adequate?
13 MR. WALLIN: I think that's a good start.
14 CHAIRMAN WILSON: What takes it down the road
15 to a solution, if that's the right word?
16 MR. WALLIN: I'm appearing as a member of the
17 bar and a member of the public. I think it's important
18 that the members of the public understand who is
19 representing them and they get fair and adequate
20 representation on all matters.
21 I think in order to do that they need to
22 understand who is representing them and they need to
23 feel the person representing them is accountable and can
24 handle the matter.
25 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Does that mean the lawyer
0061
1 in Washington, D.C. somehow be disclosed and be
2 accountable and be on the papers some way?
3 MR. WALLIN: If that's the case, if they're
4 be admitting pro hac vice.
5 CHAIRMAN WILSON: If they are not, if it was
6 a transactional matter or something less than requiring
7 a matter in court?
8 MR. WALLIN: Like my colleague prior, I think
9 that's a totally different ball game. Most of my
10 practice is federal law. Despite what you may think
11 about that, there are also state law issues involved.
12 CHAIRMAN WILSON: True.
13 MR. WALLIN: I think -- I don't necessarily
14 have all the answers.
15 CHAIRMAN WILSON: I appreciate your being
16 here. This is helpful. I'm just picking your brain
17 because we're looking for answers and solutions.
18 MR. WALLIN: Going to that question, there
19 are a number of large casinos in Las Vegas, their
20 securities work never hits the desk of a Las Vegas
21 attorney, and it's a shame. I would like to see more of
22 it. Most of it ends up in either Los Angeles or New
23 York with some firm being able to handle it.
24 MR. TURNER: Bill Turner here for just a
25 second.
0062
1 Comment was made by Mr. McAuliffe that we
2 don't have the horsepower to handle certain types of
3 complex transactions. That may be the case.
4 Do you think that it would be helpful to
5 subject the actual law firm to sanctions, but allow
6 interrogatories and requests to produce in other matters
7 on a very complex, difficult and lengthy and extensive
8 case to be handled by a Washington law firm and by their
9 paralegals in order to encourage clients and business to
10 come to this state?
11 I mean he made that comment we have four
12 firms -- four firms could not take that client. The
13 client deserves to be represented adequately. He needs
14 the horsepower. What do we do about that?
15 MR. WALLIN: First, I want to agree with
16 Justice Becker, they are employees of the firm and they
17 should be responsible for the work that they do.
18 I'm not going to disagree with my colleague,
19 but I think if a Nevada lawyer, whether it's an office,
20 a satellite office of an out-of-state firm, we need to
21 understand they're accountable for the work they do and
22 subject to sanctions just like anybody else whether
23 they're based in Nevada or not.
24 MR. TURNER: Would it be acceptable to
25 subject the firm as an entity to sanctions?
0063
1 MR. WALLIN: Unfortunately I'm not an expert
2 on professional ethics. I'm going to pass on that
3 question.
4 MR. TURNER: Thank you.
5 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Thank you very much.
6 Eva Cisneros.
7 MS. CISNEROS: Good morning. I must admit
8 when I --
9 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Good morning.
10 MS. CISNEROS: -- telephoned my appearance
11 this morning, I was simply going to listen. I have
12 several comments that I feel it would be beneficial for
13 me to speak and state first off that I'm a licensed
14 attorney in California since 1990, but I've been a
15 resident of Clark County for seven years and I'm the
16 managing attorney for Cisneros & Associates which is a
17 staff counsel office for Travelers Insurance.
18 My purpose is to speak for the in-house
19 topic. My concern is that I distinguish our firm's
20 practice from the points that were raised by
21 Mr. Redlein, and that is, first of all, to say that all
22 of our staff attorneys are licensed attorneys -- in
23 fact, one of my staff attorneys is a former associate of
24 Mr. Galatz -- and we do not and firmly take the position
25 we are not engaged in the unauthorized practice of law.
0064
1 We -- the purpose for the office's opening in
2 '98 was a big factor of the onslaught of construction
3 defect litigation that was expanding in this community,
4 and because of that and because of the fact that
5 Travelers Insurance insures a number of subcontractors
6 who are all my clients was the purpose for opening the
7 office.
8 And having been here now for a few years,
9 I've seen a lot of these firms come from different
10 states because of this construction defect litigation,
11 and I can speak to the fact that it is difficult to deal
12 with these firms that simply have a name, but they're
13 not physically here, and it does pose a problem.
14 Unfortunately, I do not have any solutions to that, but
15 simply wish to speak to that.
16 JUSTICE BECKER: I just want to clarify, your
17 sole client is Travelers Insurance?
18 MS. CISNEROS: My clients are Travelers
19 Insurance policyholders.
20 JUSTICE BECKER: But that's all that you do,
21 is represents individuals who are insured by Travelers?
22 MS. CISNEROS: That is correct, in the
23 defense practice.
