Jan. 31 Boyd Briefs Now Available

The Jan. 31 edition of Boyd Briefs is now available.

This week's edition features Professor Lydia Nussbaum, students Oscar Peralta and Jose Martin, and alumna Brandi Jensen '01.

One of Boyd’s newest faculty members, Professor Nussbaum, currently serves as the Director of the Strasser Mediation Clinic and as Associate Director of the Saltman Center for Conflict Resolution. Her scholarship has added to the intellectual richness of both the community and Boyd’s faculty.

After relocating from his native Costa Rica at age 15, Peralta is now a third-year student at Boyd. Today, he studies alongside his former mentor and Boyd second-year student Jose Martin, who taught Peralta as an undergraduate adjunct professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. Peralta is considering a future career in public service, while Martin aspires to practice immigration law.

Jensen currently works as the City Attorney for the City of Fernley, where she handles all criminal prosecution, employment law, and contracting that ranges from small projects to million-dollar roadways. In addition to her busy legal career, Jensen competes in rodeo competitions, which has led her to win the All-Around Cowgirl title twice in the last few years.

To subscribe to Boyd Briefs,  visit http://www.law.unlv.edu/BoydBriefs.

Professor Christopher Blakesley Quoted by Several Media Outlets Regarding Amanda Knox Trial

Christopher Blakesley is The Cobeaga Law Firm Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law.

Recently, he has been quoted by several media outlets regarding the Amanda Knox trial. Below is a list of articles he has been cited in:

• Amanda Knox could be extradited, legal expert says (Gazzetta del Sud)
• Amanda Knox's Guilty Verdict Raises Specter of Extradition (KVOR)
• Sentenza Meredith, Sollecito fermato vicino all’Austria. Knox: “Mai voglia di tornare” (il Fatto Quotidiano) 
• VIDEO. Amanda Knox peut-elle être extradée vers l'Italie? (L'Express) 
• Sollecito fa un giro in Austria, nessuna fuga. Nuovo ricorso in Cassazione (Dazebao News)
• “Amanda Knox può essere estradata”: parola di esperto Usa diritto internazionale (Blitz quotidiano)
• Knox condannata: mi incarcereranno mentre scalcio e urlo (video) (Globalist)
• Amanda Knox's Guilty Verdict Raises Specter of Extradition (ABC News)
• Amanda Knox verdict puts US credibility on trial (Metro World News) 

"'There's room to fight extradition,' Blakesley said, 'and double jeopardy is the spot to fight on…. In the treaty, we functionally accept their system of justice, but it's up to a magistrate to decide whether' the double jeopardy clause of the Constitution was violated and if that trumps the treaty," the ABC News article reads.

Professor Blakesley is a Barrick Distinguished Scholar, 2009.

Professor Ruben Garcia Featured on KSNV News 3

Ruben J. Garcia is a Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law.

On Jan. 29, he was featured on KSNV's News 3 Live at 4 (14:43 remaining mark), talking about President Obama and the use of executive orders.

"There's certainly things that a President can do consistent with the Constitution by executive act. There are of course limits to that. I think President Obama has done a careful study, being a former constitutional law professor, of what he can and can't do in terms of the executive authority that he has. So he has some ideas. Of course, there's going to be debate about some of them. There may even be some legal arguments, but we'll have to see how it goes," Professor Garcia said during the interview.

A recognized expert in the field of labor and employment law, Professor Garcia teaches Labor Law, Employment Law, Constitutional Law, and Professional Responsibility at the Boyd School of Law. He has been quoted in the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Las Vegas Review-Journal, among others, and has appeared on national and local radio and television programs.

Boyd Student Skylar Young Co-authors U.S. News & World Report Article

Skylar Young is a 2L at the William S. Boyd School of Law.

On Jan. 28, an article she co-authored alongside Jamie Chandler, was published by the U.S. News & World Report. The article is titled African-American Women Hit Hardest By Income Inequality.

"As much as many in the right wing cry reverse racism to the point of delusion, institutionalized racism limits the economic opportunities available to African-American women," the article reads. "It's certainly rare for them to make it in corporate America. Granted, Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox, and Rosalind Brewer, the president and CEO of Sam's Club, made it to the top, but black businesswomen as a whole are held back by negative racial stereotypes and bias. They make up only 1 percent of U.S. corporate officers, despite affirmative action and diversity programs, and many are leaving for other careers because their career growth is bleak."

