Nevada Bar: Fill & Download for Free

In 30 years working for the State Bar, investigating attorney misconduct, I’ve heard a few unexpected remarks from lawyers. The one that sticks out in my memory the most involved an applicant for licensing who was the subject of a moral character proceeding. I don’t recall what discrepancy in this young man’s application brought on the proceeding, but the application is VERY thorough and calls for a huge number of disclosures about one’s past, including the usual— past addresses, employment, etc. Any omission from the written application can be considered an intentional misrepresentation. We had just concluded our first hearing on the matter, just a trial setting conference, and our team asked applicant if he would be willing to sit down with us and answer some questions. He agreed and the two State Bar attorneys and 2 investigators assigned to his case, myself included, sat down in a conference room for the discussion. I had just been assigned to the matter and had only had about 30 minutes to review the whole file.At first blush, this guy looked like a pretty good candidate for admission. He seemed forthright and cooperative, seemingly eager to help in any way he could.The first question my partner asked involved past addresses, because applicant had spent time in Nevada, but didn’t disclose a residence address there. Applicant stated that he’d lived in Las Vegas for over a year. Everyone else was focused on that misrepresentation (failure to disclose is considered a misrep to the State Bar), but the light bulb went off in my head. I indicated I had a couple questions and the fun began. Were you employed while living there? Yes. Misrep #2. What was your job? I was an attorney for a law firm. Misrep #3— he didn’t disclose this employment. Were you admitted to the Nevada Bar? Yes. Misrep #4— he didn’t disclose admission to another state bar. Are you currently a member in good standing in Nevada? No, I was suspended. Misrep #5— discipline by another bar has to be disclosed. All of this took a couple minutes to learn, and he was totally matter of fact about the whole thing. He clearly had no idea he was putting a torch to his chances for admission in our state!At the conclusion of this meeting, it was our sad duty to inform this earnest young man that his chances of getting licensed in California were virtually nil, since we’d be arguing that he’d been disciplined in another state and all his misrepresentations indicated a pattern of deception to conceal that fact. He withdrew his application a week later.

Our lawyer stole $750,000 from us. His name is Harold Gewerter from Las Vegas and now we are suing him just to get our own money back. We have known him for years and he represented us in several cases as both plaintiffs and defendants in civil actions related to businesses we own. We considered him not just our attorney, but a friend who ultimately betrayed us.He always billed us and we paid all of his invoices each and every month like clockwork. At one point in time, he convinced us to hold money in his client trust account for certain business dealings. Big mistake. After some time went by, we started asking for the return of our funds. He became evasive and distant. Then we went to his office to confront him with other witnesses, including another attorney friend. He admitted and confessed in front of everyone that the money is gone and he took it. He said he would come up with a plan to pay it back and he was sorry.Well he then took off to Costa Rica for a month. We confirmed he owned a hotel down there. He came back to the US and denied everything, and said that was money he earned as attorney fees. So we reported him to the Nevada Bar, but they did nothing. The lying, corrupt system in Nevada is a joke. We had witness statements, invoices, checks, all the proof, but they refused to do anything about it.So now we are in court, suing our own lawyer for theft. We had a former FBI agent review all our records and submit a report to the court verifying he is lying and we paid all his invoices. His own insurance company is now suing him, and we found another Federal court case where a judge stated he should be disbarred. We'll see what happens…here is some interesting info about him we found:01/04/2018Order/Dispositional Bar 73529: Case ViewFiled Order Approving Conditional Guilty Plea Agreement. "We hereby suspend attorney Harold P. Gewerter from the practice of law in Nevada for one year commencing from the date of this order. The suspension shall be stayed for a period of two years so long as Gewerter complies with all the conditions set forth in the hearing panel's findings of fact, conclusions of law, and recommendation."Meet the lawyer behind Wall Street's most bizarre social media 'success'In Belize, a curiously common address among fishy stock dealshttp://promotionstocksecrets.com/500-million-belize-penny-stock-manipulation-ring-shut/