24 JUSTICE BECKER: So you're not an in-house
25 counsel, but your sole purpose is represent whoever has
0065
1 a policy with Travelers in any litigation that arises
2 out of the state of Nevada?
3 MS. CISNEROS: That's correct.
4 JUSTICE BECKER: Just wanted to clarify that.
5 MS. CISNEROS: Right. That's why I wanted to
6 clarify the position of most insurance carriers that are
7 opening offices in the state. We all are members of the
8 Nevada bar. It's different from those situations that
9 Mr. Redlein was referring to.
10 I must qualify, Justice Becker, my firm does
11 represent Travelers when Travelers is a named defendant
12 and also in those cases involving subrogation rights
13 wherein plaintiffs would be the named plaintiff.
14 JUSTICE BECKER: As long as a conflict
15 doesn't rise?
16 MS. CISNEROS: Correct.
17 As I said, most of -- a large majority of our
18 practice is dedicated to the defense of subcontractors
19 involved in this defect litigation, and in terms of our
20 zealous representations of this client I think that any
21 time that -- because one of the criticisms of in-house
22 counsel with insurance companies is a conflict of
23 interest between the insurance company and your client,
24 and my point with that that I believe the commission
25 needs to be made aware of is that any hint of potential
0066
1 coverage issue or any type of other issue that would
2 lead to a conflict question, we -- because we are aware
3 of that heightened scrutiny at the onset we will take
4 measures to either obtain written waivers or simply get
5 rid of that case and send it to outside counsel.
6 So we are very aware of that and ensure that
7 our clients are protected in any way with that.
8 I have sat down with subcontractors that are
9 simply confused and do not understand what is going on
10 with this litigation that's exploding here in the valley
11 and I can assure them that their interests are of
12 paramount concern and that we defend our clients with
13 respect to that zealously.
14 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Commission questions?
15 Thank you very much.
16 Why don't we take a short break and we'll
17 resume in about five minutes.
18 (Brief recess taken.)
19 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Why don't we reconvene and
20 we'll try and catch up with the clock.
21 Jennifer Taylor, please.
22 Is Jennifer Taylor here?
23 Commissioner Biggar.
24 DISCOVERY COMMISSIONER BIGGAR: Ladies and
25 gentlemen, Tom Biggar, Discovery Commissioner for the
0067
1 Eighth Judicial District Court.
2 I had not planned to speak today, but after
3 listening to a number of comments thus far I felt it
4 might be important to at least be able to verify to you
5 some of the things that are happening at least in the
6 Eighth Judicial District Court involving out-of-state
7 counsel as opposed to counsel who are Nevada counsel,
8 live here and work here on what I would call a permanent
9 basis.
10 And I wanted to just -- I tend to see all of
11 the initial appearances more or less by counsel in the
12 civil litigation in Las Vegas, and I just wanted to
13 point out a couple of things in this narrow area of
14 discovery, and if you have any questions, I would be
15 glad to respond to them.
16 Contrary to what perhaps Mr. McAuliffe
17 discussed, I usually see initially young counsel with
18 one or two or three years experience first of all
19 appearing on discovery motions, routine or otherwise;
20 and I chagrin to say often when they are part of what
21 may be referred to as a multijurisdictional law firm,
22 that there are more problems than when I'm dealing
23 strictly with local counsel.
24 For example, unfamiliarity with the rules of
25 procedure, whether they're local or in Nevada Civil
0068
1 Rules of Procedure is commonplace, not that that does
2 not sometimes happen with all young counsel or with more
3 experienced counsel that are from another part of the
4 state first appearing in the Eighth Judicial District,
5 but it is almost routine and common when we're dealing
6 with the firms who are multijurisdictional.
7 Another thing that is especially troubling
8 are the special requests that I get from out-of-state
9 counsel, special requests for dispensation simply
10 because of the fact that they are not here in Las Vegas,
11 that they're in Sacramento or in Phoenix or somewhere
12 else.
13 And instead of a personal appearance, because
14 that would be -- increase the cost for their client,
15 they don't want to make an appearance on a discovery
16 motion, but they would like to do it by telephone if
17 possible, not for anybody else's convenience except
18 their own.
19 If they have to come down on a motion to
20 compel, something as simple as that in civil litigation
21 and they're successful on their motion to compel, then
22 they not only want attorney's fees for the preparation
23 of their points and authorities, for instance, but they
24 want travel expenses and sometimes overnight lodging
25 expenses to be added on.
0069
1 And I felt -- always felt that that was
2 unfair to tax the other side with that even -- whether
3 or not there was a legitimate discovery dispute,
4 assuming there wasn't for a moment, still should the
5 other side be taxed for those additional costs because
6 counsel has to come in from another jurisdiction.
7 As Mr. Galatz pointed out, I have many
8 problems -- looking at it just from the court viewpoint,
9 many problems with communications on routine motions.