Professor Ann McGinley to Serve as Visiting Foreign Professor in Santiago, Chile

Ann McGinley is a William S. Boyd Professor of Law at UNLV.

Professor McGinley this summer will serve as a Visiting Foreign Professor at the Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in Santiago, Chile. She will also act as a member of the Academic Advisory Council of the master's degree program in labor and employment law, a position she was recently appointed to.

Professor McGinely has given lectures at the university the summers of 2012 and 2013. This year's talk, titled La Ley del Acoso Sexual en los EEUU (Sexual Harassment Law in the United States), is three hours in Spanish, including questions and commentary in Spanish.

Professor McGinley is an internationally recognized scholar in the area of employment law, employment discrimination and disability law and a leader in Multidimensional Masculinities Theory, an emerging discipline that applies masculinities theory from social sciences to legal interpretation.

Director Jennifer Carr to Speak at Southwestern Consortium of Academic Support Professionals Workshop

Jennifer Carr is Director of the Academic Success Program at the William S. Boyd School of Law.

Professor Carr will speak on March 6 at the second annual Southwestern Consortium of Academic Support Professionals Workshop. The workshop will take place at St. Mary's School of Law in San Antonio, Texas.

Professor Carr will discuss assessing and expanding law school academic support programs to find and fill areas of need to ensure student success.

As director of the academic success program, Professor Carr provides individual counseling on academic matters, bar examination preparation, and group presentations on necessary legal analysis skills.

Associate Professor Marketa Trimble Writes Article for Technology & Marketing Law Blog

Marketa Trimble is Associate Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law.

On Jan. 27, she wrote an article for the Technology & Marketing Law Blog titled The Sochi Olympics and European Answers to Cross-Border Copyright Questions.

"With the Sochi Winter Olympic Games approaching, it is time again to follow one of the unofficial Olympic “sports” – the evasion of geolocation. Internet users around the globe will be bypassing websites’ geoblocking capabilities to access internet content that is territorially limited and therefore otherwise inaccessible in their physical location," her blog post reads. "Users typically encounter territorial limitations on Olympic content because the content is licensed per country or region and content providers limit access to the licensed content to users connecting from those particular countries or regions."

In her research, Professor Trimble focuses on intellectual property and issues at the intersection of intellectual property and private international law/conflict of laws.

Patent Litigation in Nevada (Part 2)

By Marketa Trimble, Associate Professor of Law

In 2014 I will follow my earlier blog posts about patenting in Nevada (here and here) and patent litigation in Nevada (here) and discuss detailed statistics about patent litigation before the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada. I derived the data used in this and the following blog posts from the Lex Machina database (here), and the statistics that I compiled from the data reflect information available in the database as of January 2014.

Figure 1 compares the numbers of patent cases filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada in 2000-2013 (gray columns) with the numbers of patent cases filed in those years in U.S. district courts U.S.-wide, including in Nevada (orange columns, in hundreds of cases).

In 2013 the number of patent cases filed continued to rise after the growth in the numbers experienced in 2009-2012, and reached 6,112 cases filed U.S.-wide in 2013. This number was an increase of 13% from 2012 (when 5,420 cases were filed), an increase of 73% from 2011 (3,529 cases), and an increase of 125% from 2010 (2,714 cases). In other words, there were more than twice as many patent cases filed in the United States in 2013 than were filed in 2010.

The development in the numbers of patent lawsuits filed in Nevada was different although the numbers grew as well; the 2013 Nevada number (43 cases) was an increase of 34% from 2012 (when 32 cases were filed), an increase of 43% from 2011 (30 cases), and an increase of 54% from 2010 (28 cases). As Figure 1 shows, while the U.S.-wide numbers jumped substantially from 2011 to 2012, the Nevada numbers grew substantially from 2009 to 2010 (from 15 to 28 cases) and from 2012 to 2013 (from 32 to 43 cases).

Figure 2 shows the types of claims that were included in the patent lawsuits filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada in 2010-2013. Most of the cases were brought by patent holders who claimed that one or more of their U.S. patents were infringed (blue columns). A smaller number of cases were filed by pharmaceutical companies as actions concerning new drug applications by producers of generic versions of patented drugs (“NDA/ANDA” actions; red columns). An even smaller number of cases were filed by persons or entities asking the court to declare that a patent was not valid and/or that the persons and entities did not infringe the patent (green columns). Finally, one case included a claim of a false patent marking – a claim that the defendant had provided incorrect patent information about its product (purple column).

