Dana Nitz, Esq.

Managing Partner, Nevada Office, Wright Finlay & Zak

Born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Mr. Nitz has been a resident of Las Vegas, Nevada since 1968. He received his B.S. in Math and Engineering from Harvey Mudd College in 1977 and his J.D. from the University of Southern California in 1981.

A member of the State Bar of Nevada since 1981, Mr. Nitz is admitted to practice in the United States Supreme Court (1985); the United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit (1982); and the United States District Court, District of Nevada (1982).

Mr. Nitz is the managing partner for Nevada. His areas of expertise include civil litigation, mortgage finance and lending, construction contract and construction defects, suretyship, insurance coverage, personal injury and appellate practice.

For the last decade, Mr. Nitz has provided real estate and business-related legal representation for mortgage bankers and other lenders, loan servicers and foreclosure trustees in a wide variety of matters, including litigation, judicial foreclosures and deficiencies, non-judicial foreclosures, state-mandated foreclosure mediations, petitions for judicial review, wrongful foreclosure actions, bankruptcies and associated motions for relief from stay, unlawful detainers or evictions, lost instruments and title reconciliation, rescission of assignments and deeds of trust.

For more than twenty-five years, Mr. Nitz has successfully represented contractors, subcontractors, developers and design professionals in construction defect claims including on several thousand single family homes, condominiums, townhouses, and apartments, on commercial buildings and warehouses, on public schools, and on McCarran International Airport. His clients have included architects, structural, geotechnical and civil engineers, general contractors, and subcontractors in trades such as framing, flooring, roofing, concrete, landscaping, window manufacturing and installation, paving and grading. Much of the litigation related to contract and insurance coverage disputes.

Over the last three decades, Mr. Nitz has also represented numerous sureties on various types of bonds including contractor's license, permit, payment and performance and department of motor vehicles, among others. His services extended from defense of claims, administration of completion of construction projects, and collection under indemnity agreements.

Mr. Nitz has defended parties in diverse areas of tort law. He has litigated hundreds of personal injury cases involving motor vehicle accidents, products liability, premises liability and excessive force. Over twelve years of his practice related to defense of governmental entities in civil rights and civil RICO litigation. He has also successfully represented private investigators and governmental entities in defamation, invasion of privacy and other First Amendment torts.

Mr. Nitz has been an arbitrator for private matters and in the Mandatory Court-Annexed Arbitration Program in Clark County District Court since 1993 on both the commercial and tort panels. Since 1999, he has been a mediator and served the Nevada Supreme Court as a Settlement Judge, conducting appellate mediations.

Mr. Nitz is a member of the State Bar of Nevada, the Clark County Bar Association, the American Bar Association (Member, Sections on: Negligence; Insurance and Compensation Law; Fidelity and Surety Law). He has also been a member of the Defense Research Institute, the American Trial Lawyers Association and the Nevada Trial Lawyers Association. Mr. Nitz can be reached at dnitz@wrightlegal.net.