10 Counsel do not gets their papers in -- this is the
11 mundane part of the practice. They don't get their
12 papers in on time. They don't abide by the local rules
13 of -- for timely responses and replies and so forth.
14 If there is a dispute at a deposition is
15 another example I found. And I've been a long-time
16 member of the California bar prior to the time I became
17 a member of the Nevada bar, unfortunately, 30 years now,
18 and the deposition procedures for California counsel I
19 find a lot of times are simply not as professional as
20 they are with almost all Nevada counsel.
21 I don't know what to attribute that to except
22 perhaps somebody mentioned the quality of the bar, the
23 small bar, the litigation bar. In California one
24 counsel on one side usually doesn't see counsel on the
25 other side except in one case, so they feel a little
0070
1 freer to make, let's say, objections that are not quite
2 as well founded and engage in other kind of behavior
3 that is not appropriate.
4 And I, you know, don't cast dispersions;
5 there are good attorneys and bad attorneys in all
6 states. But I have found by experience and empirical
7 evidence that that is the case.
8 I had counsel the other day represent to me
9 in court that late discovery, discovery that was running
10 up toward the time of trial that was currently set and
11 the trial had been set in Las Vegas was about two years
12 since the complaint had been filed. Counsel in --
13 California counsel informed me, well, this case was
14 going to be to have continued any way because this
15 two-year setting is like the quickest setting they had
16 ever seen and obviously their request for continuance
17 was going to be granted on that basis alone and I
18 shouldn't worry about any discovery problems they're
19 having.
20 All it does is demonstrate they're unfamiliar
21 with what we're trying to establish here in the state of
22 Nevada.
23 CHAIRMAN WILSON: What do you think the rules
24 ought to be in terms of participation of out-of-state
25 counsel whether it's pro hac vice or whether it's in a
0071
1 firm that may have offices both in Nevada and Sacramento
2 or Los Angeles or Texas?
3 DISCOVERY COMMISSIONER BIGGAR: All counsel
4 should be pro hac vice in my opinion. You should not be
5 practicing here unless you're a member of the Nevada bar
6 or you've obtained pro hac vice status for each and
7 every person who works on a particular case. That may
8 sound like an extreme position, but I think that's the
9 only position in good conscience that I could advocate
10 as a representative of the court in what I do.
11 I have -- I have excellent counsel who appear
12 in my court quite often from Sacramento, specialize in
13 medical malpractice defense. Even with them they have
14 local counsel here in Las Vegas to do some routine
15 appearances, and even though they have quite skilled
16 counsel and I can understand why their clients would
17 want to hire them on a regular basis, because they're
18 quite skilled trial counsel, but they can't always
19 appear on time, and when I get local counsel, they
20 appear, but they're not prepared, they're not prepared
21 to discuss the problems that we have in Las Vegas,
22 whether it be with motion practice or scheduling
23 practice, which is very important to the courts in
24 trying to keep their schedules and keep a -- a good name
25 for the courts, not just for lawyers.
0072
1 CHAIRMAN WILSON: These California counsel
2 are admitted pro hac with Nevada counsel?
3 DISCOVERY COMMISSIONER BIGGAR: Yes, they
4 are, and I still have the problem.
5 CHAIRMAN WILSON: But they're not responsive
6 to schedules and calendar?
7 DISCOVERY COMMISSIONER BIGGAR: That is
8 correct. And I have -- you know, and I've had for lack
9 of a better term go-arounds with these particular
10 counsel, and it's gotten better, but it's only been
11 after a period of give and take where they make more
12 appearances in person and they are aware of the
13 problems.
14 CHAIRMAN WILSON: We have a question for you.
15 Ms. Piscevich.
16 MS. PISCEVICH: I was just thinking, for
17 example, the Sacramento attorney counsel. I know in
18 federal court they will do motions and not obviously
19 trials or evidentiary proceedings, but motions by
20 telephone which obviously keeps the costs down for those
21 people and people call in from all around the United
22 States.
23 Would that help with the rules down here, if
24 you allowed such a system to come in to play where you
25 could do it by telephone and then you would have the
0073
1 actual trial counsel? You would have the actual people
2 involved in the litigation and you would also save a lot
3 of time and money on costs for those individuals that
4 are allowed to practice. Would that help?
5 DISCOVERY COMMISSIONER BIGGAR: That would
6 probably help to some degree, but our system is not set
7 up for that. We also -- it becomes a money problem for
8 our particular court.
9 And then that combined with the volume of
10 business that has to be undertaken by my office, for
11 instance, sometimes it's impractical to conduct a lot of
12 telephone conferences.
13 Federal court is a little different. They
14 don't quite have the volume of business and are able to
15 take a lot more time than we are in state court,
16 particularly in the Eighth Judicial District.
17 Like I say, it becomes a question of, well,
18 none of the local attorneys would have to do that, but
19 anytime we had out-of-state counsel, they would insist
20 on that.
21 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Judge Hardesty.
