Filing a fictitious firm name in Clark County still means a form, a notary, a trip downtown, and waiting on a stamped certificate. Dr. Shaw will turn it into a guided online filing with an instant name check, e-signature, and a digital certificate you download the moment you are done.
Under Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 602, anyone doing business under a name that is not their own legal name must record a fictitious firm name, a DBA, with the County Clerk. That requirement is reasonable. The way you have to satisfy it is stuck in another era: forms, notarization, trips downtown, and waiting for a stamped certificate before you can open a bank account.
Filing a fictitious firm name still revolves around a printed certificate. You download or pick up a form, fill it out by hand, and make sure every owner is listed exactly right, because a single mismatch can send the whole packet back.
Each signer on the certificate must sign in front of a notary public. That means finding a notary, paying a fee, coordinating schedules, and carrying the right photo ID, an extra errand layered on top of the filing itself.
For many founders the path still ends at the Clerk's office in person, or in the mail. A round trip across the valley during business hours is a real cost for someone who is also working a job, watching kids, or running a job site.
Once it is filed, you wait for the recorded, stamped certificate to come back before a bank will open a business account in that name. The gap between deciding to start and being allowed to operate can stretch across days.
First-time founders rarely know the difference between a DBA and a Secretary of State entity, whether their chosen name is already taken, or which boxes apply to them. The process assumes you already understand it.
Clark County is one of the most diverse counties in America. A government filing that lives only in dense English forms quietly turns away entrepreneurs who would otherwise be paying customers, employers, and taxpayers.
Inspiration does not arrive between 8 and 5 on a weekday. But the moment to file often does, and a founder who is ready at 9pm on a Sunday has to hold that energy until the counter opens again on Monday.
A single misspelled owner name or a name that turns out to be taken means the packet comes back. The founder fixes it, re-notarizes, and re-submits, paying for the same errand twice and losing another week.
None of these steps are unreasonable on their own. Stacked together, they turn a decision you made on Monday into a business you cannot fully operate until the following week.
You learn, often from a bank teller or an accountant, that under NRS Chapter 602 you must record a fictitious firm name with the County Clerk before operating under a name that is not your own legal name.
You locate the fictitious firm name certificate, then try to decode the fields: every owner, every address, the exact business name, and the way it must be written.
There is no friendly, instant check. You hope the name is not already recorded, and you may not find out it conflicts until your paperwork is reviewed.
Every owner signs the certificate in front of a notary public. You schedule it, bring ID, and pay the notary fee, a separate step before anything is filed.
You deliver the notarized certificate to the Clerk, in person during business hours or through the mail, along with the recording fee.
The office records it and returns a stamped certificate. Until that arrives, banks and vendors who ask for proof of your DBA are left waiting, and so are you.
Certificate in hand, you can open a business bank account, sign a lease, and start invoicing under your name. The idea was ready on day one; the paperwork was the bottleneck.
If a name turns out to be taken or an owner field was off, the packet bounces, and you repeat the notary, the trip, and the wait. The process gives you no early warning that something is wrong.
The idea was ready on day one. Only the paperwork made it wait.
Picture a smart online wizard that checks your name, writes your certificate, takes an e-signature, and hands you a downloadable digital certificate the same day, with guidance for first-time founders and the languages our community speaks. That is the standard.
A smart online flow that asks plain-language questions, adapts to a sole proprietor versus a partnership, and writes the certificate for you, so you cannot accidentally leave a field blank or list an owner the wrong way.
Type your business name and see, in real time, whether it is already recorded as a fictitious firm name in Clark County, before you invest in signs, a logo, or a website.
Each owner signs electronically with an identity-verified e-signature that satisfies Nevada's requirements, keeping the legal weight of a notarized signature without the extra errand.
The moment your filing is complete and paid, you download a legally valid, verifiable digital certificate, the same proof a bank needs, available the same day instead of days later.
Clear, built-in guidance on how a county DBA fits alongside the Nevada Secretary of State's SilverFlume portal, so founders know exactly which registration they still need and never do the wrong one twice.
