Adjunct Faculty
Courses:
Administrative Law
Linda L. Ammons is dean emeritus at Widener University. She served as counsel to the president of Widener for legal education, after retiring as associate provost and dean of the law school in 2014. She was the first woman and the first African American to lead the two-campus, two-state, Widener University School of Law, and was the senior African American female dean in the nation when she stepped down after serving eight years. Ammons came to Widener in 2006 from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in Cleveland, Ohio, where she was associate dean and professor of law. During her 15 years at Cleveland-Marshall, she chaired and served on a number of university committees and taught Administrative Law, Legislation, Mass Communications Law, and Women and the Law. In 2006, the Cleveland-Marshall Alumni Association chose her as their Stapleton Award recipient. In addition, Ammons has been on the faculty of the National Judicial College in Reno, Nevada, since 1993. In 2007, she was named a Senior Scholar in the Department of Health Policy at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, PA, and that same year was appointed by Pennsylvania State Treasurer Robin Weissmann to the e-Treasury Blue Ribbon Advisory Commission on Productivity Management. In 2010, she was named to the Legal Education Development Committee of the American Bar Association, and she served three years as the Chair of the Curriculum Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section of Legal Education & Admissions to the Bar. Ammons also served a three-year term on the Government Relations Committee of the Association of American Law Schools, and is a Life Member of the American Bar Foundation.
Ammons’s awards are numerous including the December, 2014, Top Woman in Business Award by Delaware Today Magazine, the March, 2013 Community Leadership Award from Best Buddies Delaware, the October 2013, Pennsylvania Multi-Cultural Leadership Award, the November, 2012, “Excellence in Education Award” from the Delaware Barristers Association, and from February 2012 to February, 2014, she has been included among “The Power 100” African American attorneys in the U.S. In October of 2011, she was honored with the Service to Children Award at the Christopher W. White Distinguished Access to Justice Awards program presented by the Delaware State Bar Association. Ammons has also received the Delaware Leadership Award from the American Council on Education, Office of Women in Higher Education. In August 2010, Senator Tom Carper forwarded Ammons’ name to the Department of Justice for consideration by the White House for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. In January 2010, Ammons was appointed by Governor Jack Markell of Delaware to be the special investigator in the case of the alleged child molestations by pediatrician Earl Bradley. Her work resulted in a package of twelve legislative reforms, nine of which were passed unanimously by the Delaware General Assembly. In August 2009, she was named among the 14 Most Influential People in Delaware by Delaware Today magazine. Her Board memberships include the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce serving as the chair of its ethics committee, WHYY TV and Radio of Philadelphia, Vegas PBS, and she is a Trustee of Christiana Hospital.
Prior to joining the faculty at Cleveland-Marshall, Ammons served as executive assistant to former Ohio Governor Richard F. Celeste, from 1988 to 1991, advising him on legal and policy matters in the criminal justice, regulatory and administrative areas. A 1974 graduate of Oakwood College, and a 1997 alumna of the year, she was a TV anchor-person in Huntsville, Alabama, in the 1970’s, and worked for several media outlets.
A 1987 Ohio State University Moritz College of Law graduate, Ammons was selected out of 8,000 of her peers to be the recipient of the 2004-05 Moritz Alumni Society’s Community Service Award. She also holds emeritus status on the Moritz National Advisory Council, and is listed among Ohio State’s Distinguished Alumni.
Course:
Health Care Organization and Finance
Cynthia Asher, JD, MPH, serves as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law. Trained in both law and public health, Ms. Asher practiced law in the Corporate Litigation Department at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and in the National Health Law Practice of Epstein Becker & Green before joining the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) as Special Assistant to the Administrator. At Esptein Becker & Green, Ms. Asher counseled clients on federal and state health care fraud and abuse, licensing, reimbursement, and other regulatory health care issues. At CMS, Ms. Asher helped to implement new Medicare statutes and regulations. Ms. Asher also has served as the Director of Career Services at the William S. Boyd School of Law, where she developed and implemented programs for law students and alumni, including recruitment programs, educational programs and workshops, networking receptions, and mentoring programs. Ms. Asher will be teaching Health Care Organization and Finance during the spring 2017 semester.
Courses:
Community Law Practicum - Family Mediation
Jae Barrick is the Saltman Center for Conflict Resolution Graduate Fellow. Working alongside Professor Lydia Nussbaum (the Assistant Director of the Saltman Center for Conflict Resolution), Barrick provides supervision and mentorship to the law students in the mediation clinic and leads a mediation practicum for law students taking Professor Nussbaum’s family law class. Barrick works closely with students and other faculty in organizing and running ADR competitions at the law school and serves as the coach for teams preparing for regional and national ADR competitions such as the ABA Client Counseling competition and the ABA Negotiation competition. Barrick provides oversight and supervision in UNLV’s Parking Arbitration program where law students are trained and serve as arbitrators in disputes over parking tickets issued on the UNLV campus.
Barrick is a graduate of the William S. Boyd School of Law and a practicing attorney in the law firm of Gallian Welker & Beckstrom LC. Barrick serves on the Outsource Mediation Committee and the CIP Panel of Mediators for dependency actions in the Eighth Judicial District Court.
Barrick believes in empowering the individual through the use of alternative methods for resolving issues and advocates for the use of mediation to empower individuals whenever conflicts arise. Barrick provides pro bono services to foster children, victims of domestic violence and military veterans through the Pro Bono project of Legal Aid of Southern Nevada. Barrick also represents transgendered clients for Nevada Legal Services in obtaining name changes and gender marker changes for new birth certificates. Barrick serves as an Honorary Director to NV CURE, an inmate rights and reentry advocacy organization.
Course:
Privacy, Publicity and Defamation
Stephen Bates is an associate professor in the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies at UNLV. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he is the author, coauthor, or editor of four books. His articles on legal aspects of technology have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Wilson Quarterly, Technology Review, and the Minnesota Journal of Law, Science, and Technology.
Course:
Trial Advocacy
Richard Boulware is a United States District Court Judge, in the District of Nevada. He sits in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the United States Senate in 2014.
Judge Boulware graduated with honors from Harvard College. He received his law degree from Columbia Law School where he was a Stone Scholar and on the Law Review. Judge Boulware served as a law clerk to the Honorable Denise Cote in the Southern District of New York. Prior to taking the bench, Judge Boulware served as an Assistant Federal Public Defender for many years. He was a public defender in the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Las Vegas, Nevada and in the Federal Defenders Office of New York in New York City.
Judge Boulware is a member of the American Law Institute. Judge Boulware is an adjunct professor at the Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas. Judge Boulware is a past president of the Las Vegas chapter of the National Bar Association. He received a special President’s Award from the national president of the National Bar Association in 2011 as well as the Medal of Justice award from the State Bar of Nevada in 2012.