22 HON. HARDESTY: I would like to supplement
23 what the commissioner has said. In the Second Judicial
24 Court our phone system will not accommodate more than
25 two people on the telephone, and we have a system where
0074
1 we have financial constraints that affect the funding of
2 our operations, that limit our ability to do those kinds
3 of things.
4 I don't know whether the Eighth has that same
5 kind of funding system.
6 DISCOVERY COMMISSIONER BIGGAR: It's a
7 continuing funding problem, I can assure you.
8 The other thing I would say, even when
9 Mr. McAuliffe was making some of his points, when you're
10 an attorney practicing in one state, to do a competent
11 job in my view it's extremely difficult to keep current
12 even with the one state's law when you're practicing in
13 state court and to try and keep current on the -- on
14 whatever your areas of expertise, particular in more
15 than one state it becomes too much of a burden.
16 As you saw, Mr. McAuliffe was here just to
17 speak on this one particular problem; but when he has to
18 refer to ethical concerns, he had to fall back. His
19 experience is with Arizona and Arizona opinions and he
20 couldn't be expected to come up to speed on all of the
21 Nevada background just to testify today.
22 MS. STURMAN: Commissioner, I have a
23 question. It's sort of a jurisdictional issue.
24 There are many attorneys who while
25 technically possessing Nevada licenses do not have a
0075
1 physical presence in our state. They may claim to have
2 an office, but when you investigate, actually go to the
3 office and serve a paper, you find out it's really a
4 post office box at a Mailbox Etc.
5 When I call the local phone number, it's
6 forwarded to San Diego or Sacramento or someplace else.
7 Frequently this makes it difficult for us to serve
8 things or conduct them at the last moment.
9 Are we limited to coming to you for some
10 assistance if there are discovery problems in a
11 discovery matter or should there be some rule that you
12 have a physical presence in the state of Nevada?
13 DISCOVERY COMMISSIONER BIGGAR: I think there
14 should be a rule.
15 I have that problem a lot. There's a couple
16 of key places, one being the Laughlin/Bullhead City area
17 in Arizona and Nevada and will have one law office, and
18 usually once again I point out these are not the major
19 law firms, but these are the one- or two-person law firm
20 who want to have a shop in both places, but don't want
21 to spend the money to have an office in both places, and
22 that impacts the court all the time.
23 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Let me ask you the hard
24 question, Commissioner. What should the rule be?
25 DISCOVERY COMMISSIONER BIGGAR: As I said
0076
1 before, I think that the rule should be -- and, of
2 course, there's constitutionality questions, but I think
3 the rule should be if you want to practice in Nevada,
4 that you should be a resident of the state of Nevada,
5 except for those occasions anybody is certainly entitled
6 to the counsel they want, and if they live outside the
7 state of Nevada, they should apply for pro hac vice
8 consideration and come in here and practice.
9 If the rule is that a firm can have an office
10 here -- and I deal quite a bit for instance with
11 Mr. Cass's firm, Snell & Wilmer not so much, but
12 Mr. Cass's firm does it in a way, all of the attorneys
13 -- at least all of the attorneys are here and we don't
14 have this out-of-state communication problem.
15 As far as those final decision questions and
16 who should be responsible if it's coming from out of
17 state, I really don't have the answer to that. But I
18 think that if we have all attorneys who work on any
19 particular file either must be licensed or come in on
20 pro hac vice on any particular case, at least the bar,
21 the state bar would have and the courts would have the
22 ability to police their matters in a more proper way,
23 and I think that opening the situation up making it more
24 liberal than it is now would be a great mistake.
25 MR. TURNER: My only concern would be that
0077
1 the limitation, severe restrictions of the practice of
2 law in Nevada, while very jealous of that practice,
3 might limit the development and growth of business and
4 transactional -- commercial transactions, sophisticated
5 securities practice, and those matters that take areas
6 of expertise that of yet we may not have the horsepower
7 for.
8 Do you think then we should expand the number
9 of times pro hac vice is allowed? Because even with pro
10 hac vice there's only a certain number of clients that a
11 law firm can be given that. I think it's five times, is
12 it not?
13 DISCOVERY COMMISSIONER BIGGAR: I don't think
14 it's that many. I think there is a number wherein the
15 court can extend --
16 MR. TURNER: At its discretion.
17 DISCOVERY COMMISSIONER BIGGAR: Right.
18 MR. TURNER: Do you think any severe
19 restrictions of the practice here can count down the
20 ability of a client to have the representation by his
21 lawyer that has an expertise and the horsepower? This
22 concerns me.
23 DISCOVERY COMMISSIONER BIGGAR: I'm not sure
24 why, but counsel come to Nevada and obtain a license.
25 All right. I mean that's a routine thing.
0078
1 Then they return to New York and are able to
2 engage along with local counsel -- even firms like you
3 have in the transactional business will often have local
4 counsel, then I think everybody is responsible, and it
5 would -- it would be possible to do it that way without
6 unfairly restricting the practice or the growth, either
7 one.