The data in Figure 2 are rather typical for the U.S. patent litigation landscape, although the numbers of NDA/ANDA actions might be surprising because Nevada is not perceived as a center of the pharmaceutical industry. In 2012 NDA/ANDA actions represented 16% of patent cases filed in Nevada, while this type of action represented, for example, only 5% of all patent suits filed in 2012 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. However, it is important to remember that the percentage in Nevada translates into only a handful of cases (compared to 51 cases in Delaware). In 2013, four out of six NDA/ANDA actions filed in Nevada that year were filed i.a. against Watson Laboratories, Inc., which is a Nevada corporation and a subsidiary of Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (now Actavis, Inc.) with its global headquarters in Ireland. Note that plaintiffs do not have to file patent lawsuits where defendants reside, are incorporated, or have their principal place of business, and one of my upcoming blog posts will analyze the origins of defendants who have been sued in Nevada.

Figure 3 confirms another general trend in the patent litigation landscape – that most patent cases settle (see, e.g., here). Frequently they do not enter the trial phase and settle either after the claim construction hearing (in which the meaning of a patent is clarified) or even earlier. Figure 3 shows that in Nevada the typical types of terminations of patent cases that were filed in 2010-2013 (of the cases that were terminated by January 2014) were voluntary dismissals by the plaintiff or stipulated dismissals. By January 2014, 96% of patent cases filed in Nevada in 2010 were terminated, 67% of cases filed in 2011, 63% of cases filed in 2012, and 40% of cases filed in 2013. 

The charts in this blog post were prepared based on data available in the Lex Machina database as of January 2014. 

Professor Trimble welcomes any citing or quoting of this blog post or reposting of the entire blog post and/or the figures; however, she requests that you cite the author and title of the blog post and include a link to this page.

Associate Professor Addie Rolnick to Testify as Expert Witness

Addie Rolnick is an Associate Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law.

Professor Rolnick has been invited to testify on Feb. 11 as an expert witness at one of four national hearings held by the Attorney General's Advisory Committee on American Indian and Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence.

This hearing will focus on the Juvenile Systems’ (Tribal, State and Federal) Response to American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) Children Exposed to Violence.

Professor Rolnick will testify, along with two members of the national Tribal Law and Order Commission, as part of a panel entitled "Overview of American Indian Children and Youth in Tribal, State, and Federal Juvenile Justice Systems."

Professor Rolnick's scholarship focuses on bridging gaps between civil rights, Critical Race Theory, federal Indian law, and indigenous rights.

Jan. 23 Boyd Briefs Now Available

The Jan. 23 edition of Boyd Briefs is now available.

This week's edition features Professor Jean Sternlight, student Lee Gorlin, and alumna Gina Bongiovi '07.

Professor Sternlight is a highly regarded authority on alternative dispute resolution among Boyd faculty and across the nation. As the Director of the Saltman Center for Conflict Resolution, she has played an integral role in the development of Boyd’s national reputation. 

When not attending Boyd as a part-time evening student, Gorlin works as a “Creative” for Apple, where he teaches consumers how to navigate and enjoy the company’s products. He is currently the president of the Organization of Part-time Law Students, a student mentor of the Academic Success Program, and a staff member on the Nevada Law Journal.

A graduate of UNLV’s joint JD/MBA program, Bongiovi currently works at her own practice that focuses on helping startups and small businesses. She is an active volunteer for the Vegas Young Professionals and Las Vegas Metro Chamber’s Business Council. Additionally, she has helped start nonprofits, including Dress for Success, Vegas Shepard Rescue, and Working K9 Rescue.

To subscribe to Boyd Briefs, visit http://law.unlv.edu/BoydBriefs.

Professor Ruben Garcia Quoted in Las Vegas Review-Journal

Ruben J. Garcia is a Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law.

On Jan. 22, he was quoted in the Las Vegas Review-Journal article Ruling forces North Las Vegas to weigh its options.

“The (District Court) opinion is a pretty straightforward statutory opinion. I think it’s going to be tough to convince the Supreme Court to take a different approach, but there’s certainly a chance they would interpret (the statute) differently. The question is does the city want to get a fresh start out of this? Does the new leadership want to take a new approach?” Professor Garcia said in the article about how the City of North Las Vegas will cover $25 million due in back pay to the city’s public safety unions.