Course:
Law and Religion
Jay S. Bybee is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He graduated magna cum laude from Brigham Young University and earned his J.D. cum laude from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University, where he was on the editorial board of the BYU Law Review. From 1991 to 1999, Judge Bybee served on the faculty of the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University. In 1999, Judge Bybee joined the founding faculty of the William S. Boyd School of Law. At both LSU and UNLV, he taught constitutional law, administrative law, and civil procedure. Judge Bybee was appointed by President George W. Bush as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice, a position he held from 2001 to 2003. In 2002, President Bush nominated him to be a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Judge Bybee was confirmed by the Senate and appointed by the President in 2003.
Course:
Opening Statements and Closing Arguments
Pete was selected as a fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers in 2015 and has taught at the State Bar of Nevada, Trial Academy and frequently teaches CLE courses for the Nevada Justice Association. Read more here.
Course:
Law Practice Management
Sean Claggett graduated from University of Nevada Las Vegas (2000) with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. Thereafter, Sean graduated cum laude from Boyd School of Law (2003). After graduating from Boyd School of Law, Sean was employed at a high profile criminal defense law firm. After working for this firm for over two and a half years, Sean made the decision to start his own firm. On January 1, 2005, Sean opened his law firm with a single client and one employee. Today Claggett & Sykes Law Firm has eleven employees, including three attorneys, who are all Boyd School of Law Alumni. Since 2005, Sean has resolved numerous multi-million dollar real estate disputes. Sean has also successfully settled millions of dollars in personal injury claims. Most impressive is the fact that Sean has obtained well over $30,000,000.00 in judgments for his clients through litigation. Since 2012, Sean has been an arbitrator through the Nevada Supreme Court Annexed Arbitration Program.
Sean has achieved an AV Preeminent rating with Martindale-Hubbell. The Martindale-Hubbell® PEER REVIEW RATINGS™ are an objective indicator of a lawyer's high ethical standards and professional ability, generated from evaluations of lawyers by other members of the bar and the judiciary in the United States and Canada. Martindale-Hubbell® PEER REVIEW RATINGS™ reflect a combination of achieving a Very High General Ethical Standards rating and a Legal Ability numerical rating. A threshold number of responses is required to achieve a rating. AV Preeminent is the highest possible ranking, and is a significant rating accomplishment - a testament to the fact that a lawyer's peers rank him or her at the highest level of professional excellence.
Course: Mediation Advocacy
Valerie P. Cooke has served as a United States Magistrate Judge for the District of Nevada since 1999. Judge Cooke was a member of the Ninth Circuit’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee from 2001 until 2013, and she chaired the committee from 2009 to 2013. She has participated in educational programs on court-sponsored alternative dispute resolution nationally and abroad in Chile, Spain, Argentina, Malaysia, and the Marshall Islands. Judge Cooke developed the District of Nevada’s inmate early mediation program and oversaw the implementation of electronic filing for inmates engaged in civil rights litigation in federal court. Judge Cooke has presented programs on inmate mediation and case management in the Ninth Circuit and nationally. In addition, she piloted the District of Nevada’s reentry court program, which began in 2011.
Prior to appointment she was a partner in the law firm of McDonald Carano Wilson LLP where she devoted her practice to creditors’ rights in bankruptcy and commercial litigation. Judge Cooke graduated with honors from the University of Nevada and received her J.D. from Northwestern School of Law of Lewis and Clark College. She served as the 2008-2009 president of the Bruce R. Thompson Chapter of the American Inns of Court, and prior to her tenure on the bench, she served on the Nevada Tax Commission and the Nevada Judicial Discipline Commission. Judge Cooke was honored in 2001 as Outstanding Woman Lawyer by the Northern Nevada Women Lawyers Association, and she served as the Association’s president in 1990.
Courses:
Mediation Essentials
Margaret has been licensed to practice law in Nevada since 1991. For over 15 years, Margaret served as a Civil Deputy District Attorney for Washoe County (Reno), Nevada. During that time, she practiced in multiple areas, including labor/employment law, contract law, litigation and administrative law, and in multiple settings such as mediations, arbitrations, administrative hearings and state and federal courts.
In 2009, Margaret founded Crowley Mediation, L.L.C. She has mediated over 600 cases. Margaret’s private practice focuses on elder care, family, employment and general civil mediation as well as mediation & conflict strategies training. Margaret also serves as Program Administrator for the Statewide Dependency Mediation Program. In addition to serving as a Supreme Court Settlement Judge, Margaret has mediated for: The U.S. Department of Interior; the Federal District Court Early Mediation Program for Pro Se Inmates; the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; the Second and Ninth Judicial Districts' Custody Mediation Panels; the Second Judicial District’s Dependency and Guardianship Mediation Programs and the Foreclosure Mediation Program. Margaret has taught 40 hour mediation trainings for the University of Nevada Reno, the National Judicial College and the Nevada Supreme Court, regularly presents to different groups on mediation and writes a bi-monthly column in the Washoe County Bar Association's publication The Writ entitled "Mediation Matters."
Course:
Writing for Judges
Judge Jennifer Dorsey was nominated by President Obama in September 2012 and was confirmed by the Senate in July 2013 as a U. S. District Court Judge for the District of Nevada. Judge Dorsey spent her entire lawyer life at the law firm of Kemp, Jones & Coulthard LLP, where she practiced in state and federal courts and litigated a wide variety of cases including complex commercial litigation and class actions. She particularly enjoyed her appellate practice, briefing and arguing matters in the Nevada Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court. While in private practice, Judge Dorsey was selected to serve on the Nevada Supreme Court’s Committee on Professionalism, was listed among the Top Women in Litigation and Nevada’s Legal Elite, and held Martindale-Hubbell’s highest AV rating for competency and ethics. A native Nevadan, Judge Dorsey received her BA cum laude from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and she is a member of the UNLV Foundation’s Advisory Board. She received her law degree from Pepperdine University School of Law and is a member of its Board of Visitors. A grammarphile and Life Member of Scribes—the American Society of Legal Writers—Judge Dorsey is dedicated to improving the writing skills of young lawyers, eradicating rogue apostrophes, and preserving the serial comma.