Before answering the question, let me first talk about exactly what the Trump Campaign, the Republican National Committee and the Nevada Republican Party are saying in their lawsuit. Feel free to follow along.One has to read a while to get to the meat of the matter. Just blow by the complaints that the law is too long and that it was, shudder, single-spaced—or that the Nevada Senate passed it on a “weekend.” The lawsuit does not allege that the weekend is illegal. That was left to President Trump’s tweeter:In an illegal late night coup, Nevada’s clubhouse Governor made it impossible for Republicans to win the state. Post Office could never handle the Traffic of Mail-In Votes without preparation. Using Covid to steal the state. See you in Court! https://t.co/cNSPINgCY7— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 3, 2020Trump has a high bar to pass, as the complaint admits:Under the U.S. Constitution, states have broad discretion to decide how to conduct their elections.What the Trump side must do is show first is that they have standing to bring the suit in the first place and then that the Nevada law is contrary to the Constitution or existing federal statutes. We’ll look at the complaint first:Which mail-in ballots countTheir first argument is statutory; federal law sets the date of the election. Nevada law (and this isn’t new) allows counting mail-in ballots that arrive after election day but before the election is certified, provided they are postmarked on or before election day or when the postmark is illegible. The Trump side says the ballot must bear evidence of proper time of mailing, making valid ballots vulnerable to malicious activity by postal workers or machine error.In fact, the Trump side argues elsewhere that the Postal Service doesn’t do a good job of delivering the mail on time and that they mishandle ballots—all the more reason to allow more latitude in delivery.The Republicans argue that the Postal Service simply is not equipped to handle the volume. My reply to that is, “Christmas.”Since the vast majority of Biden voters prefer mail-in voting (and Trump voters do not),[1][1][1][1] any mail-in ballot not counted will likely be for Biden. (The Trump Campaign has also sued Pennsylvania arguing that secure drop boxes for ballots violates the 14th Amendment.)Most states require receipt of the ballot by election day, but others allow ballots postmarked by election day to be counted until the following Friday. A court order in Pennsylvania is requiring it for this electionVaguenessThe Trump side argues that some provisions of AB4 are open to interpretation, and therefore not everyone will be treated the same. This somehow violates the constitutional principle of “equal protection.” I read through some of this and it seemed silly to insist extreme micromanagement of county election offices. Here’s an example from the complaint:Section 25 provides that “[i]f two or more ballots are found folded together to present the appearance of a single ballot, they must be laid aside. If a majority of the inspectors are of the opinion that the mail ballots folded together were voted by one person, the mail ballots must be rejected and placed in an envelope, upon which must be written the reason for their rejection.” But Section 25 establishes no standard by which the inspectors should assess whether the ballots were voted by one person.You can’t legislate every possible nuance of how something is folded. That’s why we have election officials and not robots.The thrust seems to be that the Nevada law is not perfect in their view.New YorkThe Trump side argues that their concerns are real and urgent because New York has had problems with their mail-in voting. Nevada, however, is not New York, and other all-mail western states are doing quite well. Several claims in the lawsuit from delivery of the mails to the accuracy of voter registration databases are made based on allegations against other states, not Nevada.Ironically, a court in New York has ordered the state to count ballots with missing postmarks, something the Trump side is claiming in their lawsuit violates federal law.Polling placesI didn’t read all of this section, but it appears that the Trump side claims that the allocation of in-person voting places favors mail-in voting. Nevada’s new model seems to encourage mail-in voting, but every county will have at least one in-person site so that anyone who wants to wait until election day can vote.The mailsThe lawsuit, while in not so many words, alleges that the postal service is a bunch of incompetent jerks who are incapable of delivering the mail.StandingThe first question that must be settled is whether the lawsuit is valid in the first place. Federal law gives to the states the authority to determine the manner of appointment of electors. But clearly the courts have ruled on election cases where classes of voters are disenfranchised (I don’t think Republicans are a protected class though). Article III of the Constitution limits the federal courts to actual cases and controversies.Article III standing law is built on separation-of-powers principles. Its purpose is to prevent the judicial process from being used to usurp the powers of the legislative and executive branch of the U.S. federal government.