A recognized expert in the field of labor and employment law, Professor Garcia teaches Labor Law, Employment Law, Constitutional Law, and Professional Responsibility at the Boyd School of Law. He has been quoted in the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Las Vegas Review-Journal, among others, and has appeared on national and local radio and television programs.

Dean Dan Hamilton Featured in Vegas Seven's Intriguing People Issue

Dan Hamilton is the Dean and Richard J. Morgan Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law.

He is featured in the January, Intriguing People 2014, issue of Vegas Seven magazine. Dean Hamilton's profile is titled The Law Man: Dan Hamilton.

“UNLV is a unique story in the history of legal education. It’s become one of the country’s top public law schools in a short period of time. To me, it’s what I envision as the best of the West—open, not bound by tradition and more entrepreneurial," Dean Hamilton said in his profile.

Dean Hamilton researches and writes primarily on American property ideology and the legal and constitutional issues raised by the Civil War. He has written numerous articles and reviews on American legal history.

Jan. 16 Boyd Briefs Now Available

The Jan. 16 edition of Boyd Briefs is now available.

This week's edition features Professor Elaine Shoben, student Shannon Phenix, and alumna Janet E. Traut '01.

Professor Shoben is one of only a dozen experts in the field of Remedies, which requires expertise in contracts, torts, property, injunctions, and more. She is also a frequently cited scholar of employment law.

Phenix is currently in her final year of the dual Juris Doctor and Master of Social Work degree program. This past December, the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada named her its Public Interest Law Student of Distinction for her commitment to serving those in need of representation.

Traut has served four Attorneys General over the past 12 years, and now works as the Supervising Senior Deputy Attorney General with the Bureau of Litigation. She is a proud member of Boyd's charter class.

To subscribe to Boyd Briefs, visit http://law.unlv.edu/BoydBriefs.

Boyd Alumna Lucy Flores '10 Featured in Las Vegas Weekly

On Jan. 9, Boyd alumna Lucy Flores '10 was featured in the Las Vegas Weekly article [14 to Watch in 2014] Lucy Flores, Democrat on the Rise.

"Now she appears to be Sen. Harry Reid’s pick to run for lieutenant governor, a post Reid held during the 1970s," the article reads.

It continues, "Even if she doesn’t end up running for lieutenant governor, Flores has a reputation as an ambitious legislator, so chances are you’ll be reading about her one way or another."

Boyd Alumna Melissa Waite '07 Named Partner at Jolley Urga Woodbury & Little

Jolley Urga Woodbury & Little on Jan. 10 announced that Boyd alumna Melissa L. Waite '07 has become a partner at the firm.

Waite will continue to practice in the areas of Real Estate Transactions, Real Estate Finance, Commercial Transactions, Business Formation, Gaming Law and Privilege Licensing. She will also be accepting Medical Marijuana Establishment Licensing cases for the firm.

In addition, Martindale-Hubble® now recognizes Waite as AV® Preeminent™ Peer Review Rated in Corporate Law, Administrative Law and Business Law, the highest such rating available to any individual attorney. The Martindale-Hubbell® Peer Review Ratings™ are generated from evaluations of lawyers by other members of the bar and the judiciary. Legal Ability ratings are based on performance in five key areas, rated on a scale of one to five (with five being the highest). These areas are: legal knowledge, analytical capabilities, judgment, communication ability, and legal experience.

In 2003, Waite graduated with magna cum laude honors from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and minor in Economics. In 2007, she received a Master of Business Administration degree from the UNLV College of Business and a Juris Doctorate degree from the William S. Boyd School of Law at UNLV, graduating with cum laude honors.

Jolley Urga Woodbury & Little includes practice areas in Civil and Business Litigation, Banking, Real Estate Litigation, Commercial Transactions, Trusts, Wills, Estate Planning, Probate, Real Estate Transactions, Construction Law, Personal Injury, Bankruptcy, and Gaming. The firm was established in 1974 and has offices in Las Vegas and Boulder City.

Boyd Student Katelyn Cantu Earns Externship in Paris

On top of excitement and anxiousness, Katelyn Cantu might be feeling jetlag at the law school convocation program in May.