Courses:
Introduction to Systems Design
Mediation Advocacy
David M. Doto had a distinguished legal career spanning two decades as a civil litigator and business legal consultant representing clients ranging from individuals to Fortune 100 companies in the state and federal courts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Nevada. David is a Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America, and a co-founder of the LCA’s American Academy of Alternative Dispute Resolution. David is currently the Director of the Conflict Transformation Institute of CoralBridge Partners, LLC, a private consulting firm, and is a Judge Pro Tem in Clark County, Nevada. David is an experienced conflict management consultant and trainer, litigation prevention systems designer, conflict coach, group facilitator, and mediator able to employ facilitative, evaluative, and transformative techniques to litigated and non-litigated commercial, business, employment, and serious/catastrophic personal injury matters nation-wide. He has been named as among the top 15 northeast region mediation firms in both 2012 and 2013 by the Philadelphia Business Journal.
Courses:
Trial Advocacy
Ozzie Fumo has practiced law in Las Vegas, Nevada for over 22 years. Ozzie has achieved an AV Preeminent rating with Martindale-Hubbell. He has successfully tried every type of criminal case from misdemeanors to capital murder. Ozzie practices in both State and Federal Court. He has successfully argued several cases to the 9th circuit court of Appeals.
In 2014 Ozzie was selected as a Judicial referee in Justice Court Las Vegas. In 2016 Ozzie was elected to the Nevada Assembly. He serves on the Judiciary Committee, Transportation Committee and the Education Committee. Ozzie’s interim committees, awards and associations include the following:
- Clark County District Court Jury Services Committee
- Legislative Committee on Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice
- Advisory Commission on the Criminal Justice Information System
- Nevada Sentencing Commission
- National Conference of State Legislatures Nuclear Legislative Working Group
- Child Support Guidelines Committee
- Black Caucus Education Hero Award 2017
- The American Bar Association
- Federal Mentor CJA new applicants program
- Nevada Trial Lawyers Association
- Nevada Attorneys for Criminal Justice
- The National Italian American Bar Association
- Past President of the Nevada Society of Italian American Lawyers
- National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
- Outstanding Service Award (2006) by the State Bar of Nevada
Courses:
Public Health Law
Public Health Policy: Integrating Theory and Practice
Max Gakh, JD, MPH is an Assistant Professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, School of Community Health Sciences. His research focuses on the intersection of public health, law, and policy. He has conducted research on legal authority to address public health issues, public health legal preparedness, and legal mechanisms that incorporate health analysis into non-health sectors. Most recently, he was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Visiting Attorney with the Partnership for Public Health Law in Washington, DC. He has also worked as a non-partisan legislative attorney, assisting state legislators with legal research, analysis, and drafting. Currently, he is collaborating with community partners on a grant-funded project that seeks to study the possible health effects of full-day kindergarten.
Course:
Business Law & Ethics
Thomas E. Gallagher is an honors graduate of Harvard Law School. He was for twenty years a partner in the law firm of Gibson Dunn and Crutcher, serving in the firm's Los Angeles and New York offices, and as managing partner of its London and Riyadh offices. During a leave from the firm, he was chief counsel for a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, handling nominations for Attorney General and Supreme Court. He was Merv Griffin's lawyer in the fight between Griffin and Donald Trump over Resorts International, later serving as CEO of The Griffin Group and of Resorts. After the merger of Resorts with Sun International, he joined Hilton Hotels Corporation as its Executive Vice President and General Counsel, leading the spinoff of its gaming businesses into a new NYSE company Park Place Entertainment. He subsequently became CEO of Park Place (renamed Caesars Entertainment), then the world's largest casino resort company. Gallagher now serves on the board of several non-profit organizations including the Guinn Center for Policy Priorities (a co-founder), the Black Mountain Institute, and Vegas PBS and is a trustee of the UNLV Foundation and the Desert Research Institute Foundation.
Courses:
International Commercial Arbitration
International Negotiations & Mediation
John Garman’s background and experience are in the areas of international commercial transactions and alternate dispute resolution. He is an arbitrator/neutral and has conducted educational programs in Europe and the US, addressing issues concerning Diversity, ADR and the international practice of law. Mr. Garman currently teaches as a part time Professor at University of Southern California Law School teaching International Negotiation/Mediation and International Commercial Arbitration and an adjunct Professor at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, and University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Boyd Law School, teaching International Commercial Arbitration.
Mr. Garman is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and currently serves as the Vice Chair- Chapters, of the North American Branch of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. He is a Certified Mediator with the International Mediation Institute and a Neutral on the American Arbitration Association Commercial Arbitration and Mediation Panel as well as a Member of the United States Council for International Business Arbitration Committee, Sole Practitioners Subcommittee. He is also on the Attorney Settlement Officer Panel of the United States District Court, Central District of California and a Neutral with the California Court of Appeals, Second Appellate District.
Mr. Garman previously served on the Executive Committee of the International Law section of the California Bar and the International Bar Association Task Force to study and evaluate the text of the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Conciliation.
He is “Of Counsel” to Hasch & Partners, an Austrian law firm and has offices in Vienna, Austria and Manhattan Beach, California. Mr. Garman is admitted in California, the District of Columbia and as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales.
Courses:
Gaming Law
Gaming Law Policy Seminar
Gregory Gemignani is a shareholder at Lionel Sawyer. Mr. Gemignani’s practice emphasis is primarily on intellectual property law, gaming law, technology law, internet law, online gaming law and online promotions law. He has represented many clients ranging from the largest casino companies to start-up Internet ventures. Prior to practicing law, Mr. Gemignani was a software systems engineer.
Course:
Criminal Evidence
Dominic Gentile is a founding partner in Gentile Cristalli Miller Armeni Savarese PLLC and has been a practicing criminal defense attorney for 44 years. He has represented many public officials, business persons and professionals in disciplinary proceedings and has been defense counsel in numerous high profile cases, among them the successful defense of Kathy Augustine in the only impeachment proceedings in Nevada history, the acquittal of Jesus Vega on murder charges which was internationally televised on Sundance Channel, and the acquittal of Grady Sanders on RICO charges. The United States Supreme Court overturned a reprimand which he received from the Nevada Supreme Court as a result of a press conference he held in the Sanders matter at which he professed his client’s innocence and accused two Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department detectives of the crime. He has served as Associate Dean of the National Criminal Defense College, Chairman of the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section RICO Cases Committee and Vice Chairman of its Defense Function Committee, a member of the Board of Governors of the State Bar of Nevada and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. In addition to teaching Trial Advocacy at the William S. Boyd School of Law, where he has been an adjunct professor for fifteen years, he has been a faculty member at Intensive Trial Advocacy programs at Harvard Law School and the Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University. He is a founding member of the Nevada Attorneys for Criminal Justice and is a charter and current member of the prestigious Nevada Supreme Court Bench-Bar Committee. He has been included in Woodward & White’s Best Lawyers in America from its inception in 1983 to the present and has held a Martindale Hubbell AV rating since 1980.
