There are few things that bring Nevadans together like our frustration with Nevada schools. Given our unique challenges, I think our parents, students, and educators get a lot right. But in any event, Nevadans have had a front-row seat to a stunning education victory with little national or historical precedent. And much less is said about that.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of UNLV’s Boyd Law School’s first graduating class. The law school may be one of the most important policy achievements for Nevada in the last half-century. Before its creation, Nevada had never had a public law school, and had been with no law school at all when the privately funded Nevada School of Law at Old College in Reno closed in 1988 from lack of funding and accreditation. It lasted only seven years. Before Boyd opened in 1998, Nevada and Alaska were the only two states in the country without a law school.

Just two decades in, no one could have imagined how fast and how high the school would climb. By nearly every metric, Boyd’s success stands out. Since gaining accreditation in 2003, Boyd has risen faster than all but one other school in U.S. News and World Report’s law school rankings. When 2022’s rankings are released any day now, Boyd may again find itself in the upper 30 percent of all law schools in the country. And its Legal Writing Program will likely retain the title as the best in the nation, while its dispute resolution program will remain in the top 10.

But rankings only tell part of the Boyd story. The more lasting measure has been the permanent effect it has had on our community. Growing up in Nevada, we accepted the reality that we practiced a certain losing form of educational mercantilism. Our best and brightest students left the state for higher education, and a small fraction returned. We exported our most promising youth, and imported our professionals from wherever we could. It can be hard to recruit and retain people here when they have other options. Even in our years of nation-leading boom, many people still gave up and left.

To meet this challenge, the young and scrappy Boyd innovated, doing whatever necessary to prepare its students to flourish in a wide range of careers here in Nevada. The school has given bright and ambitious Nevadans reasons to remain home, while also attracting talented individuals from outside the state, and giving them reasons to settle.

You now find Boyd alums all over the state, in all types of roles. They are judges, legislators, partners at major national firms, successful solo practitioners, law clerks, in house counsel, owners of non-law businesses, prosecutors, public defenders, public servants, activists, parents, teachers, and mentors.

The state Senate majority leader, Nicole Cannizzaro, and the speaker of the Assembly, Jason Frierson (a member of Boyd’s very first class), are both graduates. So too are state Treasurer Zach Conine, state Sens. James Ohrenscall and Keith Pickard, and Assembly members Edgar Flores. Venicia Considine, and Rochelle Nguyen. Former Assembly member Derek Armstrong is a Boyd graduate and he chaired the Assembly Taxation Committee, worked for the Governor’s Office of Economic Development, and now serves as the Director of Economic Development and Tourism for the City of Henderson. Another former member of the Assembly, Elliot Anderson, spent time in the Clark County district attorney’s Office, and now clerks for Nevada Supreme Court Justice Kristina Pickering.

Alums include the former chair of the Gaming Control Board, Sandra Morgan, who now sits on Fidelity National Inc.’s Board of Directors, and former state Sen. Yvanna Cancela graduated from Boyd and is now the principal deputy director of intergovernmental affairs for the United States Department of Health and Human Services. Bailey Bortolin has made a huge difference in the community with her work for Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada.

Federal Magistrate Judge Brenda Weksler is a Boyd graduate. So too are Eighth Judicial District Court Judges Nadia Krall, Jasmin Lilly-Spells, Jacqueline Bluth, and Tierra Jones. And seven of the 26 Clark County District Court Family Judges are Boyd alums as well. It likely won’t be too long before a Boyd grad serves on the Nevada Supreme Court.

You will find Boyd graduates serving as partners at most local, regional, and national firms. I have three Boyd partners at my firm alone.

The list goes on and on, and I hesitate naming more names, as I would, inevitably leave some out. Quite frankly, the diverse range and reach of Boyd’s alumni (and faculty) is as hard to capture as it is impossible to ignore.

As for Boyd’s faculty, they too have served on state boards and commissions, as senior staff to the attorney general, as elected officials, activists, experts, and as important advisors to many entrepreneurial projects. And Boyd’s clinical offerings have provided invaluable services to countless Nevadans, most of whom had nowhere else to go. And both former U.S Sen. Harry Reid and Gov. Brian Sandoval joined the faculty upon retiring from office.

I did not attend Boyd (as my ever-present student debt can attest), so I have no personal dog in the fight. But since returning to Nevada to work in 2006, there has almost always been at least one Boyd grad in my orbit. Usually many. I have worked for them, and them for me. I have represented, appeared before, and voted for them. I have hired some and mentored others. They have been my co-counsel and opposing counsel; my clients, my interns, and my friends. Almost every single one has been exemplary. No doubt, in the next 10 to 20 years, we will see Boyd grads at the highest levels of public office, and at the top rungs of our most successful businesses.

Why this has not made more news here at home boggles my mind. The entire state should be proud of Boyd’s rise. I understand that many people (much of my family included), see each new lawyer as a sign of society's failings, not a mark of progress or anything to boast about. But Boyd has done far more than manufacture attorneys. It has substantially increased the supply of educated and trained Nevadans who are committed to the state, and who have answered critical public and private needs.

I also understand that it is simply not en vogue to feel good about anything we have done or are doing in Nevada when it comes to education. We Nevadans are an interesting bunch. Our confidence in what we can build on our own is limitless. Our state was dealt a tough hand, and yet we thrived. But when it comes to our confidence in solving tough public policy challenges, we grow timid — fatalistic even. To be sure, doom and gloom moves voters, and only the squeakiest of wheels get any attention. But there is no good reason not to take our wins where we can.

William Faulker said that “unless you’re ashamed of yourself now and then, you’re not honest.” Point taken. But we lie to ourselves just as easily when we refuse to take pride in a job well done. Few things here have been done as well as Boyd. And unlike nearly every public policy proposal I am aware of, Boyd has over-delivered on even its boldest promises, and the school will be playing with house money for some time to come.

Daniel H. Stewart is a fifth-generation Nevadan and a partner with Hutchison & Steffen. He was Gov. Brian Sandoval’s general counsel and has represented various GOP elected officials and groups.