Clark County Family Court, Department E

Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2004 | 3:26 a.m.

Family Court Judge Robert W. Lueck is being challenged by three opponents for his Department E seat.

Attorneys Lillian Sondgeroth Davis, John Lukens and Sandra L. Pomrenze are vying for the nonpartisan seat that is for a six-year term.

The top two vote-getters move on to the November general election.

Lueck, 56, who earned his law degree at the University of Notre Dame Law School, has served five years as a Family Court judge and, for 22 years prior to that, was in private practice.

He wrote the chapter on legal ethics for the Nevada Family Law Manual and has more than 500 hours of continuing legal education, mostly in family law. Lueck also created the parenting coordinator program for Family Court and helped expand mediation programs for the court.

"My goals are to continue developing the programs under way now and to bring new programs into Family Court in the next five years," Lueck said. "I am pushing to create an alternative dispute resolution commissioner for Family Court within the next two years."

Davis, 56, who earned bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and got her law degree from Cal Western University, has been in private practice for 27 years, emphasizing family law.

She has served on the advisory board of the High Desert Prison and the Advisory Board for Problem Gambling. She received a governor's award for her pro bono work assisting missing and exploited children.

"I will run an efficient, decision-making family court," Davis said, "I will apply the law fairly and consistently."

Pomrenze, 55, who earned her law degree at John Marshall Law School in Chicago, has been a practicing attorney in Las Vegas for 18 years and is an experienced arbitrator and mediator. She has served as a settlement judge for the Nevada Supreme Court.

A single mother of a teenager, Pomrenze says, "I have a clear understanding of the challenges facing parents, our younger citizens and our community at large. "

Her platform includes moving cases efficiently and fairly through the system to "help alleviate the stresses on spouses and their children from long, drawn-out family disputes and allow them to move forward with their lives."

Lukens, a noted local defense attorney, did not respond to the Sun's inquiries.