8 MR. TURNER: Thank you.
9 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Any questions?
10 MR. GALATZ: Mr. Biggar, do you agree that
11 the pro hac vice should be extended to the mediation and
12 arbitration proceedings?
13 DISCOVERY COMMISSIONER BIGGAR: Absolutely.
14 My impression was that as far as the court and
15 arbitration program, which are minimum cases, I thought
16 pro hac vice would apply to any case that was filed.
17 I thought pro hac vice would already apply
18 that, just participating in the arbitrations that are
19 here in Nevada.
20 MR. GALATZ: Thank you.
21 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Thank you, Commissioner.
22 Shirley Parraguirre, please.
23 MS. PARRAGUIRRE: Good morning. I am Shirley
24 Parraguirre. I'm the clerk of the Eighth Judicial
25 Court.
0079
1 Like Tom, I did not plan on making any
2 presentation here this morning. I had breakfast with
3 John Mowbray a week ago on another matter we're dealing
4 with and the subject of this meeting came up and he
5 requested that I submit two issues to you.
6 John has told me that he's going to pass it
7 on to the rest of committee.
8 Since I've been in office I've asked our
9 district attorney one having to do with rule 42,
10 association of counsel, and the question is should I be
11 requiring local counsel on the filing of foreign
12 judgments by out-of-state counsel and the same question
13 with regard to the issuance of foreign subpoenas.
14 I received a draft district attorney's
15 opinion that's several pages long, the end result being
16 it's a good question; however, perhaps you ought to take
17 it up with the local judges or the state bar because,
18 one, that might be attendant to rule 42, but it would
19 also fly in the face of being most costly to
20 out-of-state people to enforce judgments. I do not have
21 an answer to that.
22 The second one I brought up with John, what
23 is the obligation of my office to file documents which
24 are not in proper form pursuant to at least our local
25 rules 7.20.
0080
1 Mr. Biggar and I see it all the time and has
2 already alluded to the fact this is just not from
3 out-of-state attorneys. We have local attorneys who,
4 unfortunately, do it the same thing.
5 But I am called out to our front counter on a
6 fairly regular basis with either an out-of-state firm,
7 they might have what you're calling as a storefront
8 office here. The most recent was one day last week they
9 wouldn't take my staff's answers for something so they
10 requested that they speak to me and that was one of the
11 issues.
12 Although we do not, because of a couple
13 Supreme Court decisions, refuse to file any documents, I
14 did ask for guidance. This one particular out-of-state
15 attorney was saying: Well, but I don't practice here
16 very often and can you cut me a break here and let me
17 file it regardless?
18 So Mr. Biggar and I have discussed these
19 matters from time to time.
20 So there again I received a even longer I
21 think draft DA opinion which basically said the same
22 thing: We suggest you go to your judges or the state
23 bar to see what they think.
24 I haven't had any response yet from the local
25 state judges, and that is why I believe John suggested
0081
1 that I submit it to you, which I have done so. Whatever
2 you decide I would be happy to abide by.
3 MS. PISCEVICH: I'm just curious, I'm know
4 there is a lot of pro per practice. If the pro per are
5 not in the exact same form, do you still file those?
6 MS. PARRAGUIRRE: Yes. When you see my
7 request for the DA for opinion, I believe that is my
8 last question: Should we be treating those differently?
9 Do we take that as a practical matter? Yes.
10 We basically take at this point anything that
11 comes across the counter. Once in a while we will
12 Receive Stamp something as opposed to filing it.
13 The actual problem internally with my office,
14 now we're sitting here keeping a lot of matters that are
15 just received and we don't know when they've been
16 corrected and come back across the counter. So now we
17 just got them sitting there and they really serve no
18 purpose. We do treat them differently at this point.
19 MS. PISCEVICH: But if the pro pers are filed
20 out of more fat, are the, quote, legal documents whether
21 it's an out-of-state attorney or an attorney from a
22 different counsel filed?
23 MS. PARRAGUIRRE: Basically at this point we
24 do all of them that way. If they come in, they file
25 them whether they're in proper order or not. That's
0082
1 part of the DA's opinion or request whether we should be
2 doing that for Nevada lawyers.
3 MR. GALATZ: How big is the problem? How
4 frequently does this arise?
5 MS. PARRAGUIRRE: On a fairly regular basis,
6 Mr. Galatz. And we get, my guess is -- and I don't
7 recall the stats, but I think on the foreign judgment
8 issue, I think we see 70, 80 filings per month that's
9 done on foreign judgments and a large number on the
10 subpoenas for foreign jurisdictions as well.
11 I've had one local judge say, well, perhaps
12 you shouldn't require that they have local counsel on
13 the foreign judgments unless they begin execution
14 proceedings here.
