particular case are first and foremost that the order the granted an award of attorney's fees by the defense against my client was completely devoid of any analysis and any explanation for why those fees were awarded specifically under the nevada statute eighteen point zero one zero two b in order for the defendant to have been awarded its costs or in fact it s attorney's fees in this instance it would have had to show that there was no reasonable ground for the case to be brought or that the case was filed to harass the opposing party  contesting that specific ruling with respect to the summary judgment simply that the fees in this instance are in appropriately awarded and unsupported by both the order as well as use of me many of the arguments to raise with respect to the district court's granting of summary judgment the district court in fact acknowledged that this was an issue of first impression that the supreme court of nevada had not raised or heard the issue  and that in this particular respect with two competing opinions one from the nevada attorney general in one nine hundred ninety nine and one from the nevada department of finance will excuse me financial institutions in two thousand and twelve that the court elected to proceed with the two thousand and twelve which which falls in favor of the defense and so over a consumer law case against this particular defendant of which we have filed litigated and won several on this particular issue of law we elected not to appeal that claim but the reason we're appealing the fee the excuse me the award of attorney's fees is because this is a private attorney general statute this is our client's doing what what he thought was right with respect to a a law firm that if you actually read their brief page two line one thousand and twenty that that aless is primary business is representing homeowner associations in the collection of delinquent assessments that is the basis for bringing the claim that they have stated straightforward in their brief that they weren't operating  c of this case or or prior to as a law firm per se they were operating as a collection agency that is zero and and staffed by lawyers on a couple of levels in fact the the  what when a statute says that law firms are exempt and you brought one you brought a suit anyway against lawyers certainly what makes that and what makes that reasonable and judge pro specifically addressed that when  he said on page seven of his opinion granting summary judgment that quote however this exception does not apply if the attorneys quote are conducting collection agencies unquote that's six forty nine point zero two zero subsection two of the nevada statute that particular quote right there that is the line of demarcation is at the time this suit was filed  with the attorney general opinion from the state of nevada is a lesson in coney operating as a law firm taking cases that you would expect a law firm to take or are they operating as a collection agency and by their own admission that they do nothing but homeowner association assessment collection certainly they litigate plenty of cases like this one where they were sued but they're not out there accepting soliciting  than that now we're talking only about collecting fees and all counsel certainly can contradict me on that but the vast vast vast majority of the senate these business is soley limited to h away  dues collection which of course with the downfall of the housing market in vadra less so i think in the northern california area but in nevada that had has become in an enormous market in the last five or six years come to class the clarifying question about this statute eighteen point zero if it applies in two circumstances right when there's an intent to harass or or without reasonable basis and i think we're only talking about the without reasonable basis part of the statute that's my first question is that right that is your honor under ok some to take that as a yes because your time is ticking away forgive me but is that determination made isn't it made at the time the suit filed as to whether there the suit was filed it seems to me that there were that there was this earlier opinion that had been issued right then even referred to at the one thousand nine hundred ninety tourney general opinion but that was pertaining to a statute that was later amended right yes ok then when you say there was a case of this was a case of first impression it's nobody had had assessed or could be considered a no court had considered the amended statute that's what you're talking about yes i don't believe that the statute was was addressed ever by the supreme court about it and i don't believe it has been since ok and the time i'm trying to get you to at the time your client filed what did he have is it just the one thousand nine hundred ninety he had the ninety nine when and twelve opinion came out that's after your guy filed suit right in this particular situation it's very clear that an award of attorney fees was warranted in the n c matter there was no abuse of discretion counsel indicates that there was no specific finding in the order with regard to the reasonableness of filing however the order specifically states the legal arguments set forth in defendant's motion reply support defendant's request for attorney fees the entire motion reply was specifically addressing that run through those reasons ok first and foremost the statute is very clear the plain language of the statute in this case is completely and totally unambiguous it specifically state that it will be the first  agencies now that is so clear and she of that specifically states attorneys in counselors that lie licensed to practice in this state so long as they're retained by their clients to collect or to solicit or obtain payment of such clients claims in the usual course of practice of their profession that absolutely unambiguous lee applies to  collection agent even if a law firm handles a fault of their practice as collections for h l a assessments as long as they are not operating as a collection agency that has attorneys working for anything like that which words are you actually are on the section g that specifically says that it does not include attorneys and counsellors and licensed to practice in the state so long as they are retained association litigation if there is a flood issue it pursuant to the c c and r s of a specific homeowners association to determine whether or not that was a common area issue or a direct were very they were regular assessments delinquent home loan regular delinquent homeowners estimates in this particular case yes you want to hear my question of the one time for