Course:
JD Externship
Elias George is a Deputy City Attorney for the City of Las Vegas City Attorney’s Office—Civil Litigation Unit. His practice focuses largely on federal civil rights, eminent domain, and state tort law. Prior to joining the City Attorney’s Office, he was an associate at Gordon Silver in the commercial litigation / intellectual property divisions.
Mr. George received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics from the University of Nevada Las Vegas and his law degree from the William S. Boyd School of Law, where he was an extern in the Las Vegas City Attorney’s Office and in the chambers of the Honorable Chief Judge Jennifer Togliatti. Following his graduation from Boyd, he was the law clerk to the Honorable Chief Judge Togliatti. He also served as an adjunct professor at the College of Southern Nevada in the Economics Department, and has published works, including Using Game Theory and Contractarianism to Report Government Governance: Why Shareholders Should Seek Disincentive Schemes in Executive Compensation Plans, 42 Golden Gate U.L. 349 (2012), and Vol. no. 1 Nevada Civil Practice Manual, § 19 Summary Judgment (6th ed. 2016, Matthew Bender).
Mr. George will be teaching in the Externship Program during the summer 2017 semester.
Course:
Nevada Civil Practice
Sarah E. Harmon is a Partner of Bailey Kennedy. Ms. Harmon graduated magna cum laude from the Honors College of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 1999, with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. She obtained her Juris Doctorate from the University of San Diego, School of Law, in 2002, where she was an Executive Editor for the law review, received the Order of the Coif, and graduated cum laude. Ms. Harmon began her legal career as an associate at Lionel Sawyer & Collins, and she was an Associate Editor of the 2003 to 2013 supplements to the 5th edition of the Nevada Civil Practice Manual. Ms. Harmon practices in the areas of appellate advocacy and complex civil litigation, including class actions, products defects, tobacco litigation, business torts, fraud, breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, insurance coverage disputes, and professional malpractice.
Course:
Trial Advocacy
Stan Hunterton practices with Hunterton & Associates, a firm specializing in civil and criminal litigation. Prior to founding this firm, Professor Hunterton served as Deputy Chief Counsel to the President’s Commission on Organized Crime and for ten years prior to that, he was a Special Attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice Organized Crime and Racketeering Section. Mr. Hunterton has also served as general counsel to Sierra Pacific Resources (now NV Energy), managing litigation, rate hearings and serving as a senior advisor to the company’s Chairman and CEO. Hunterton is also a fellow of “The American College of Trial Lawyers” and is listed in “The Best Lawyers in America”.
Course:
Privacy, Publicity and Defamation
Richard F. Jost is a Director in the Las Vegas office of Fennemore Craig Jones Vargas. He has practiced law in Nevada for more than thirty-five years, primarily in the areas of administrative law, regulatory law, and municipal finance, project development and related tax and securities law. Mr. Jost has represented state and local government entities, non-profit corporations, private developers and commercial and investment bankers in tax-exempt project financings and redevelopment financings. He is the industry practice group leader for Fennemore Craig's Aviation, Aerospace and Autonomous Aerial Vehicles team. He is also actively engaged in the firm's Emerging Businesses and Technologies industry practice group. Mr. Jost holds a Juris Doctor degree from Syracuse University College of Law and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Dickinson College and is admitted to practice in Nevada and New York.
Course:
Nevada Civil Practice
Dennis Kennedy is a partner in the firm of Bailey Kennedy. Before that, he was a partner in Nevada’s largest law firm (1975-2005) where he was chairman of the firm's Health Care Practice Group. He represents a wide range of businesses and professionals in the protection and defense of their rights. Mr. Kennedy practices primarily in general commercial litigation, health care and insurance law and professional liability. He is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Nathan Adelson Hospice. Mr. Kennedy is a former member (1988-1997) and the past Chairman (1992-1994) of the State Bar of Nevada Disciplinary Board, Southern District of Nevada. He is a member (and past chairman) of the Nevada State Bar Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility (chairman 2003-2007), and was a member of the State Bar Ethics 2000 Committee, which prepared proposed amendments to the Nevada Supreme Court Rules which led to the adoption by the Nevada Supreme Court of the Nevada Rules of Professional Conduct, effective May 1, 2006. He is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. Mr. Kennedy has been named a Mountain States “Super Lawyer” for each of the past 8 years (top 75 lawyers in Nevada, Utah, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming), is currently ranked as one of the top 3 commercial litigators in Nevada by Chambers, U.S.A., and has for more than 20 consecutive years been named by Best Lawyers in America as one of the country’s top attorneys in Commercial Litigation and “Bet the Company” cases. Mr. Kennedy is an author and frequent speaker in the areas of litigation and legal ethics, and serves as an adjunct professor at the Boyd School of Law, where he has taught Health Care Law and Nevada Civil Practice. He was the co-editor of the Nevada Civil Practice Manual (2001-2013). Mr. Kennedy is a graduate of the University of Washington (B.A., 1972; J.D., 1975) and was a member of the Board of Editors of the Washington Law Review.
Course:
JD Externship
Kristine Kuzemka is Managing Partner and Owner of Kuzemka Law Group. Ms. Kuzemka practices criminal defense and personal injury, representing clients in all phases of litigation. She has more than a decade of experience, including aggressive representation of clients accused of serious crimes.
Ms. Kuzemka received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington in Seattle. After graduating from Seattle University School of Law, Ms. Kuzemka served as an appellate law clerk for the Clark County District Attorney’s Office and was a law clerk to the Honorable David. T. Wall (Retired) in the Eighth Judicial District Court. She was also a Senior Deputy Attorney General at the State of Nevada Office of the Attorney General in the Bureau of Consumer Protection – Civil Litigation Unit, a Senior Attorney at the Clark County Public Defender’s Office, and an Attorney at Marquis Aurbach where she practiced general civil litigation.
Currently, Ms. Kuzemka is also a Neutral with Advanced Resolution Management and was recently appointed to serve as a Settlement Judge by the Nevada Supreme Court.
Course: Appellate Advocacy.
John Lambrose has been an attorney in Nevada for 35 years and has practiced law throughout the entire state. From 1981-1988 he was in private practice in Carson City NV primarily handling indigent criminal defense cases there and throughout rural Nevada. In 1988 he became the Chief Assistant Nevada State Public Defender and handled that office's appellate cases while mentoring and supervising the assistant trial attorneys in Carson City and the neighboring rural counties. During that time he participated as counsel in numerous state court appeals and appeared before the court in oral argument many times. Several of those cases resulted in published opinions. From 1990 until his retirement in 2013 he was the Chief Assistant Federal Public Defender and went on to become the lawyer in charge of that office's appellate and non-capital habeas corpus units. During that time he personally handled hundreds of appellate cases and presented over one hundred oral arguments in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Over forty of those cases resulted in published opinions. He supervised many appellate and habeas attorneys throughout that period and created an atmosphere conducive to a team approach to criminal appellate practice. Over the last 35 years he has served as a member of the Board of Governors for the state bar, a member of many Nevada Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit Committees related to appellate practice and has taught a number of Continuing Legal Education courses on appellate practice and procedure. He currently is a member of the Nevada Supreme Court Indigent Defense Study Commission and serves as the Chairman of the Rural Counties sub-Committee. He is also a member of the Nevada federal court panel lawyer selection committee for lawyers taking on criminal indigent defense cases at both the trial, appellate, and habeas corpus level.