15 Well, again what that poses with my office,
16 if they walk to the front counter and they want
17 execution issued, then we don't have the time to stop
18 and go back and see whether or not it's a foreign
19 judgment or whether they should have already paid their
20 initial filing fee upfront prior to that.
21 So although it's a good solution, it would be
22 hard to make workable, I think.
23 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Thank you very much.
24 Debbie Amigone.
25 MS. AMIGONE: I was just planning on
0083
1 attending. I wasn't going to speak. But I just see
2 that you have all these attorneys here and I just wanted
3 to speak as possibly part of the general public.
4 And I have worked in some law firms here in
5 town as a legal secretary and I've also worked for some
6 publicly-traded companies and I think there's two
7 different issues that are concerns in my mind and that
8 would be like the litigation and the court issues and
9 also the transactional issues.
10 And I agree that for the court issues, I
11 really feel that you should be licensed in the state of
12 Nevada to go in front of court and -- excuse me, I'm a
13 little nervous here talking, but when I was with the
14 publicly-traded companies and they had their securities
15 counsel, they actually started in Utah and moved into
16 the state of Nevada and they wanted to keep their
17 current securities counsel who they trusted and they
18 knew, and so for them to have to hire securities counsel
19 here in the state of Nevada, they weren't -- they didn't
20 want to do that because they were comfortable with who
21 they had, and if they were to have to hire Nevada
22 counsel and keep both of them, that was an extreme
23 expense.
24 And I just feel from the general public that
25 a corporation for transactional matters, I don't know,
0084
1 like the trademarks, federal type things, securities,
2 they really should be allowed to have whatever attorney
3 that they're comfortable with as long as they've had no
4 problems with that attorney.
5 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Any questions?
6 Thank you very much.
7 Leon Mead, please.
8 MR. MEAD: Good morning. Thank you.
9 To be honest I didn't realize I was going to
10 speak before I got here.
11 Basically my concern is overrule 199, and I
12 will tell this panel that after rule 199 was held by the
13 U.S. District Court as unconstitutional my firm did
14 switch to our original name.
15 I'm partner in the law firm of Gibbs Locher &
16 Turner, and that law firm is based in Los Angeles, and
17 we have -- we did switch over.
18 About a year after we did that we received a
19 letter from state bar counsel, and, unfortunately, state
20 bar counsel took the position that that particular rule
21 only applied to the law firm of Lewis & Rocker and,
22 therefore, asked to us switch back, and we did to great
23 expenses.
24 Unfortunately, reluctantly, we took the
25 position that we would have to join that Lewis & Locher
0085
1 lawsuit. So I want to disclose I am somewhat of an
2 interested party in the challenge to rule 199.
3 CHAIRMAN WILSON: We're all interested
4 parties here --
5 MR. MEAD: Thank you very much.
6 CHAIRMAN WILSON: -- in one way or another.
7 MR. MEAD: I'm also somewhat embarrassed,
8 frankly, because having heard the comments of
9 Commissioner Biggar and others about other --
10 out-of-state counsel and their behavior, I am
11 embarrassed.
12 I started my practice in California and I
13 practiced there in Los Angeles for five years before a
14 client actually asked me, in fact, paid my time to take
15 the Nevada state bar, frankly, because they were not --
16 after going to ten different law firms in the state of
17 Nevada, they were not getting their phone calls
18 returned, they were not getting the level of service
19 they were getting from my firm.
20 They literally asked me and paid me to take
21 the Nevada state bar and paid me to handle their
22 matters. We began practicing under the law firm of Leon
23 Mead, a partner of Gibbs Giden Locher & Turner.
24 We rented an office from a local attorney
25 here in Las Vegas and I was out here one day a week
0086
1 whether I needed to be or not simply because we felt
2 that was what the requirement was.
3 We needed to have someplace where we could
4 get the documents that were served on us, and we
5 instituted a fax -- not fax, but a Federal Express
6 system where every day whatever came into that
7 particular office, if I wasn't in town, was Fed Ex'd to
8 me directly and we dealt with it. That was in 1995.
9 Within two years I was finding I was giving
10 all of my California work to associates in my California
11 office and I was spending a hundred percent of my time
12 on Nevada matters.
13 Shortly thereafter, in 1998, we decided to
14 move here permanently and opened the office, and that's
15 when I moved here. I am a resident of the state of
16 Nevada and I consider myself for all intents and
17 purposes a Nevada attorney.
18 I will tell you that I don't like California
19 lawyers. I don't like dealing with them. I didn't like
20 dealing with them when I was in California, and
21 discovery matters that Commissioner Biggar was talking
22 about is routine, is a war.
23 And one of the most pleasant things I found
24 about being here was the professionalism and integrity
25 of the bar of the state of Nevada. And so when I moved
0087
1 here, I told my partners very deliberately that we were
2 going to be Nevada attorneys and we were not going to
3 open a storefront as you will, and we have tried very
4 hard to make sure of that.