“Convocation is on the 16th, and I think I get back on the 14th,” she said.

Cantu will be getting back from Paris, where she is spending her last semester of law school working as an extern for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), a specialized agency of the United Nations dedicated to increasing peace and security among nations.

“I’m really excited. I’m looking forward to being in a different environment. I’m not nervous at all. I’m prepared to go. And what I’m going to be working on is really interesting to me, so that makes me especially excited,” she said.

In her role, which begins at the end of January, Cantu will assist in the follow-up of the eighth meeting of the Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the event of Armed Conflict, the 10th meeting of the High Contracting Parties to the 1954 Hague Convention, and the fifth meeting of the Parties to the Second Protocol. She will also draft correspondence, memoranda, and documents for statutory bodies, including the Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its Bureau.

Cantu learned that she earned the position in November.

“Until that point, I’d been looking a lot for a job for after graduation. Not having something lined up was causing a lot of stress, so I was very relieved when I got the call,” Cantu said. “I’m hoping this will open doors to lots of opportunities.”

“In my career, I want to work in international humanitarian law or human rights, working with victims of war crimes or refugees,” she continued. “I’ve done a lot of traveling. Because it’s so real to me, because I’ve been in it and seen it, I can’t forget about it.”

Professor Ruben Garcia Quoted in Las Vegas Sun

Ruben J. Garcia is a Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law.

On Jan. 13, he was quoted in the Las Vegas Sun article Confused about tipping? Now IRS has reclassified automatic gratuity on bills.

"The suggested gratuity takes a lot of the certainty out of people’s income. I think it’s clear that some people won’t follow the suggested gratuity, or it will vary. What the union is probably most interested in is certainty in their income. For those who work in chain restaurants that don’t have unions, they have less influence and so less certainty," he said regarding the IRS' Jan. 1 ruling that reclassifies automatic tips for large parties as service charges.

A recognized expert in the field of labor and employment law, Professor Garcia teaches Labor Law, Employment Law, Constitutional Law, and Professional Responsibility at the Boyd School of Law. He has been quoted in the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Las Vegas Review-Journal, among others, and has appeared on national and local radio and television programs.

Professor Leslie Griffin Writes Article for U.S. News

Dr. Leslie C. Griffin is a William S. Boyd Professor of Law at UNLV.

On Jan. 9, she wrote an article for U.S. News titled Little Sisters of the Poor Try to Turn Obamacare Upside Down.

"The Little Sisters of the Poor are an order of Catholic nuns who oppose the use of sterilization, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs and devices. Nothing in the Affordable Care Act requires the nuns to practice sterilization, contraception or abortion," her article reads. "Nonetheless, the nuns filed a lawsuit – now involving the Supreme Court – to prevent other women from receiving insurance that covers those services. 

The article continues, "It is upside down to let the Sisters determine the law of reproductive freedom. It is right-side up for the courts to confirm Congress's power to authorize all employers to obey the law and protect women's health."

Professor Griffin, who teaches constitutional law, is known for her interdisciplinary work in law and religion. 

Dean Dan Hamilton Featured in Nevada Business Magazine

Dan Hamilton is the Dean and Richard J. Morgan Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law.

On Jan. 2, he was featured in the Nevada Business Magazine article Industry Focus: Attorneys. The article summarizes a recent gathering of Nevada attorneys to discuss the industry's current trends and challenges.

When asked how technology has impacted the legal industry, Dean Hamilton responded, "Technology has changed the world of law school admissions in surprising ways. Now admitted students can talk via the internet on the kinds of negotiations they’re having with law schools with respect to their tuition. A student admitted to UNLV will be in communication with someone who was admitted to Cal Western, UNLV and University of San Diego talking about the scholarship offers they’re getting at each. The whole website is devoted to the best deal you can get. It’s very school specific and it has definitely changed the game."

When asked about the importance of business development skills for attorneys, Dean Hamilton said, "Our core services department is now training people how to network from the start of law school. That is one of the skills that can be taught. It’s not just an art, it’s a science. Effective networking is really something that we try to train our students to do from the first day of law school."

