Sam Lionel, co-founder of powerhouse Nevada law firm, dies at 103

Sam Lionel, a founder of onetime powerhouse law firm Lionel Sawyer & Collins whom many attorneys considered dean of the Nevada bar, has died at the age of 103.

“If there was one person who was responsible for elevating the practice of law in Nevada after World War II, it was Sam Lionel,” said John Mowbray, a prominent local attorney who is managing partner of the Spencer Fane law firm’s Las Vegas office.

According to an obituary posted to the Dignity Memorial website, Lionel was surrounded by his family and loved ones when he died peacefully on Friday. He was born April 7, 1919, in the Bronx, New York City.

Lionel grew up in the Bronx and graduated from law school at St. John’s University in Queens, New York, in 1940. He joined the U.S. Army several months before Pearl Harbor, eventually earning several battle commendations in North Africa and Italy during World War II.

After the war, Lionel practiced law in New York City, then returned to the Army to serve in the judge advocate general’s office and teach at West Point.

Lionel told then-Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith in 2007 that he first had visited Las Vegas in 1953. He told Smith he traveled to the city at the suggestion of Emilie Wanderer, the first female attorney in Las Vegas.

“I came out here, talked to some people, and felt something in the air, an energy,” Lionel said.

Lionel joined the State Bar of Nevada in 1954 and practiced law with two partners before opening his own law office. Over his many decades in the state, Lionel became known for his work in gaming law, corporate governance and litigation. He represented Del Webb, who built the original Flamingo, and Paradise Development, whose senior founding member was Moe Dalitz.

Lionel also handled the legal affairs of Howard Hughes and was an attorney for Kirk Kerkorian, the majority stakeholder in MGM Resorts International.

Lionel’s career was such that it embodied and paralleled the growth of Nevada’s legal community, Mowbray said. From the tip of his tongue, Lionel could remember cases from decades prior as if they had happened the week before. He loved helping people behind the scenes without fanfare. For lawyers mulling a run at a judgeship, an endorsement from Lionel was worth its weight in gold, Mowbray said.

“He was one of the great pioneers. He was a legal legend,” said Mowbray, who had known Lionel since the 1950s. Mowbray, then a boy, met Lionel through his father, John C. Mowbray, who would become a longtime justice on the Nevada Supreme Court.

“It’s the passing of an era,” said Mowbray, a past president of both the Clark County Bar Association and the State Bar of Nevada. “It won’t be the same without our dean.”

In an April 4, 2019, tribute on the occasion of Lionel’s upcoming 100th birthday, U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen said Lionel for decades fought for “critically important issues such as our thriving tourism industry and defending Nevada’s unique western heritage.”

Rosen added that Lionel “played a key role in the conception and development of many of the hotels and casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, setting the stage for Nevada’s unprecedented growth and its booming entertainment scene.”

Firm dissolved in 2015

In 1967, Lionel founded Lionel Sawyer & Collins with former Nevada Gov. Grant Sawyer and former Nevada Supreme Court Chief Justice Jon Collins. In his oral history, “Hang Tough! Grant Sawyer: An Activist in the Governor’s Mansion,” Sawyer recalled the firm’s birth:

“It wasn’t a big firm with a structured practice, and it looked like the sort of thing that would be right for me because I wanted to be in a position to learn quickly how to practice law. After meeting with Sam Lionel, I was convinced that he was the person to teach me.”

The firm was at the leading edge of gaming’s evolution in Nevada. Lionel Sawyer & Collins was among the first Las Vegas law firms to open an office in Reno. Before its dissolution in January 2015, the firm tied for fourth place in number of attorneys in Nevada with 50 attorneys in both ends of the state.

After the firm’s dissolution, Lionel, then 95, continued working, joining the Fennemore Craig law firm’s Las Vegas office with eight other former Lionel Sawyer & Collins attorneys.

Still, Lionel tended to cultivate and keep a low profile. In 2007, when Lionel Sawyer & Collins turned 40, he told the Review-Journal’s Smith that he preferred to focus on the firm, not on himself.

“He was just a warm, compassionate, very understanding human being,” said Mowbray, who was managing partner at Fennemore Craig’s Las Vegas office when Lionel came aboard.

From 1990 to 1996, Lionel served as a member of the Ninth Circuit Senior Advisory Board of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judicial council. The board, created in 1982, advises the circuit’s main governing body and makes recommendations on the effective administration of appeals courts. A committee of judges and lawyers chose Lionel on the basis of his record of contributions over the years to the circuit’s federal courts.

Rosen also noted that Lionel was active in philanthropy to the Jewish community and to UNLV and the university’s Boyd Law School. He supported creating a law school in Las Vegas long before that dream was realized.

“Several of us tried over and over to start a law school many years ago, and we weren’t successful,” he told UNLV in January 2020. “One was started in Reno and it folded, as did one that started in Las Vegas. We now have (Boyd Law) because people like Bill Boyd, Jim Rogers and others were so dedicated and determined to start this and make it work.”

Services planned for Wednesday

In 2005, Lionel and Southern Nevada real estate developer Irwin Molasky founded Project REAL (Relevant Education About the Law), a nonprofit organization that partners with the judiciary to teach students in kindergarten through 12th grade about the law, democracy and citizenship.

In 2012, Lionel and Molasky received the Clark County Law Foundation’s Liberty Bell Award, which recognizes individuals who uphold the rule of law, for their work with Project REAL. In 2016, Lionel and Molasky were honored by the National Judicial College for their dedication to improving justice in the judiciary.

In 2016, Lionel and his wife, Lexy, created the Samuel Lionel Professorship in Intellectual Property at Boyd Law School, according to UNLV. They also established the LaFrance-Trimble Award, presented each year to the school’s outstanding graduate in intellectual property law.

In 2020, the school established the Reid-Lionel Scholarship Endowment, a $1 million endowment that, according to UNLV, recognizes “the exceptional contributions of former U.S. Sen. Harry Reid and attorney Sam Lionel to the Nevada legal community.”

According to the Dignity Memorial obituary, Lionel studied at St. John’s University in Brooklyn, New York City. He graduated from the university and later received honorary doctorate law degrees from St. John’s, UNLV and California Western School of Law.

Lionel also served on the board of trustees of Nathan Adelson Hospice and was on the Nevada Board of Bar Examiners for 30 years.

In addition to his wife, Lionel is survived by his daughter, Dana, of Texas and her four sons; four stepsons, Hal Barber IV, Zachary Capp, Joshua Capp and Daniel Capp; four stepgrandchildren; and several great-grandchildren.

Services are set for 2 p.m. Wednesday at King David Memorial Chapel and Cemetery. Donations may be made to the Southern Poverty Law Center or the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada.

Review-Journal staff writer Brett Clarkson contributed to this story.