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Judicial candidates Ozzie Fumo and Bonnie Bulla will be the featured speakers at Monday's virtual Democratic luncheon. Fumo, Nevada State Assemblyman for District 21 in Las Vegas, is running for Nevada Supreme Court, Seat D. Bulla, who was appointed to Department 3 of the Nevada Court of Appeals by Governor Steve Sisolak in February 2019, is running to retain that seat.
Ozzie Fumo, a first-generation American, grew up in Las Vegas and was first elected to the State Legislature in 2016. As an Assemblyman, Ozzie’s two sessions have been marked by significant legislative achievements. In 2017 he sponsored Harvey’s Law to save lines by insuring that all paratransit drivers are trained in CPR, and in 2019 he championed Brooklynn’s Law, named after 13-year-old honor roll student, competitive gymnast, runner and violinist Brooklynn Mohler of Las Vegas, who was accidentally shot to death by her best friend using a hand gun left loaded in the kitchen cabinet by her father, who faced no legal consequences under Nevada's existing criminal statutes. He championed bills to end the death penalty, end cash bail, and codify automatic teacher raises into law. He also fought for legislation to make jury pools more reflective of community diversity.
One of the few members of the community to sit as a Hearing Master on Metro’s Public Fact Finding Police Use of Force Board, Ozzie has also served as a Judicial Referee in Las Vegas Justice Court. He has received the prestigious State Bar of Nevada Pro Bono Advocate of the Year Award for helping the indigent. He was named the 2019 Defender of the Year by the Nevada Attorneys for Criminal Justice, and was named the 2019 Consumer Advocate of the Year by the Nevada Trial Lawyers Association. He is also an adjunct professor at the UNLV Boyd School of Law.
A partner at the Pitaro & Fumo law firm, he has been a trial lawyer for over two decades, defending Nevadans from all walks of life. He helped to seal the records of those who had paid their debt to society and needed a fresh start to their lives. He was honored as being among the Top 100 Criminal Defense Lawyers of 2015 by the American Society of Legal Advocates. He is currently the only Supreme Court candidate with firsthand experience writing legislation, trying death penalty cases, and effectively arguing cases before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Bonnie Bulla was elevated to the Court of Appeals after a rigorous, comprehensive and competitive selection process conducted by the Nevada Commission on Judicial Selection. By then she had already served on the bench for more than 12 years as the Discovery Commissioner for the Eighth Judicial District Court, where she worked collaboratively with all 32 judges of the Eighth District, resolving tens of thousands of pre-trial discovery disputes spanning virtually every aspect of the law.
Judge Bulla was appointed to the Nevada Supreme Court Rules Committee by Justices Gibbons and Pickering to revise the Nevada Rules of Civil Procedure. She has also been a member of the Eighth Judicial District Court Rules Committee. She has served as a grader of the Nevada Bar Exam, been an instructor in the National Institute of Trial Advocacy Deposition Program, a lecturer in pretrial discovery at the Nevada State Bar’s Trial Academy Young Lawyer’s Section, and was selected to serve as a judge for Trial by Peers, a diversionary program for youthful offenders. She served as a judge for Nevada's “We The People” high school civics competition, and has also coached soccer for children with special needs through the American Youth Soccer Organization. She is a long-time volunteer at Amazing Grace Ministry, where she assists the poor, homeless, and near homeless of Las Vegas.
Bonnie was born in Phoenix. In 1984. She graduated from from Arizona State University Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor of science degree in economics, and received her J.D. from Arizona State's College of Law in 1987. She moved to Nevada immediately after law school, and began a 19-year career as a litigator, working with some of Nevada's finest attorneys on a wide variety of complex litigation matters until being selected to be Discovery Commissioner in 2007 from a field of 50 candidates. She is past president of the Howard D. McKibben Chapter of the American Inns of Court, and has been a member of the Nevada Bar since 1987.
Judge Bulla's career experience includes working as an attorney, hearing master, discovery commissioner and appellate judge. She is a past president of the Southern Nevada Association of Women Attorneys, former Assembly Speaker of the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division (1997-1998), and was a 2018 recipient of the Clark County Law Foundation Liberty Bell Award. She was given an AV Pre-eminent rating by Martindale Hubbell's Judicial Edition.
Sponsored by the Democratic Men's Committee, this event is scheduled for noon on Monday, October 26th, and will be held online via Zoom teleconference due to the restricted availability of in-person venues. Those wishing to be on distribution for these Zoom links can email Rich Dunn, Men's Committee Events Coordinator, at richdunn@aol.com.