Family Court manual will be dedicated to late Sun executive

Erica D. Johnson

Thursday, March 27, 2003 | 9:19 a.m.

The late Las Vegas Sun associate editor Sandy Thompson knew all about Family Court proceedings in Las Vegas.

Thompson, who led the Sun's coverage of the court, was all too familiar with the pain of child custody battles and felt the frustration involved in rehabilitating juvenile offenders.

She contemplated ways to fight substance abuse in Clark County schools and probed local officials for answers to tough questions about domestic violence.

This week, nearly eight months after her death, Family Court officials are vowing to keep Thompson's struggle and memory alive by dedicating the first edition of the Nevada Family Law Practice Manual to her memory, according to a judge who edited the volume.

The manual, which will make its debut this week at the Family Law Judicial Conference, was created to help families and practitioners navigate Family Court and give them a basic understanding of court proceedings.

District Judge John McGroarty, a former Juvenile Court judge and editor of the manual, said Thompson never hesitated to criticize or praise decisions in the court with hard-hitting stories that educated the public.

"If you assume that it takes a village to raise a child, then Sandy was the conscience of that village," he said. "She caused change in Family Court. She had her finger on the pulse of its development."

Family Court Judges Steven Jones, Robert Lueck and Robert Gaston and District Judges Scott Jordan, Chuck McGee, Deborah Schumacher also helped draft the manual, along with dozens of Nevada attorneys.

The 440-page manual will be available to the public in libraries throughout the state. They can be purchased through the Nevada State Bar for $100.

Court officials say the manual is aimed at helping three specific groups in Nevada: attorneys who only occasionally practice law in Family Court, Family Court judges and people who represent themselves.

More than half of all family cases filed in Nevada have at least one party representing themselves, an official said.

McGroarty said he hopes Thompson will not only be remembered through the manual, but that her legacy in Family Court will live on.

"Because of her hands-on analysis, Sandy created an awareness that we needed," he said. "She was truly the conscience of Family Court."