[2][2][2][2]The essential problem for the Trump side is that they will not be able to make the case that they, as Republicans, or the Trump campaign, are harmed any more than the voter in general. They cannot show how Republicans specifically are disadvantaged by AB4. That means that the Trump Campaign and the Republican plaintiffs have no more at stake than the Nevada voter in general, and it is well-settled that broad classes like voters do not have standing to sue.The second problem is that a federal lawsuit claim must show actual harm or imminent harm, not speculative harm. All of this seems to be speculation.MeritsIf the lawsuit somehow gets past the motion to dismiss for lack of standing, then it will be considered on the merits.Clearly the strongest argument for the Trump side is the counting of ballots that arrive after the election; however, since the act of putting the ballot in the mailbox can be deemed to be voting, and the state determines the manner of voting, I think this will pass muster. That leaves the issue of ballots with illegible postmarks. Again the state should have the authority to set the standard by which they determine a timely ballot. A court recently ruled that New York City must count ballots with missing postmarks.I think Trump loses this one.As for the others, I think those arguments are weaker. Republicans can’t show how any of these nipicks, vagaries, postal service quality and registration database quality disadvantage them specifically. The states have discretion here, and the equal protection argument makes no sense. Nevada voters can vote in person if they want to.Trump loses this one too.The case has been assigned to Judge James C. Mahan.So then…I am not a lawyer, and I know even less about Nevada law than I do federal law, but it seems to me that the Republicans filed in the wrong court. They should have filed in state court, because they lack federal standing.PSThe Trump campaign sued in Nevada in 2016 also, complaining that early voting places stayed open to accommodate voters who were standing in line. [3][3][3][3] (Don’t all states do that?)The Trump Campaign is also suing in Pennsylvania alleging that official ballot drop boxes violate the 14th Amendment.[4][4][4][4] This lawsuit, also filed in federal court, appears to suffer from the same lack of standing problems for the same reasons.It appears that Donald Trump is doing everything he can to discredit voting by mail among his followers and thereby biasing them to vote in person. Then he is doing everything he can to make mail-in voting difficult or impossible, and thereby suppress the Biden vote. This is what I call rigging an election.A version of this answer has been reprinted at Blog or Die!Update:I said:The second problem is that a federal lawsuit claim must show actual harm or imminent harm, not speculative harm. All of this seems to be speculation.The case has been dismissed. CNN reported:In his order, granted on September 18 and made public Monday, Mahan said called the campaign's arguments "too speculative" and did not show there was a "substantial risk" of putting the election in jeopardy. [5][5][5][5]Footnotes[1] July National Poll: Biden Maintains Lead in Presidential Race; Majority Support Nationwide Mask Mandate in Public Spaces[1] July National Poll: Biden Maintains Lead in Presidential Race; Majority Support Nationwide Mask Mandate in Public Spaces[1] July National Poll: Biden Maintains Lead in Presidential Race; Majority Support Nationwide Mask Mandate in Public Spaces[1] July National Poll: Biden Maintains Lead in Presidential Race; Majority Support Nationwide Mask Mandate in Public Spaces[2] Case or Controversy Clause - Wikipedia[2] Case or Controversy Clause - Wikipedia[2] Case or Controversy Clause - Wikipedia[2] Case or Controversy Clause - Wikipedia[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/11/08/trump-campaign-files-lawsuit-in-nevada-aimed-at-early-voting/[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/11/08/trump-campaign-files-lawsuit-in-nevada-aimed-at-early-voting/[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/11/08/trump-campaign-files-lawsuit-in-nevada-aimed-at-early-voting/[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/11/08/trump-campaign-files-lawsuit-in-nevada-aimed-at-early-voting/[4] The Trump campaign is suing Pennsylvania over how to run the 2020 election[4] The Trump campaign is suing Pennsylvania over how to run the 2020 election[4] The Trump campaign is suing Pennsylvania over how to run the 2020 election[4] The Trump campaign is suing Pennsylvania over how to run the 2020 election[5] Judge dismisses Trump campaign challenge to Nevada mail-in voting law[5] Judge dismisses Trump campaign challenge to Nevada mail-in voting law[5] Judge dismisses Trump campaign challenge to Nevada mail-in voting law[5] Judge dismisses Trump campaign challenge to Nevada mail-in voting law