Feature Stories - March 2002

Nevada Superlawyers

Bankruptcy Law

Laurel Davis

Lionel Sawyer & Collins

Laurel Elizabeth Davis is a partner in the litigation department of Lionel Sawyer & Collins in Las Vegas, where her practice is primarily devoted to bankruptcy and insolvency law. An Adjunct Professor at Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, she has served as a founding Board Member and co-chair of the bankruptcy section of the State Bar of Nevada, a member of the Judge’s Advisory Board for the Southern Nevada Association of Bankruptcy Attorneys and a member of the Local Rules Committee for the U.S. District of Nevada. In 2002, she was appointed to a three-year term as Lawyer Representative to the Ninth District Court of Appeals.

Civil Litigation

Von Heinz

Lewis & Roca

Von S. Heinz, a partner with Lewis and Roca LLP, concentrates his practice in commercial litigation and employment law and has practiced for more than 20 years in Nevada. He represents clients on complex civil and commercial litigation matters, securities law and employment cases at both the trial and appellate levels. Heinz is a master and past officer of the Nevada American Inn of Court and helped develop more than 100 of its educational programs, focusing principally on the development of lawyers’ ethical awareness and the enhancement of the legal profession in the community. Most recently, he served a three-year term as one of Nevada’s five lawyer representatives to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Corporate Finance and Security

David Garcia

Hale Lane Peek Dennison and Howard

David A. Garcia is a shareholder of Hale Lane Peek Dennison and Howard, where he practices corporate and securities law. Working primarily out of the Reno office, Garcia also spends time in the firm’s Las Vegas and Carson City offices, servicing the needs of the firm’s clients throughout the state. He has extensive experience in venture capital financings, mergers and acquisitions, and public and private securities offerings. He has counseled both publicly and privately held companies in their corporate and financing affairs and has additional experience in structuring corporate partnering transactions and technology development, distribution and licensing arrangements. He also represents venture capital and angel investors in their investment activities.

Corporation and Partnership Law

Marti Ashcraft

Lewis and Roca

Martha J. (Marti) Ashcraft is the supervising partner of Lewis and Roca’s Las Vegas office. Her business law practice involves counseling clients on corporate, partnership and limited liability company formation and management issues, including the purchase and sale of businesses, mergers and acquisitions, investor agreements and financing matters. Ashcraft acted as lead counsel on behalf of ITT Corporation in the hostile takeover action by Hilton Hotels, and she also has substantial experience handling public utility regulatory matters, especially relating to the electrical power industry. She is a member of a task force charged with modernizing Nevada corporate law and serves on the State Bar’s Business Law Section Executive Committee.

Criminal Law

Scott Freeman

Law Offices of Scott Freeman

Scott N. Freeman has been in private practice throughout Nevada and California since passing both Bars in 1984. Representative cases during 2001-2002 include: a first degree murder jury trial acquittal in State of Nevada vs. Luis Hernandez-Flores; dismissal of a felony indictment filed against a Carson City Chief Deputy District Attorney; and securing of a misdemeanor plea of "disturbing the peace" for one of three defendants accused of shooting horses in Storey County. He was appointed by the Nevada Supreme Court to serve a four-year term as Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Nevada Law Foundation and is a member of the board of directors of the Nevada Attorneys for Criminal Justice.

Divorce, Adoption and Family Law

Philip Beuth

Family Law Centers, Inc.

Philip Beuth moved to Las Vegas after graduation from Whittier Law School in 1995 and immediately opened his own law practice. As CEO of Family Law Centers, Inc. in Las Vegas, he heads a full-service law firm and paralegal service devoted exclusively to family law. His practice focuses on family law, divorce, guardianships, custody, child support and domestic violence. He is a member of the Trial by Peers Committee, a teen court program sponsored by the Clark County Bar Association. Beuth mentors future lawyers in a diversion program designed to keep juvenile offenders from having criminal records.

Gaming Law

Harvey Whittemore

Lionel Sawyer & Collins

Harvey Whittemore is the Reno managing partner of Lionel Sawyer & Collins and a member of the firm’s administrative and gaming law department. One of Nevada’s most influential lobbyists, he is responsible for the firm’s extensive legislative program and represents its clients in legislative and governmental relations matters. Major clients have included the Nevada Resort Association, the Gaming Industry Association of Nevada, Hilton Hotels Corporation and Caesars World. His primary areas of legal practice include state government relations, administrative law, planning and zoning, and gaming. He is a member of the International Association of Gaming Attorneys and the American Bar Association’s Section on Gaming. He frequently lectures on legislative developments affecting the gaming and business community.

General Practice

Ed Blalock

Blalock & Associates

Edward L. Blalock has been a senior partner with the Las Vegas firm of Blalock & Associates since 1988. His main areas of practice include commercial collections, subrogation law and construction law. He has lectured on construction and collection law for various trade groups and to attorneys seeking credit for continuing legal education. He has co-authored How to Get Results in Collection of Delinquent Debts in Nevada and Mechanics’ Lien Law and Strategies in Nevada. Blalock is admitted to all state and federal courts in Nevada. He is a member of the Commercial Law League, the State Bar of Nevada and the Clark County Bar Association.

