Category: Legal News

We do a lot of Wills. If you are still concerned about meeting in person, we can complete the provisions of the Will by phone or by zoom, email a draft to the client, and then make any changes/correction which the client requests.

When the will is in pefect condition, and ready to be signed, we encourage the client to drive to our office, 335 W 1st St., Reno. We then hand the unsigned will to the client while the client stays in the car. The witnesses then come out to the front of the building and watch the client sign the will from at least 6 feet away (Client holds the will up so they can see the signing). The witnesses then go back into the office, where they sign before our notary public. These wills are rock solid.

We are considering using an electronic notary for other documents but that is unnecessary for wills as the client’s signature to a will is not notarized even when there is no pandemic. Only the witness signatures are notarized.

Front page news today (October 26, 2019) is that the Feds have decided to give Microsoft 10 billion dollars to help with cloud storage of data. Which means, of course, that we taxpayers will be out the $10 billion. The issue here is, among others, whether government employees or private contractors should do the work. Sometimes, as is the case when, say, the school district buys computers or toilet paper or some such, we absolutely must use private contractors. But sometimes, and this appears to be the case with the Microsoft contract, the project could be better handled by having the government do it directly. It is illusory to claim that the government is small if its work is done by contracted third parties. The Soil Conservation Service is an example. That work is now done by government employees, but, no doubt, it could be contracted out to third parties. If so, the politicians could proudly point to a smaller government, but not to a smaller cost. There would be no savings to the taxpayer.

Continue reading “Government Procurement”

For reasons that escape me, the Nevada State Bar holds its annual convention outside of Nevada. This year Vail, last year Chicago, year before that Austin. Next year New Orleans. By careful budgeting, I generally am able to attend these annual meetings. The topics discussed are generally quite relevant to my practice.

This year, for example, one of the main topics was women and their recent emergence as a dominant force in the Nevada legislature. The question? Were the thousand of new laws passed this year different from laws that would have been passed by a male-dominated legislature?

Continue reading “More on Vail”

At this weekend’s Nevada State Bar convention in Vail, Colorado, one of the speakers hit upon a topic dear to the heart of clients and their lawyers. The speaker, a professor at Georgetown law school, started his lecture with maps. Yes, maps. He pointed out how the law is much like a map, in that the client and his lawyer go from place to place. But, unlike maps, there is little in the way of fee reference points. The lawyer simply says something like: “I will charge you $600 per hour but, since I have no clue how hard the other side will fight, I can’t fix the ultimate fee at this time.” So the client can’t budget or assess whether to settle or proceed. If its not a life-changing dispute, the client will often just capitulate or try to represent himself.

The professor told us attendees that help was on the way in the form of analytics…computer programs that show the average high and the average low number of attorney hours for that kind of dispute. I bought one of those programs and plan to learn to use it soon. Fairness to both the lawyer and the client involves some way of knowing the unknowable. At least its worth a try. I will report as I learn how to use the program.