[Editors Note: Check out our Consumer Eletronics Show Coverage and photos -Prof]

Reported in the Los Angeles Times. Apparently the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has launched an investigation of U.S. District Judge James C. Mahan of Las Vegas who awarded more than $4.8 million in judgments and fees without disclosing his personal, political and business ties to the beneficiaries of the awards.

This investigation comes in the wake of a story also reported by the Times in June where eight former and current Las Vegas Judges, including Mahan, were involved in scandalous behavior.

Some of the activities of the judges included one judge who consistently overturned drunken driving convictions for clients of his former law clerk, while upholding convictions of others

This led to one reform by an angry Nevada Supreme Court; Judges must disclose their relationship to former law clerks appearing before them as attorneys for at least three years after the clerkship.

At the same time the Review Journal reported on Monday that the Nevada Supreme Court has demanded that the State Bar pursue disciplinary action against attorney Phillip Emerson for his courtroom arguments to a jury which follows:
"This is a case where the plaintiffs are trying get something for nothing ... it's cases like this that make people skeptical and distrustful of lawyers and their clients who bring these types of lawsuits. It's a big factor as to why our profession is not as honorable in the eyes of the public as it once was. But the only way that people and their chiropractors will stop bringing these cases is if juries start saying no, enough is enough. Our legal process is meant to justly compensate and make one whole, not to make them rich."

And not least, there appears to have been an event recently in one district courtroom where a former NFL footballer stated that he believed that the attorney which represented his LLC in the sale of a nightclub also took payments from the party trying to buy the nightclub. It seems that the attorney may have actually sued the other party for not paying the full amount agreed upon. The attorney in question apparently is a former president of the Nevada State Bar Association and chair for the Advisory Committee for proposed rule changes in civil procedure in 2004.

It would seem that as long as you are getting rich from the practice of law, the court will scarcely glance at your behavior, but try to get in the way of an attorney’s big contingency fee and the Nevada Supremes will slap you silly.