Courses:
Negotiation
Real Estate Finance
Eleissa C. Lavelle is a full-time mediator and arbitrator with JAMS, The Resolution Experts, the largest provider of alternative dispute resolution services in the country. Ms. Lavelle enjoyed a well-established legal practice of more than thirty years as a real estate, commercial and construction litigator and transactional attorney, representing financial institutions, developers of residential and commercial real estate, members of the construction industry, community associations, governmental entities and a variety of businesses.
Course:
Gaming Equipment Manufacturers - Law and Policy
Lerner, who earned his undergraduate degree from Michigan State University and his law degree from American University’s Washington College of Law, got his first taste of gaming law when he joined the Nevada attorney general’s office in 1983. He was assigned to the gaming division and spent four years representing the Gaming Control Board and Nevada Gaming Commission.
After stints with a statewide law firm and a casino operator, he joined Bally Technologies. The company’s changing nature let Lerner become the longest-tenured general counsel at a gaming manufacturer. Bally’s has been at the forefront of gaming industry technology changes.
The company was awarded Nevada’s first interactive gaming license in July 2012, and Lerner oversaw the licensing process. He participated in what was then a surreal moment at a Gaming Control Board hearing when he used an iPad to play a free game of Internet poker to demonstrate the company’s technology for regulators.
Lerner was one of the authors of a 2011 white paper from the American Gaming Association that detailed 10 broad-based nationwide regulatory reforms.
Course:
Legislative Policy
Erin McMullen is an attorney specializing in government affairs with R & R Partners in Las Vegas, where she oversees the development and execution of legislative agendas for the company’s Nevada clients. Prior to joining R&R, she was an associate attorney with the government affairs group of Snell & Wilmer, L.L.P. in Las Vegas, where she specialized in governmental affairs; political lobbying; and administrative and regulatory law for clients in the insurance, health care, energy, banking, taxation and general business arenas. From 2003 to 2005, she worked a legislative correspondent for U.S. Senator Harry Reid in his Washington, D.C., office, assisting Nevada residents with a wide variety of policy issues and legislation ranging from taxes and budget, to labor and housing. She earned her B.S. in linguistics from Georgetown University in 2003, and her J.D. from California Western School of Law in 2008, and is a member of the State Bar of Nevada.
Course:
Legislative Policy
Samuel P. McMullen is a shareholder in the Gordon Silver’s Government Relations Department and concentrates his practice in governmental law, strategic positioning, lobbying and political strategy. He represents business and political clients for maximum positive effect in legal and strategic positioning, governmental relations and public affairs. Mr. McMullen is skilled in multiple governmental and regulatory agencies including gaming, state and local taxation, licensing and permitting, insurance, health, utility, environmental, energy, land use and planning, among others. He has vast experience in initiative and referendum law and litigation, campaign and election law and practices, political contributions, and PAC laws and regulation.
Previously, Mr. McMullen was president of The McMullen Strategic Group, ran his own law firm, was executive director of the Northern Nevada Gaming Industry Association (1990-1998), and was the vice president of governmental affairs at Harrah's Strategic Group (1986-1990).
Mr. McMullen has been named a Best Lawyer® in America for Government Relations from 2011 - 2015, and was selected as one of Nevada’s Most Influential Citizens by Nevada Business Magazine in 2010.
Course:
Construction Law
Leon Mead, having received his law degree from Loyola Las School in Los Angeles in 1990, has been handling construction law matters for over 25 years. He represents public and private owners, developers, contractors, specialty contractors, construction managers, material suppliers and design professionals, in construction contract preparation, negotiation and implementation, LEED Certification/Green Building compliance, litigation, arbitration and mediation, licensing board applications and administrative citations. His experience spans projects as unique as design and construction of multi-billion dollar complex commercial multi-use projects, and as routine as form UCC Article 2 sales transaction / credit agreements for construction goods and materials. Leon is dedicated to the development of Nevada laws that impact construction and to advising his clients and the Nevada construction industry of their implications: testifying before numerous state legislative committees on construction related topics and cited by the Nevada Supreme Court in support of construction related opinions. Leon is a frequent lecturer and author on construction law and industry issues. He also serves as an independent mediator and arbitrator of construction disputes. Leon’s work is recognized by his 2006-2015 Tier 1 Construction Litigation ranking by Chambers USA®; Selection as 2013 and 2015 Construction Lawyer of the Year in Las Vegas by Best Lawyers®; 2006 through 2016 inclusion in Best Lawyers®; 2006 through 2016 listing in Superlawyers®, his AV rating from Martindale-Hubble® and his most recent selections as Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America, as well as a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. He has the distinction of serving on the Board of Directors of the Associated General Contractors, Las Vegas Chapter (now known as the Nevada Contractors Association), since 2005 and in 2016 was named as the first Associate Member to serve on its Executive Board. He is also a sitting Member of the Nevada Lawyer Editorial Board, a TIP Mentor, and has been appointed to various Subcommittees by the Nevada Supreme Court charged with reviewing and making reform recommendations to Nevada’s Continuing Legal Education Board, and Judicial Continuing Education requirements.
Course:
Education Clinic
Dr. Leslie Strasser Murdock is the owner of ELM Educational Consulting, where she represents children and families looking to obtain necessary school services. She also acts as the educational liaison between the Clark County Department of Family Services and the Clark County School District.
Dr. Murdock serves on several community advisory boards including the Clark County School District, Women’s Research Institute of Nevada, Anti-Defamation League of Nevada, UNLV’s Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Fellowship, Jewish Federation of Southern Nevada, and Jewish Community Center. She obtained a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology and a J.D. from the Boyd School of Law, a Master of Arts in Learning Disabilities from Columbia University, a BA in Sociology, and an Elementary Teaching Certification from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Courses:
Basic Bankruptcy
Remedies
Mike K. Nakagawa is the Chief Judge of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Nevada. He is a 1980 graduate from the School of Law at the University of California, Davis, where he was an editor for the law review and a tutor in civil procedure. Judge Nakagawa practiced in bankruptcy and commercial law primarily in California and Nevada until his judicial appointment. He taught bankruptcy law and business reorganization for more than ten years as an adjunct professor at McGeorge School of Law and Lincoln Law School in Sacramento. Judge Nakagawa has taught courses in basic bankruptcy law and remedies at Boyd School of Law.