Intellectual Property and Entertainment

Marc Risman

Law Offices of Marc D. Risman

Marc Risman’s areas of practice at his two Las Vegas offices range from entertainment law, sports law and travel industry law to litigation and criminal law. Since establishing his practice in 1979, he has represented many celebrity clients, including such show business figures as Pat Morita, Rich Little, Gladys Knight and the Pips, and Elayne Boosler. Boxing clients include Larry Holmes, Tim Witherspoon, Julio Cesar Chavez, Carlos Palomino and Trevor Berbick. He has represented clients in all areas of sports, from Olympic athletes to racecar drivers, and from baseball players to golfers. He has served as the chairman of the Sports and Gaming Law Committee of the International Bar Association.

Labor and Employment Law

Patrick Chapin

Private Practice

Patrick N. Chapin has been in private practice in Las Vegas since 1993, chiefly representing clients in employment discrimination and employment disability cases. He is a frequent lecturer in the area of federal employment/discrimination law. In April, 2001, he was selected to speak on employment law at Oxford University in England. Chapin also is a frequent lecturer in the area of Nevada landlord/tenant law and represents numerous local and national residential management companies. A portion of his practice is devoted to the field of medical and nursing home negligence.

Personal Injury

W. Randall Mainor

Mainor Harris

A native Nevadan born in Overton, W. Randall Mainor served as a special agent with the FBI for three years and has held several government posts, including deputy district attorney and deputy public defender, both in Clark County. Now a partner in Mainor Harris, he limits his practice to personal injury claims, with emphasis on product defects and medical malpractice. He has won several multi-million dollar awards for his clients, both by settlements and in jury verdicts. In 1999, he won the single largest personal injury claim in Nevada history, with a jury returning a verdict of $25 million. He was selected as Nevada Trial Lawyer of the Year in 1999 by the Nevada Trial Lawyers Association.

Probate Law

Greg Morris

Private Practice

Since 1992, Gregory J. Morris has been providing estate planning tools and techniques to individuals and businesses in Nevada. Morris practices primarily in probate, estate planning and business planning. His emphasis includes living trusts, wills, durable powers of attorney, irrevocable trusts, charitable remainder trusts, qualified personal residence trusts, corporations, family limited partnerships, probate administration and gift planning. He has lectured extensively before public, private, and professional groups on probate and estate planning topics and has been invited numerous times by the State Bar of Nevada to instruct other Bar members on advanced estate planning and business succession planning issues. He co-authored Wills, Trusts, and Estate Planning, which was published by the State Bar of Nevada.

Real Estate Law

Karen Dennison

Hale Lane Peek Dennison and Howard

Karen D. Dennison is a shareholder of Hale Lane Peek Dennison and Howard, and practices in the field of real property law. During her 30 years of practice, she has represented a wide range of real estate clients. Dennison has extensive experience in real property acquisition, development, leasing, sale and financing. She has represented both owners and lenders in transactions involving mixed-use and golf course communities, time share developments, senior group care facilities, hotels, industrial parks, shopping centers and office buildings. She works closely with the Nevada Real Estate Division and other governmental and administrative agencies.

Taxation Law

James Kelly

Hale Lane Peek Dennison and Howard

James L. Kelly is a shareholder of Hale Lane Peek Dennison and Howard, practicing primarily in the areas of federal income taxation, and laws regarding limited liability companies, corporations, partnerships and general business. Kelly has practiced law for over 16 years, representing business organizations of all sizes in a wide range of business and taxation matters. He has served for over 10 years as an adjunct professor on taxation at Golden Gate University. In addition, he has lectured extensively to business groups and as a featured speaker on panels regarding corporations, partnerships, limited-liability companies, federal income tax issues, and the purchase and sale of businesses.

Wills, Trusts and Estate Planning

Steven Oshins

Oshins & Assoc.

Steven J. Oshins is a shareholder of the law offices of Oshins & Associates in Las Vegas. He frequently lectures at conferences across the country and has had numerous articles published in national estate planning magazines. Oshins has been featured in Forbes and What’s On, and has been quoted in many other publications, including Financial Times and Lawyer’s Weekly. In 1998, he was awarded a national EPIC Award from Trusts & Estates, the leading magazine in the estate planning industry. Oshins co-authored the bill in the last session of the Nevada Legislature that made Nevada one of the leading asset-protection jurisdictions in the United States for limited liability companies and limited partnerships.

Workers Compensation Law

Riley Beckett

Beckett & Yott, Ltd.

Riley M. Beckett has been in private practice in Carson City since 1977, focusing on personal injury, workers’ compensation, insurance law, probate and domestic relations. When he was retained by the Employers Insurance Company of Nevada as its subrogation attorney, his office handled more than 6,000 personal injury cases. Beckett was involved in several large, multi-party actions, including: litigation stemming from the Mojave explosion in Laughlin, the largest industrial catastrophe in state history; the Mission Subrogation Case, resulting from the 1981 fire at the Las Vegas Hilton; and the Pepcon plant explosion in Henderson, which involved more than 70 insurance companies and resulted in damages in excess of $80 million.