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In business law quarterly confirmation gives judges chance to catch their breath By Karoun Demirjian���staff writer WASHINGTON ��� Nevada���s judicial vacancy count dropped by one ��� to two ��� after the Senate voted this month to confirm Andrew Gordon for a seat on the federal bench. While there has been considerable political controversy surrounding the con- firmation of President Barack Obama���s judicial nominees ��� including that of Elissa Cadish, who after a year of waiting to be ushered through the Senate���s consideration process, withdrew her nomination ��� there were no objections to Gordon���s nomination. For the past few years, political and PArTner wiTh Armstrong Teasdale to Protect and Enforce Your Intellectual Property Eight Consecutive Years named as one of the country���s top 100 patent firms by Intellectual Property Today Fortune 100 Companies 2012 FIlIngs use AT for IP/Patents - ���Who Represents Corporate America,��� National Law Journal 1787 Patent Applications 655 Patent Applications Originally Drafted 451 Trademark Applications 86 Intellectual Property Professionals lawyers with Ph.D./ Advanced Degrees in: 47 REgIsTERED PATEnT ATToRnEYs ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� Litigation Patents Trademarks Unfair Competition Copyrights Trade Secrets Technology Licensing Aerospace Engineering Computer Engineering Biotechnology Biochemistry Chemistry Biology Electrical Engineering Mechanical Engineering Las Vegas 702.678.5070 / Reno 775.322.7400 www.armstrongteasdale.com NE VADA 16 20130325_VI16_F.indd 16 MISSOURI KANSAS ILLINOIS SHANGHAI procedural standoffs have stymied Obama���s attempts to get his nominees��� bids approved in the Senate, leaving dozens of gaping holes on benches across the country. The situation has reached a fever pitch in Nevada. Three of the state���s seven seats on the federal bench became vacant in the past year. Seasoned lawyers say it���s the most troubling federal court crisis they���ve seen in the state in decades. And, they warn, it���s a crisis with real consequences. ���It���s a terrible disservice to the citizens,��� said Steve Morris, a civil defense attorney with 43 years��� experience before the federal courts in Nevada. ���It may make politicians feel good to block or impede these nominations ... but it doesn���t make good sense to hold up the appointment of qualified judges who are going to be serving a lot more people than the politicians.��� One consequence comes down to numbers: When there are just four fulltime District Court judges to do the amount of work that was intended to be handled by seven, the system is more susceptible to backlogs. ���When you���re low on judges, it���s just going to take longer for everyone to get through,��� said Anne Traum, who runs the appellate legal clinic at UNLV���s Boyd School of Law. ���That affects all cases, but especially civil cases.��� Criminal cases take precedence over civil cases as a matter of constitutional law: The right to a speedy trial is guaranteed under the Sixth Amendment, which doesn���t apply to civil cases. The obligation to act first on criminal cases all but guarantees that individuals and companies hoping to bring intellectual property issues, employee discrimination cases, breach-of-contract disputes and other civil lawsuits before the federal courts are in for either a very long wait or an undesirably expedited proceeding. ���I think they really have done everything they possibly can do to structure their workload and defer or send matters to the U.S. magistrate judges to handle,��� said Kathleen England, a plaintiff���s attorney who specializes in employee discrimination cases and used to head up the State Bar of Nevada. ���But right now, with our federal District Court being ... short, it is really hard to get anything tried.��� England described situations in which judges are issuing pretrial rulings to dismiss employment discrimination cases ���where the plaintiff doesn���t even get a chance to come into court��� because, she believes, ���they don���t have enough time to spend on the smaller, single-individual plaintiff cases.��� According to U.S. courts data, both the backlog of cases and the federal caseload-per-judge in Nevada have increased over the past five years. On Sept. 30, 2007, there were 3,685 cases pending before U.S. District Court in Nevada. On Sept. 30, 2012, there were 4,364. The per-judgeship caseload also increased over the same period, from 526 cases at the end of September 2007 to 623 at the end of September 2012. Just 19 of the 94 federal court districts across the country have a heavier perjudgeship caseload. law quarterly unlv law school climbing the ranks By Brian Nordli���staff writer The verdict is in ��� the UNLV Boyd School of Law achieved its highest ranking among accredited law programs in the most recent U.S. News & World Report edition of best graduate and specialty programs. The law school placed 68th out 194 accredited law schools in the publication���s 2014 edition, eight spots higher than last year. The school ��� which received full accreditation by the American Bar Association 10 years ago ��� has ranked in the top 100 for the past seven years. Interim Dean Nancy Rapoport said the ranking is great for the school, but she urged prospective students to also note any school���s bar passage and job placement rates. The UNLV law school, which has more than 450 students, also received high marks in other categories. It ranked third in the nation for its legal writing program, which teaches students the language skills they need to practice law, and 24th out of 82 for its part-time law program. It also placed 11th in dispute resolution rankings for its Center for Conflict Resolution. Yale University was ranked as the top law school in the country, followed by Harvard University and Stanford University. | 25 MARCH 2013 | 3/21/13 2:22:55 PM