Courses:
Antitrust
Civil Discovery
Pretrial Litigation
Stanford B. Owen earned his law degree from Stanford University where he was a member of the Stanford Law Review. He was a litigator with the Salt Lake City, Utah law firm Fabian & Clendenin for nearly 35 years, but now teaches at the Boyd School of Law (Antitrust, Civil Discovery and Pretrial Litigation), the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University (Antitrust, Pretrial Litigation, Trial Advocacy) and the University of Utah Law School (Pretrial Litigation). He has taught Pretrial Litigation for over 30 years. He has substantial experience litigating large civil cases.
Course:
Trial Advocacy
Thomas Pitaro has practiced law in Las Vegas, Nevada for over 28 years. He has successfully tried every type of case from misdemeanors to capital murder. Although his practice is primarily in the area of criminal law, Mr. Pitaro also practices in the area of personal injury and civil litigation. He is one of only a handful of attorneys in Nevada who has successfully won both a jury verdict of "not guilty" in a capital murder case as well as winning a multi-million dollar jury verdict in a civil trial.
Course:
Trial Advocacy
Philip M. Pro came to Nevada in 1972 to serve a one year judicial clerkship. It has been a long year. After 35 years of distinguished service, Judge Pro retired from the federal bench in January 2015. Serving first as United States Magistrate Judge from 1980 to 1987, he was appointed by President Ronald Reagan as United States District Judge for the District of Nevada. He served as Chief Judge from 2002-2007. Throughout his judicial career, Judge Pro presided over hundreds of criminal and civil jury and non-jury trials, and as a Clark County Deputy Public Defender (1973-1975), and as an Assistant United States Attorney (1975-1978) tried over 100 jury and non-jury trials prior to assuming the bench. In 2006, he was named as one of the “500 Leading Judges in America” by Lawdragon Magazine.
Pro was actively involved in the founding of Boyd Law School, and currently serves a member of the Advisory Board of the Saltman Center for Conflict Resolution. The “Judge Philip Pro Lectureship in Legal History” inaugurated in 2005, is named in his honor, and his service on the bench was recognized in an article by Carl Tobias, one of Boyd’s founding Professors, at 12 Nev. L. J. 511 (2012). Pro currently provides arbitration and mediation services through JAMS, the largest provider of ADR services in the United States, and has participated in judicial training programs in over 20 countries. In December 2015, Governor Brian Sandoval appointed Pro as a member of the Nevada Gaming Commission.
Course:
Legal Drafting - General Practice, Real Estate Transactions
Richard A. Rawson, a founding partner at Ballard Rawson, Chartered, practices primarily in the areas of business and real estate transactions. He graduated Cum Laude from the William S. Boyd School of Law, where he was an Articles Editor for the Nevada Law Journal. He earned an LL.M. Magna Cum Laude with Concentration in Business Transactions from the University of Alabama School of Law. Prior to practicing law, Mr. Rawson was a financial systems consultant and responsible for the implementation of financial systems for Mission Research Corporation, Bechtel SAIC Company, and TRW Environmental Safety Systems.
Course:
Judicial Writing
Joe is a clerk at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. He is a former IP Litigator at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati where his clients included Google, Groupon, and Phoenix Technologies, among others.
Joe has taught bar-exam preparation and law exam workshops around the country for the last several years. Although he has broad scholarship interests, one of Joe's primary focuses is the study of writing in and out of the legal field. He is currently working to develop an writing program incorporating cognitive science and other innovative teaching techniques.
Courses:
Fundamentals of Casino Operations Management
Resort Hotel Casino Law
Jennifer Roberts is the Associate Director of the International Center for Gaming Regulation. Ms. Roberts has practiced gaming law in Nevada since 2003 and was previously a partner in the law firm of Duane Morris LLP. Prior to that, she was a shareholder in the Gaming & Regulatory Department of the Nevada-based law firm of Lionel Sawyer & Collins. Her legal practice included representation of clients in gaming law, including gaming licensing, gaming compliance, and gaming law development. She served as a member of a Gaming Compliance Committee for an international gaming company and was counsel to several gaming compliance committees.
Ms. Roberts’ legal practice also included an emphasis on federal, state, and local alcohol beverage licensing and compliance. She assisted with the licensing of the Container Park and several restaurants as part of the Downtown Project redevelopment within the City of Las Vegas. She has represented major hotel chains, nightclubs, restaurants, and bars. She was also engaged as an expert witness on Nevada alcohol laws. Her legal practice also included practice in land use and zoning, business licensing, and regulatory and administrative law.
Course:
Environment Quality Law
David Sandino served as Chief Counsel for the California Department of Water Resources from 2006-2010 under an appointment by Government Arnold Schwarzenegger and currently serves as senior staff counsel. He has worked on significant water, environmental, tribal, and energy issues during his twenty-year career with the Department. The Department operates the largest state water system in the United States, the State Water Project, which delivers water to 25 million Californians and 750,000 acres of farmland. He has taught water law, environmental law, energy resources law, and local government law at Texas Tech University School of Law, Santa Clara University School of Law, University of San Francisco School of Law, and Golden Gate University School of Law. He also has created and teaches courses at the UC Davis Extension for environmental professionals on California water law and policy, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and Tribal water law. He received a distinguished teaching award from the UC Davis for his contribution to natural science education. He received a 1999 Fulbright Fellowship to teach in Russia, where he taught international environmental law at the Moscow State Academy. He is a graduate of the Santa Clara University School of Law, King's College London, and UC Davis.
Course:
Mediation Essentials
Mr. Schulze's practice concentrates in intellectual property. He writes and prosecutes patent applications in such areas as computer architecture, very large database structures, electronic test equipment, medical electronics, lasers and optics, integrated circuit manufacturing technology, process control software, robotics, software, and mechanical technologies. He manages foreign counterpart patent prosecution in both Europe and Asia. He also handles foreign and domestic trademark registration, copyright matters, trade secret protection, intellectual property licensing, and disputes in nearly all areas of intellectual property.
Prior to joining Holland & Hart, Mr. Schulze was Of Counsel to Molsby & Bordner of Truckee, after having served as IP Counsel with Hewlett-Packard Company in Palo Alto, California. For eight years he served as a Managing Counsel at Agilent Technologies in Santa Clara, California, where he managed the company's intellectual property program in its central research laboratories and throughout Asia-Pacific. Previously, he was an associate with Fulwider, Patton, Lee & Utecht in Southern California, and a partner at Wilhelm & Schulze in San Diego County. He served in the U.S. Air Force as a military lawyer for five years active and 25 years reserve, retiring as a colonel in 1997.
