The clinics, now in their sixth year of operation, are at the forefront of the law school's mission. Dean Richard Morgan, who has been mostly tight-lipped about what he'd like to see out of his successor when he retires in June, has said he hopes the next law school administration will maintain the high level of support for the clinics. And they have come a long way since they first opened and have helped hundreds of Southern Nevada's poor navigate the legal system.

"We planned this clinic from the beginning," said Annette Appell, associate dean of clinical studies at they law school. "Dean (Richard) Morgan has made a huge commitment to community service here. We opened the clinic as soon as we could, as soon as the first students qualified."

The five clinics are operating at full capacity —“ about 80 cases at a time involving some 30 law students, 15 education Ph.D. candidates and eight students from the master's degree program in social work. The three groups and the bevy of academic advisers assigned to help them often work together, since many of the clients have several levels of legal issues related to an initial problem such as immigration or child custody.

"All our clients are poor. They can't afford lawyers. Most of our cases revolve around children and families. Their cases can get very complicated," Appell said. "This takes (the students on) the next step in their legal education, to challenging, complicated areas of the law. Here, with the kinds of things we do, it requires knowing a lot of different types of law that all become interrelated in a case."

But the clinics are not there solely to train lawyers, social workers and educators — there is a huge demand for free legal services in Southern Nevada. Clark County Legal Services provides limited legal services to the poor, and the State Bar of Nevada organizes a pro-bono program and has a lawyer-referral service, but the region's population has exploded in recent years and the courts and nonprofit legal aid organizations simply cannot keep up with demand.

"We've never had a problem finding cases," Appell said. "It's a huge struggle (for people) in Southern Nevada because we grew so fast, so quick, that there aren't that many legal services."

They also contribute to national policy. The school just hosted a group of 100 child advocates from around the world to discuss how to best represent children in court. The group created a book of guidelines on how to represent children. The guide was first created about a decade ago in a conference at the law school —¨at Fordham University in New York City. —¨Appell said the book was just published and is starting to be used in courses and by child advocates.

"We're lucky in this setting to be able to step back and look at policy and recommend things," she said.

With the need for the clinic's services so high, some in the community would like to see UNLV expand the clinics. Running the clinics, though, is not cheap. While the clinic is generously supported by community donations and the students are not paid, the university does take a cut in other ways, as faculty are allowed to take on a lighter general teaching workload and there are staff and legal secretaries to be paid. Nonetheless, Appell would like to expand its offerings in the future to include domestic violence or community development clinics.

"Clinical legal education is kind of expensive. My class load is a small load. Working at the clinic is labor intensive and takes more resources in terms of faculty," she said. "Expansion depends on faculty and funding because there is certainly a need out there."

It is a need the clinic will continue to strive to meet as the Las Vegas Valley continues to grow and change.

• The State Bar of Nevada was scheduled to present a list of recommended changes to the bar's advertising rules at a special board meeting Nov. 2. If the petition's recommendations are approved, the list will be filed with the Supreme Court.

The proposed rule changes were created by the Study Committee on Lawyer Advertising & the Board of Governors and was finalized when they met in Reno Oct. 18.

The rules changes the committee recommended were:

1. Amend RPC 7.1 to allow for testimonials and endorsements that are not false or misleading

2. Amend RPC 7.2 to (a) remove the "taste" provisions, and, (b) require all ads be submitted to the state bar within 30 days of first dissemination to facilitate uniform ad review and enforcement. (No fees attached)

3. Revoke RPC 7.2A (the biographical date form) and incorporate parts of it into RPC 1.4 and 1.18 to require lawyers to provide certain general background information upon request of a client or prospective client to aid clients in selecting a lawyer

4. Revoke all the limited practice regulations in RPC 7.4. Fields of practice may be communicated without limitation as long as they are not false or misleading.

5. Draft a new rule creating volunteer attorney advertising committees in the North and South, independent of Bar Counsel, that will for a fee upon request issue advance advisory opinions which would be binding on the State Bar (safe harbor for advertising lawyers wanting an advance approval).

• The American Bar Association is hosting a conference on disaster preparedness this week in New Orleans. The conference, which runs Nov. 2 to Nov. 3 at the Hotel InterContinental, will explore how to better prepare cities for natural and man-made disasters such as the hurricanes that have suspended or decimated the legal communities of Gulf Coast states.

The program will include a round table discussion of notable local speakers such as Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti, Jr., Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections Secretary Richard Stalder and Luisiana Associate Justice Catherine D. "Kitty" Kimball. The conference will also include break-out sessions for prosecutors, defenders and correctional officials, which will report back to the main group.

For more information on the conference, log on to www.abanet.org/crimjust/calendar/neworleans.pdf.