When asked if staffing is an issue, Dean Hamilton responded, "The number one job for us is to make sure the Boyd student emerges with a good job and a chance for a very satisfying, good career. We have a terrific career services office that works with students from the first day of law school to well after they graduate. It’s no longer a case of placing them in a job and moving on to the next. We have to make sure our students remain competitive in the increasingly national legal market. We have a new associate dean for experiential learning and their whole mission is to make sure our lawyers hit the ground as close to practice ready as possible. We need to make sure our students compete for those positions in Las Vegas when they come up and that we make the case that the Boyd student is the one you want. They are tied to this community and they are already trained how to network and build these relationships and we are very proud of the students we produce. We will have to shrink, as most law schools will have to do. That will take off some of the immediate pressure to place 150 students every year. This remains our fundamental challenge for legal education broadly." He continued, "One half of law school graduates across the country are going to one- or two-person law firms. Teaching them how to be able to hit the ground running and open up a shop very quickly right out of law school is really a challenge. We’re partnering with the State Bar to figure out ways we can better serve the roughly 40-50 percent of our class that’s going to go into small firms."

Dean Hamilton researches and writes primarily on American property ideology and the legal and constitutional issues raised by the Civil War. He has written numerous articles and reviews on American legal history.

Jan. 9 Boyd Briefs Now Available

The Jan. 9 edition of Boyd Briefs is now available.

This week's edition features Professor Ian Bartrum, student Virgilio "Bing" Longakit, and alumna Siria L. Gutiérrez '10.

Since arriving at Boyd in 2011, Professor Bartrum has become one of the law school's most prolific young scholars. He is currently developing a national reputation for his highly regarded work that centers on theories of constitutional interpretation.

After working on his family farm and attending university in the Philippines, Longakit is now a second-year, part-time evening student at Boyd. During the day, he oversees the Unclaimed Property Division of the Nevada State Treasurer's Office where he works as a Certified Public Accountant and Certified Public Manager.

Gutiérrez currently works as an associate at the Las Vegas firm of Phillips, Spallas and Angstadt where she focuses in the area of tort litigation defense, specializing in premises liability. She is also a founding and current member of La Voz's award-winning mentorship program Huellas ("Footprints"), which is designed to encourage minority students to enter the legal profession. Gutiérrez will serve as the President of the Las Vegas Latino Bar Association in 2014. 

To subscribe to Boyd Briefs, visit http://law.unlv.edu/BoydBriefs.

William S. Boyd School of Law Featured on Jim Rogers' Nevada

On Jan. 9, the William S. Boyd School of Law was featured on Channel 3's Jim Rogers' Nevada program.

During the segment, Jim Rogers and Barbara Buckley, Executive Director of the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada (LACSN), discussed the relationship between LACSN and the law school, the law school's commitment to the community, Boyd's leadership, the law school's success, and more.

"The William S. Boyd School of Law has just made such a difference in the community, and they have just done an outstanding job from day one. We have a great partnership with the school," Buckley said.

Boyd Alumni Named Partners at McDonald Carano Wilson

Kristen Gallagher '05

McDonald Carano Wilson LLP yesterday announced the advancement of attorneys Kristen Gallagher '05 and Amanda Yen '05 to the firm’s partnership.

Amanda Yen '05

“Ms. Gallagher and Ms. Yen have both developed into exceptional lawyers who will enhance our partnership,” said Managing Partner John Frankovich, in a press release distributed by the firm. “We are proud to have them as partners and are confident they’ll uphold our firm’s high standard of professional excellence coupled with tremendous client service.”

Gallagher joined McDonald Carano Wilson in 2005 after graduating magna cum laude from UNLV’s William S. Boyd School of Law. She previously earned a Master of Social Work from UNLV and a Bachelor of Science from Indiana University’s Kelly School of Business. Prior to earning her graduate and law degrees, Gallagher worked in the insurance industry. Gallagher practices primarily in the area of commercial litigation and is also a member of the firm’s employment law practice group.

Yen has been an attorney with McDonald Carano Wilson since 2006. Yen also graduated magna cum laude from UNLV’s William S. Boyd School of Law, earning the William S. Boyd Outstanding Graduate Award in 2005. She served as a judicial law clerk in the U.S. District Court for one year before joining the firm and previously earned a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies and Theater Arts from Pepperdine University. Yen practices primarily in the areas of commercial litigation, appellate law, and employment law.

Both Gallagher and Yen became partners in the firm effective Jan. 1, 2014.

Founded in 1949, McDonald Carano Wilson LLP is a full-service law firm with offices in Las Vegas and Reno.