Courses:
Death Penalty Seminar
Opening Statement & Closing Arguments
Trial Advocacy
David Schwartz is a former Chief Deputy District Attorney for the Clark County District Attorney’s Office. He has been a prosecuting attorney for over thirty years. While at the DA’s office he was assigned to the Major Violator’s Unit where he tried numerous high profile cases including dozens of capital murder cases. In 2001 he received a “Meritorious Service Award” from the Inspector General of the United States Department of Defense for his work on the Arthur Bennett case. In 2014, he received the UNLV "Outstanding Teaching by a Part-Time Faculty" award for his dedicated service. He teaches Trial Advocacy, Death Penalty Seminar and Opening Statements/Closing Arguments and is a consultant on death penalty cases. Mr. Schwartz earned his JD from Brooklyn Law School and his BA from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Course:
Mediation Essentials
A highly experienced conflict management professional, Selina has spent the last nineteen years, serving as a Mediator, Conflict Coach, Trainer, Arbitrator and Designer of In-House Mediation/Dispute Resolution Programs.
Selina’s recognized strength is managing conflict and mediating cases with ongoing relationship dynamics, whether between business partners, co-workers, board members or a divorcing couple. She is equally adept at providing mediation services to individuals in civil and divorce disputes, as she is at providing trainings, conflict culture interventions, and in-house mediation programs to corporations, which are struggling with conflict.
Selina began her mediation career in 1997 as one of the original mediators for the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas' Generations Program, where she worked for thirteen years as she developed her successful private practice. She is a founding partner of the Pittsburgh based firm of Bunde Gillotti Mulroy & Shultz, P.C. and manages it Alternative Dispute Resolution practice group, The Alternative Group. Selina is on the panel of mediators for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (Contract Mediator), the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, and has served as a mediator for Home Depot’s In-House Mediation Program.
Through conducting workplace mediations, Selina’s practice developed into the organizational conflict area. For her business and organizational clients, she developed “Conflict Culture Interventions” which are a customized plan for each client which may include conflict coaching, dispute resolution training, team building, and simple advice on structural and policy changes that can help to eliminate conflict.
Selina is a popular lecturer and trainer in the area of dispute resolution and works with individuals and organizations to provide trainings in mediation and conflict resolution skills. She has provided trainings both locally and nationally for organizations and corporations such as FedEx, AMG Research and Nevada OSHA. She is currently an adjunct professor at the Straus Institute at the Pepperdine University School of Law and also at Duquesne University School of Law where she co-teaches Judgment and Decision Making for Lawyers with Robert A. Creo. She has also taught for the Saltman Center at the UNLV School of Law both as a guest lecturer and Professor for the Mediation Essentials Course.
Selina is passionate about developing young mediators and promoting the continued thoughtful development of the mediation field. To this end, she has served on the Board of the Pennsylvania Council of Mediators and is the current President of the Mediation Council of Western Pennsylvania, and was instrumental in developing the Prisoner Civil Rights Mediation Program for the Western District of Pennsylvania. She is also an active member of the Allegheny County Bar Association's Alternative Dispute Committee and the Association for Conflict Resolution.
Selina graduated in 1990 from the University of Nebraska with a BA in Political Science and obtained her JD in 1993 from the University of Pittsburgh. She graduated in the Spring of 2015 with an LLM in Dispute Resolution with an emphasis in Mediation from The Straus Institute at The Pepperdine University School of Law.
Course:
The Law & Business of the Music Industry
Howard Siegel was senior partner in Pryor Cashman's Entertainment Group until his retirement in 2016. He has more than 40 years’ experience in representing clients in all aspects of the entertainment business, with a particular emphasis on the music industry, during which time he has served as counsel to many of the industry’s most prominent recording artists, songwriters, producers, managers, and executives. He gained a national reputation representing artists such as Aerosmith, the Rolling Stones’ Bill Wyman, Carly Simon, the Backstreet Boys, Steven VanZandt, Todd Rundgren, Jim Steinman and many others. As counsel to several American Idol finalists and winners, Mr. Siegel negotiated a number of significant licensing, publishing and other media-related entertainment agreements.
Mr. Siegel has also been involved in a number of music publishing company sales and acquisitions, as well as having advised on a variety of transactions involving the sale and purchase of master recordings and other entertainment-related assets.
Mr. Siegel is the current Chair of the Nevada State Bar Entertainment Law Section, former Chair and current member of the Nevada State Bar Publications Committee and adjunct Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law. He is the former Chair of the Section on Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law of the New York State Bar Association, former Chair of the New York State Bar Association Committee on the Music and Recording Industry, and an Associate Member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
Mr. Siegel is a frequent lecturer for the Practicing Law Institute and served for nearly 20 years as Co-Chair of PLI’s Counseling Clients in the Entertainment Industry program. Mr. Siegel served as judicial clerk at the New York State Court of Appeals from 1970 to 1972. He was an adjunct Professor of Law at Fordham Law School for 24 years and is a member of the Editorial Board of Entertainment Law and Finance and of Multimedia Web Strategist, as well as the Editor-in-Chief of the nationally distributed book Entertainment Law, currently in its fourth edition. Howard Siegel is author of several published articles dealing with the entertainment, music and copyright practice
Every year since 2007, Mr. Siegel has been designated as one of the “Super Lawyers” – a ranking of the top 5% of all attorneys in the New York Metropolitan area. He also has been recognized by The Hollywood Reporter as one of the top 100 “Power Lawyers” in the entertainment industry as well as being named one of the "Top Media and Entertainment Lawyers" by Chambers USA for several years.
Mr. Siegel is a member of the Nevada, New York, and California Bars and a summa cum laude graduate of Syracuse University College of Law where he was Order of the Coif, Editor-in-Chief of the Syracuse Law Review (1970) and a member of the Moot Court Board (1969-70).
Course:
Nevada Civil Practice
Kelly B. Stout is an Associate at Bailey Kennedy. Ms. Stout graduated from Northwestern University in 1999, with a Bachelor of Arts in History and Women’s Studies. In 2010, she graduated magna cum laude the William S. Boyd School of Law, where she was an Articles Editor for the Nevada Law Journal and a member of the Society of Advocates. Ms. Stout is a member of the Thomas & Mack Community Advisory Board and the Board of Directors for the Society of Advocates. Ms. Stout was an Associate Editor of the 2012 and 2013 supplements to the 5th Edition of the Nevada Civil Practice Manual. She practices primarily in the fields of complex civil litigation, appellate advocacy, healthcare law, and administrative law. She represents parties in disputes involving commercial and corporate law, business torts, healthcare law, professional licenses, professional responsibility, and legal ethics.