5 We now employ -- well, we only employ three
6 Nevada attorneys, myself included, here locally. Two of
7 my partners are admitted in the state of Nevada although
8 based in California.
9 I can tell you the concerns raised by the
10 various members here about who handles those matters, I
11 assure you that I handle every matter and I am aware of
12 every matter that comes through our office. Whether it
13 originates with one of my partners in California as one
14 of their long-term clients, those matters were referred
15 to me and I deal with them and I am responsible to the
16 state bar and to the courts here over those matters, and
17 that is the way we deal with it.
18 We do not have a problem where out-of-state
19 counsel are working on matters, although I will tell you
20 I do use my associates and paralegals in California to
21 draft interrogatories and motions, however, every one of
22 those motions is sent to me and a lawyer in my office
23 here in Nevada comes to court and deals with those
24 matters and only because they know what's going on.
25 We do have once in a while where we have an
0088
1 occasion to bring someone in pro hac vice. Sometimes we
2 needed the added horsepower as well.
3 I can tell you, though, we suffer from a
4 business standpoint by rule 199. We are not able to
5 have Gibbs Locher & Turner's name in any advertising
6 here and we do suffer.
7 We are a very boutique firm. We do
8 construction law only, and I've written books on
9 California mechanics lien law and Nevada mechanics lien
10 law, and that's really all we do, is mechanics law.
11 We have a national reputation. We have 45
12 attorneys who are dedicated to nothing but construction
13 law and are the biggest construction law boutique firm
14 west of the Mississippi River. That brings a large
15 amount of experience and a certain amount of trade name
16 recognition, if you will, to Gibbs Locher Turner across
17 the nation.
18 I have been with that firm for 13 years and I
19 bring a lot of that experience to me with the residents
20 of the state of Nevada, and that's what we came here to
21 do, to provide the residents of the state of Nevada with
22 what we believe is our expertise in construction area
23 law, and I think we've been successful here doing that.
24 So that's my position.
25 I welcome the questions, because I do have
0089
1 opinions.
2 CHAIRMAN WILSON: We have a question.
3 JUSTICE BECKER: Actually two questions.
4 You've heard our concern about -- or my concern that the
5 Nevada client knows precisely what they're doing, and so
6 how do we make sure that they're properly advised that
7 the situation occurs?
8 And, secondly, how do we regulate? Because
9 quite frequently when you tell me you're here one day a
10 week, that's exactly what I don't want.
11 MR. MEAD: I know.
12 JUSTICE BECKER: That's your firm.
13 MR. MEAD: That was what I was here in the
14 very beginning.
15 JUSTICE BECKER: That is what we want to make
16 sure does not continue, regardless of whether you're
17 licensed to practice in Nevada or not. That's not what
18 we want.
19 MR. MEAD: Absolutely. The only reason we
20 were at that level is because we had very few clients.
21 JUSTICE BECKER: I don't care. You didn't
22 want to put in the time and effort and take a business
23 loss on the Nevada branch on the risk that you would get
24 more Nevada clients?
25 MR. MEAD: No, it wasn't at that point we
0090
1 didn't want to take the business loss. We were willing
2 to do it. We need to allocate --
3 JUSTICE BECKER: Why didn't you hire a Nevada
4 attorney and open up the office and do all of those
5 things instead of just having you be here once a month
6 to pick up whatever you had from the local attorney who
7 was fronting from you?
8 MR. MEAD: That's not how we handled it. It
9 wasn't a front. It was never that way. I was certainly
10 aware of it. We did it for a business reason. We were
11 planning to expand this office.
12 CHAIRMAN WILSON: What would the rule be?
13 MR. MEAD: You asked me two questions. The
14 first one is I think the rule should be that a Nevada
15 licensed attorney, okay, is responsible for the work and
16 that the firm submit to the jurisdiction of the state
17 bar.
18 I know that my partners and I would have no
19 problem in submitting to the jurisdiction of the state
20 bar and in fact we do because --
21 CHAIRMAN WILSON: How would the rule ensure
22 that the Nevada lawyer be in fact responsible for the
23 work?
24 You testified that you came up here once a
25 week and you had a hands-on control administering the
0091
1 work of the Nevada office and responsive to the Nevada
2 clients, but how would you write the rule to require
3 that a Nevada lawyer in Nevada be responsible for the
4 work and actually be hands-on as opposed to being
5 passive and being a facility for a California lawyer who
6 never sees the client, actually is responsible for the
7 work product of the decisions made in the case?
8 MR. MEAD: Let me back up one second.
9 I will answer that question along with
10 Justice Becker's first question, which was how does the
11 client know who is going to handle it.
12 CHAIRMAN WILSON: I'm not asking you to
13 describe what you do. I'm asking you the harder
14 question, and that is how would you write and articulate
15 the rule.
