Thomas D. Beatty

Thomas D. Beatty was born on May 15, 1942, in Detroit, Michigan, and moved to Las Vegas in 1959. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Nevada, Reno in June 1963 and went on to attend the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. Upon graduating from law school he married Sharon (Stiles) Beatty, his wife of 53 years.

Mr. Beatty built a long and varied legal career in Las Vegas. He was in private practice with the Foley Brothers and developed a bar review course for new law school graduates. He served as a deputy and later Assistant Public Defender in the Clark County Public Defender's Office and as an Assistant District Attorney, and he was a candidate for District Attorney in 1986.

Beyond his practice, Mr. Beatty devoted decades to the profession and the courts. He served on the Nevada Board of Bar Examiners from 1976 to 1992, the Nevada State Bar Functional Equivalency Committee from 1993 to 2020, and the Ninth Circuit Advisory Board from 2005 to 2009. He served on the Clark County Law Library Board of Trustees for nearly 40 years, acting as its President from 1982, donating books to its collection and contributing comparative analysis of Nevada law and rules against American Bar Association standards for criminal justice. In his memory, a conference room at the Clark County Law Library was dedicated on June 4, 2022, where a portrait and an exhibit of his professional achievements are displayed. He died on April 27, 2020.