Course:
Legal Drafting: Transactional Drafting
After graduating law school in 2008, Cassie joined the Las Vegas office of Snell & Wilmer L.L.P. as an associate in the commercial litigation practice group. While there, she was able to develop her skills as a new attorney while under the guidance of the firm’s extremely skilled and well-respected attorneys. Since 2012, Cassie has worked for Boyd Gaming Corporation, currently as Vice President and Assistant General Counsel, where she assists in a wide variety of matters for the publicly traded, multi-state casino owner and operator. Cassie describes working for the company co-funded by William S. Boyd, the law school’s namesake, as “a unique honor as an alumna of the Boyd School of Law.”
Course:
Domestic Violence and the Law
Frank P. Sullivan has been the Judge for the 8th Judicial District Court, Family Division since January 2009. Prior to that, he was the Juvenile Hearing Master from 2004 to 2009 and Domestic Violence Commissioner from September 1999 to 2004. Judge Sullivan is also an adjunct faculty in the UNLV Business College. He earned his Juris Doctor degree from Depaul University School of Law in 1984.
Course: Opening Statements and Closing Arguments.
Judge Jerome T. Tao was appointed to the Court of Appeals, Department 1, by Governor Brian Sandoval in December 2014.
Judge Tao was appointed by Governor Sandoval in January 2011 to the Eighth Judicial District Court. As a District Court Judge, he earned a retention rating of 86 in the December 2013 Las Vegas Review-Journal "Judging the Judges" survey, which was the fourth-highest score among the 32 judges in the civil-criminal division of the Eighth Judicial District Court. In 2014, Judge Tao was re-elected in a landslide, winning more than 67% of the vote.
Previously he served at various times as a Clark County Deputy District Attorney, Chief Deputy Public Defender, as a civil attorney in private practice, and was at one time a senior advisor to U.S. Senator Harry Reid. He has been active in a variety of community organizations including Leadership Las Vegas, Focus Las Vegas, the Asian Chamber of Commerce, AAG, and the UNLV Vice-President's Commission on Diversity.
Judge Tao is a graduate of Cornell University (B.S. 1989) and the George Washington University (J.D. 1992, with honors), where he served on the Law Review and the Moot Court Board.
Course:
Pretrial Litigation
Rene Valladares works as the Federal Public Defender, District of Nevada. He earned his JD in 1987 from the University of Florida School of Law and his LL.M. in 1993 from the University of Miami School of Law.
Course:
Public Lands and Natural Resources
Blaine Welsh graduated with honors from J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University in April 1985. From September 1985 through August 1986, Mr. Welsh served as a law clerk to the Honorable Levi Ray Haire, at the Arizona Court of Appeals in Phoenix, Arizona. Mr. Welsh then entered private practice with the firm of Bonnett, Fairbourn and Friedman in Phoenix, Arizona, where he was an associate attorney engaged in commercial litigation from September 1986 until late 1990.
On December 16, 1990, Mr. Welsh joined the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Nevada as an Assistant United States Attorney where he has represented the United States and its agencies in a wide variety of civil affirmative and defensive litigation, in both federal district and appellate courts. For the past 12 years he has served as the Civil Division Chief and has served for more than 15 years on the United States District Court for the District of Nevada’s Civil Local Rules Subcommittee.
Mr. Welsh has developed an expertise in natural resources and environmental litigation. He has handled many contentious cases involving various challenges to the United States authority to manage National Forest system and public lands. He has also filed trespass actions against those who have used government owned lands without authorization, including one sand and gravel trespass case that was ultimately resolved by the United States Supreme Court. He has worked on a number of Clean Air Act enforcement actions involving alleged failure to comply with the applicable ambient air quality standards. Many of the cases resulted in consent decrees requiring the defendants to install pollution removal devices and pay penalties. He was part of a team of Department of Justice attorneys who worked to obtain penalties and properly close the Sunrise Landfill after heavy rainfall beached the landfill cover spilling garbage into the Las Vegas Wash.
Course:
Finance and Accounting for Lawyers
David Christopher Williams is CEO of Explorateur Ventures, an international consultancy/advisory firm with a focus on startup entities and growing companies. He earned his MBA in Finance and International Business from the University of Texas. He also teaches part-time at UNLV and University of Nevada, Reno.
Course:
Opening Statements and Closing Arguments
District Attorney Steve Wolfson brings many years of legal experience to the District Attorney’s Office. After starting his career in the D.A.’s office in 1980, where he served as a Deputy District Attorney, Wolfson then served as a Federal Prosecutor. In 1987, he entered the private sector where he practiced criminal defense for 25 years.
Wolfson joined the Clark County District Attorney's Office in February of 2012, upon appointment by the Clark County Board of Commissioners. He was chosen to serve the three years remaining on a four-year term vacated by the previous district attorney who retired. Clark County voters elected Wolfson to the position in November of 2014 and he began serving his first full four-year term in January of 2015.
Wolfson has been active with the State Bar of Nevada by serving on the Board of Governors, the Judicial Ethics and Campaign Election Practices Committee, and other bar-related committees. Additionally, Wolfson was chairman of the State Bar of Nevada Ethics 2000 Committee, a blue ribbon committee established by the Nevada Supreme Court, to review and bring up-to-date all Supreme Court rules involving attorney conduct.
Wolfson received his bachelor's degree in criminal justice from San Diego State University and a Juris Doctorate from California Western School of Law.
Course:
Legal Drafting - Lawyering Process III
Homa S. Woodrum is the founding partner of Woodrum Law LLC in Las Vegas, NV. She received her BSBA (magna cum laude) in International Business from UNLV and her JD (cum laude) from Boyd in 2007. Her husband and sister are also proud Boyd Law grads. In her personal life, Homa is an advocate for disability rights - more particularly focusing on food allergy awareness and inclusion and has assisted in lobbying the FDA in Washington, D.C. regarding sesame labeling. She also is a co-founder of the Allergy Law Project, an online disability law resource for food allergy families. Professionally, her practice focuses on elder law, guardianship (minor and adult), estate planning, immigration, and civil litigation. Homa has twice been entered into the "100 Hours Club" by Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada in conjunction with pro bono service in the community.
Course:
Bankruptcy Litigation
Judge Gregg Zive was sworn in as a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the District of Nevada in its Reno office on January 23, 1995 and was reappointed in 2009. He was the Chair of the Ninth Circuit Conference of Chief Bankruptcy Judges from October 2005 to September 2006. He retired effective December 31, 2010, and has been recalled on a full time basis since January 1, 2011.