16 MR. MEAD: I understand.
17 First of all, I would demand or require the
18 rule to say there would be a disclosure to the client as
19 to who exactly will be handling their case and that
20 person be a Nevada lawyer and be fully prepared to
21 handle it.
22 That's how we do it. We disclose in our
23 retainer agreement that I am going to handle a case as
24 opposed to Ken Gibbs or one of the other partners who
25 are not there.
0092
1 Secondly, I would require that there be a
2 local office, even a residency requirement, because I
3 agree. I do not believe that when we were first here,
4 that it was the best way to do it, and I was a big
5 proponent that we need to move into this jurisdiction
6 and be here, and it worked out great.
7 It was not accurate and the best way to
8 handle it in the beginning and I would change that
9 policy now. If I was to open it differently, I would
10 have somebody be here or have a local attorney a hundred
11 percent of time.
12 So I would require a residency requirement or
13 somebody to ensure they would be here.
14 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Are you saying the rule
15 should require work done in a Nevada office of an
16 interstate law firm be done totally by the lawyer in
17 this state, by Nevada lawyers?
18 MR. MEAD: I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't
19 have a problem, but I would say that a local attorney
20 must be responsible for that work and not just simply be
21 a signatory on the document.
22 CHAIRMAN WILSON: How do we define that? How
23 do we define the responsibility of the Nevada law who is
24 passing on the work product of a California lawyer?
25 MR. MEAD: I think you make that individual
0093
1 responsible for every activity that occurs in the case,
2 and if they were not, if you run into a situation where
3 like Mr. Galatz' practice PI -- and I do construction,
4 so we don't run into each other -- what I would say is
5 to address that particular issue, that could be an
6 indication, okay, of a storefront and open -- and an
7 indication of an investigation if somebody's aiding or
8 abetting in the unauthorized practice of law or whether
9 or not it is a legitimate law practice.
10 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Should the lawyers in the
11 California practice of your firm be registered, be
12 required to register with the state bar as California
13 lawyers unlicensed in Nevada, but a member of a firm
14 that has an office in Nevada, as participating in the
15 work of a Nevada office?
16 MR. MEAD: I don't know if an individual
17 attorney, but I think certainly the law firm should
18 register and subject to discipline.
19 CHAIRMAN WILSON: That part is easy. I'm
20 asking the tougher question, and that is I mean you say
21 that the Nevada lawyer should be responsible and yet
22 certain work, certain decisions are done by the
23 California office by that firm.
24 MR. MEAD: No, I'm not saying certain
25 decisions are handled by the California law firm.
0094
1 CHAIRMAN WILSON: How do you prevent that
2 from happening?
3 MR. MEAD: You make the Nevada resident
4 attorney responsible and obligated to be responsible for
5 the decisions that are made.
6 CHAIRMAN WILSON: I guess the question I'm
7 asking is whether the concept of responsibility is in
8 the abstract or whether it has practical application on
9 the ground.
10 Sure, it's easy to say, well, the Nevada
11 lawyer is going to be responsible for whatever the work
12 product is, whatever work is done, whether it's done in
13 California, whether it's done by a California lawyer who
14 has never met the Nevada client, whether it's done by a
15 law clerk in the California office.
16 How do you provide as a matter of rule for
17 accountability? It's easy to say the Nevada lawyer is
18 responsible. That doesn't prevent the storefront
19 operation.
20 MR. MEAD: I'm not sure in any -- no matter
21 what rule you create.
22 CHAIRMAN WILSON: The storefront operation is
23 inherently dishonest going in as a matter of definition.
24 MR. MEAD: I think I agree with you.
25 CHAIRMAN WILSON: How do we prevent that and
0095
1 allow it? If that's to be the policy of this state,
2 assuming for the sake of discussion that we permit under
3 199 the practice in Nevada, the multistate firm, how do
4 you provide as a matter of rule for accountability?
5 MR. MEAD: I think that you do it as saying
6 the Nevada attorneys are obligated to be responsible. I
7 mean no matter -- it's difficult to say as a matter of
8 rule how would you stop it.
9 We have rules that say you can't murder
10 people, but people get murdered every day.
11 That's what you have to do. You have to
12 create a mechanism where a Nevada attorney has the
13 ultimate responsibility and responsibility to the client
14 and to the state bar for any matters that that firm
15 handles in the state of Nevada and for those clients.
16 You do that as a matter of rule saying they
17 must be. If you find out later that they are not doing
18 that or there is some problem, then you have a mechanism
19 to discipline that lawyer and discipline the law firm as
20 well.
21 CHAIRMAN WILSON: Questions?
22 MS. PISCEVICH: Are your dealings primarily
23 litigation dealings or are you talking transactional?
24 MR. MEAD: No. Litigation dealings, not
25 transactional dealings.
0096
1 MS. PISCEVICH: Do you have a suggestion for
2 the transactional arena?
3 MR. MEAD: I don't. I really am not familiar
4 with the transactional arena to be able to comment on
5 how it w