State pays for Hawaiian trip for Legislature's attorneys

CARSON CITY -- The Legislature sent four of its lawyers and two other staff members, at state expense, to Hawaii for the Nevada State Bar convention last month.

The Nevada Supreme Court dispatched three of its five justices, the chief clerk and nine district judges to the Maui meeting.

But the more than 130 lawyers in the office of Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa stayed home. There was no state money to send any of them.

If some attended, they "used their own time and their own dime," says Bob Harmon, spokesman for the attorney general's office.

It's an example of the differences between the three branches of government in the treatment of attorneys.

For example, attorneys for the Legislature are able to draw overtime pay for the long hours they put in during the session. There's no overtime pay for the deputies in the attorney general's office.

Lorne Malkiewich, director of the Legislative Counsel Bureau, said the trip to Maui for the lawyers was necessary to allow them to receive the required continuing legal education courses. Attorneys are required to take so much training to keep their license current.

The legislative lawyers can't get away during the sessions every two years so they have to bone up when there's a free time, he said.

In contrast, the attorney general's office runs its own education courses to keep lawyers up to date on the latest legal developments. If they wanted to go to Maui, they had to take their own leave time and pay their own expenses, said Harmon.

The Supreme Court pays the annual dues to the bar association for the five justices and the attorneys who head divisions in the court. The Legislature and the Attorney General's office don't.

Assistant Attorney General Brooke Nielsen said money to pay the dues of lawyers, which can amount to about $350 a year per person, has been included in the budget of the office several times in the past. But the Legislature has always knocked it out.

This time, Nielsen said the office changed its strategy and has now asked that a bill be prepared for the 1999 Legislature in asking for the dues to be paid, instead of including the money in its budget. She said she hopes this will have a better chance.

Karen Kavanau, director of the administrative office of the courts, said the travel and lodging for the Supreme Court justices and district judges to Maui was paid from the administrative assessment fund, collected from people who are convicted of crimes.

It didn't turn out to be all play for the three justices in Maui.

A death row inmate, Alvaro Calambro, was scheduled to be executed that week, and the three had to scramble with the two justices who remained home to fashion a decision, staying the execution and ordering another hearing in the district court in Reno.

archive