something else i apologize i thought i was answering the question well if you let me finish if you would actually know what the question is did the collection come out the work that the firm did was this something that grew out of the work of the firm for the client it in part it did not part of it was the actual assessment part of it was the fees and costs that are part of preparing the notice of default election to sell preparing the other documents finding them recording them and such i don't believe in this particular case there were the filing of liens and things like that could have been performed by a collection agency they could be performed by a collection agency however arguably the reason that these particular homeowners conic ordinarily handle that litigation themselves yes generally unless it's submitted for some reason to an insurance carrier and that insurance carrier accepts the case and substitute its own counsel correct so how many paralegals do you hav used for attorneys how many paralegal currently we only have to we are in the process of hiring two we just lost two we have we have a one to one ratio attorney to paralegal that's what we try to have  not there were grounds for filing the suit because in two thousand and seven there were amendments made to the statute that specifically made that ninety nine opinion irrelevant for the purposes of determine whether or not this was reasonable that ninety nine money on the two thousand and seven amendments the purpose of those amendments was to remove the additional requirements which were previously part of sixty four six hundred forty nine zero two zero two g which specifically were taking away the language of said incident incidental to the usual course of practice of their profession when talking about whether attorneys were considered collection agency the deletion of that provision was the civically indicated that the attorneys whose primary practice is the collection of claims are exempt from the requirements that specifically what that change in statute did is that it is that established that situations where attorneys whose primary practice is the collection of claims are exempt from the requirements so specifically change what you were asking about earlier which made that nine hundred ninety nine opinion completely irrelevant for the purposes of i honestly am uncertain as to whether or not mr carpenter was pro se at the time that he filed i do not believe he was no he was represented at the time he was at the time he filed it was filed by mr process office i have a question about the nevada mean and rivera looks really meritless this case involving a woman who was a judge and a female litigant in a family law case and she thought that the judge should be recused out of for bias because her husband was very attractive  the judge couldn't be impartial and because she was very attractive so she thought the judge can be very impartial and i can't really imagine a more frivolous claim but even under that fact pattern than about a supreme court said you have to have findings i believe that's completely distinguishable because that was actually a motion case and there was absolutely no hearing or no findings on the underlying merit listeners or lack of merit was nice the case is just taken as a given i'm willing to say that that is one merit less allegation about bias and even there they wanted findings is your if if if i think that the law requires findings here is it your position that the and i'm not trying where your mouth but is it your position that the order was sufficient because it incorporated the motion by reference that is correct in addition to the fact that there was a specific hearing on the underlying issues an entire hearing an end to entire thirteen page findings on the underlying issues in that case and also why counsel what is it where are the finding previous order on summary judgment specifically delineated the reasoning for why a claim under the fair trade fair deceptive traitor and about a deceptive trade practices act was not a valid claim it was not reasonable so that's where you think i should look i do i think that you could refer to that and you can also refer to the part of the statute that says that an actual hearing on or motion for attorney fees and costs is not necessary if the court seems say when he filed i don't believe he was i think he came to our office we'd filed a number of these actions so we reviewed it i would note just with respect to some of the questions you were asking april twenty ninth two thousand and eleven  mr carpenter owed four hundred thirty five dollars in unpaid assessments with an additional sixteen hundred dollars in charges for attorneys fees and costs and that number increased to three thousand seven hundred eighty five dollars by the time mr carpenter finally just didn't want to lose his home because there was a trustee sale and went in and paid but specifically with respect to what the court raised on the order granting the fees versus the or granting summary judgment in our opinion the order granting summary judgment was very well thought out very well supported and is what we would typically expect from this judge and the order with respect to fees as i said my opening was devoid of any findings of fact conclusions of law even reference to a statute under which those fees would be awarded opposing counsel's response not to interrupt  the statute is quite clear there has to be some some showing of unreasonable nisson bringing the claim and if you turn and you you look at the as i said very well written opinion on the summary  judgment order that has no say commentary about how this claim should or shouldn't have been brought in fact it talks specifically about how close of a call this was and how it was a first impression issue and so that the reason well that might go to whether they would be awarded attorney's fees on appeal but it really doesn't have anything to do with whether they should have been awarded attorney's fees below represented themselves in both actions so you're contesting that because they represented themselves that they contention is that at that at the time in question they were exclusively performing collection activities not operating as what we would would deem to sort of float in and out of out of law practice and into a collection agency practice my understanding it at this juncture is that the vast majority of civil cases that lesson conic has involves them as a defendant for participating in their their course of business so they do represent themselves in all of those cases and so in that regard they would be a law firm thank you very much for your time ok thank you