Motion to Show Cause

We've had an upswing in requests for sample motions to show cause. The Washoe County Family Self-Help Center has a form (M-8) but it only available from the Self-Help Center (and is not on the website). Fortunately, the Clark County Law Family Self-Help Center also has a sample motion (Packet 110) available on its Custody page, under "Custody Motion Packets."

As always, this information is provided as a courtesy only and private counsel is recommended for legal matters.

Changes coming to Westlaw and Lexis

West and Lexis have been revamping their services. West debuts WestlawNext on February 1st and New Lexis will be released later this year.

Attorney and legal blogger Robert Ambrogi had the opportunity to use WestlawNext and says:

This is no mere cosmetic redesign. WestlawNext completely changes the search interface and the search engine behind it. In fact, the change is so dramatic that West has given its new search engine its own name: WestSearch. This new search engine does not just look at the terms you enter, a West executive said. Rather, it tries to identify the issue of law based on the terms you searched.

Less is known at this point about New Lexis. The February ABA Journal has an article on both Westlaw and Lexis and includes the following regarding New Lexis:

“Our new search engine is radically different,” says Marty Kilmer, vice president for new product strategy at LexisNexis. “Under the old system you had to know what you wanted to search. You had to drill down to find the right databases.”
....
An early preview of the New Lexis opens with a simple query box. Boolean search terms—like “Roe and Wade” or “Scalia or Roberts”—are a thing of the past. Users can type a simple query with natural language, a la Google or Yahoo. Queries can be filtered by jurisdiction, type of content or other restrictions. The search engine, like Google, has artificial intelligence that will help pull more relevant results.

Nevada Rental Foreclosure

If you are a renter who's dwelling unit is being foreclosed upon, the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada has a useful summary of Nevada law on rental foreclosures. The summary includes sample letters to the new owners, step-by-step lists of what to do if you are served with a summons and complaint and information for Section 8 tenants.

http://www.lacsn.org/consumer-rights-project/foreclosures/

Updated 6/22/11 to correct the Legal Aid of Southern Nevada link above (scroll down to Rental Foreclosure)

The Clark County Civil Self-Help Center has a page on Eviction after Foreclosure: http://www.clarkcountycourts.us/CivilSHC/landlord-tenant-evictions/eviction-foreclosure.html

The Nevada Dept. of Business & Industry also has a website with information for tenants of foreclosed properties: http://foreclosurehelp.nv.gov/Renters_Eviction.htm

If you do not want to negotiate with the lender directly, there is a list of local nonprofit housing counseling agencies you may contact: http://foreclosurehelp.nv.gov/docs/HousingCounselors.pdf

Nolo's Foreclosure Survival Guide Available Free on Nolo Website

Nolo's Foreclosure Survival Guide is the first book available free from the Nolo Law Library site. Find out more at Nolo's Bankruptcy and Foreclosure Blog. While the library does not own this title, it does own many other Nolo products, some of which are available for loan. Search the catalog to see which Nolo books are in the library's collection.

When What Happens Online Ends Up in Court

Poor judgment + social media = 10 Cases Where Online Activity Came Back to Haunt

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. The same is not true of what happens online. With increasing regularity, litigants, lawyers, witnesses, jurors and even judges are seeing their online activities come back to haunt them in court.

Unpublished Orders on Westlaw

Some months ago Westlaw began adding unpublished orders to the Nevada Cases database. These orders are not citable in Nevada courts per SCR 123.

If you are searching NV-CS and wish only to retrieve published opinions, use the following search string to exclude unpublished orders from your result:

search terms % ci(unpublished)

or

search terms AND NOT ci(unpublished)

Be sure to use the "and not" operator at the end of your search. Note, this only works when using Terms & Connectors.

Carson City has Joint Petition for Divorce on website

Carson City has posted Joint Petition for Divorce with/without Children on their website in both Microsoft Word format and PDF. Forms

Updated: Carson City is no longer making forms available in Word format.