The wizard speaks the languages our entrepreneurs speak. A founder should never need a translator to register a business in the county they call home.
Designed for the phone first, because for many founders the device in their pocket is the only office they have. The whole flow, name check, wizard, signature, payment, certificate, fits in your hand.
Because your filing lives in a secure digital record, renewing a fictitious firm name or replacing a lost certificate is a quick action, not another errand, another notary, or another wait.
Seven clear steps, most of them taking seconds, replace the week-long scramble. Here is the whole flow, start to finish.
Start by typing the business name you want. The tool instantly searches recorded fictitious firm names and tells you whether it is clear in Clark County, no guesswork, no surprise rejections.
The guided wizard asks who owns the business, where it operates, and what it does. It adapts as you go, so a one-person side hustle never sees the questions meant for a multi-owner partnership.
The tool assembles a correct, complete fictitious firm name certificate from your answers and shows it back to you in clear language before anything is final.
Every owner signs electronically after a quick identity check. The signature carries the same legal weight the process requires, without a separate trip to a notary.
Pay the standard recording fee online through a secure, encrypted payment step. A clear receipt is part of your record.
Your verifiable digital certificate is ready to download and share the moment payment clears, the same day, from your phone or laptop, wherever you are.
Finish with a tailored next-steps checklist: open a bank account, see whether SilverFlume registration applies to you, and learn what licenses your kind of business may need.
A blank government form assumes you already know the answer. A guided wizard assumes you have a business to run.
Know your name is clear before you paint it on a truck.
The legal weight of a notarized filing, delivered at the speed of the internet.
Filing the DBA is step one. We help you take the next ten.
When you remove friction from starting a business, you do not just help one founder, you help everyone who would have hired, leased, or bought from them.
The person with a great idea and zero patience for paperwork gets a clear, guided path from name to certificate in a single sitting, and a checklist for what comes next.
Drivers, crafters, tutors, cleaners, and creators who are turning a side hustle into a real brand can file on their phone, the same evening they decide to go pro.
A multilingual, plain-language wizard removes the quiet barrier of an English-only government form, opening the front door of business ownership wider for our whole community.
A growing company launching a new product line or storefront name can record an additional DBA in minutes, keeping momentum instead of pausing for paperwork.
Every business that opens faster is a business that hires, leases, and pays taxes sooner. Lowering the friction of starting up is one of the most direct things a Clerk can do for Clark County's economy.
Structured digital filings mean fewer rejected packets, fewer corrections, less paper to handle, and staff freed to help with the cases that genuinely need a human.
Someone in the far northwest, in Laughlin, or in Mesquite should not have to lose a half-day to a round trip just to record a business name. Filing from anywhere levels the field across the whole county.
For a founder who is caregiving, working two jobs, or living with a disability, an in-person, business-hours errand can be a genuine barrier. A mobile-first online filing meets them where they are.
Policy is abstract until it is your business. Here is what the change looks like for the people who file these certificates every day across the valley.
Maria sells custom cakes from her kitchen and wants to operate as "Desert Bloom Bakery." Today she would download a form, decode the owner fields, drive to a notary, pay a notary fee, then mail or carry the certificate downtown, and wait days for the stamped copy before her bank will open a business account.
Maria types "Desert Bloom Bakery," sees it is available, answers a few plain questions, e-signs on her phone, pays the recording fee, and downloads her certificate before the timer on the oven goes off. She opens her business bank account the same afternoon.
James drives during the week and wants to launch "Vegas Shine Mobile Detailing" on weekends. Finding time during business hours to file in person means losing a shift, so he keeps putting it off, and keeps turning down customers who want a real, named business.
James files at 11pm after his last ride of the night, from the seat of his car. By morning he has a certificate, a checklist for the next steps, and a brand he can finally put on a flyer.
Anh and Linh have the lease and the chairs ready, but the English-only certificate is intimidating. They worry about getting an owner field wrong and having the whole thing bounced back, so they pay someone to handle it for them.
The wizard speaks their language. They each e-sign as co-owners, the tool checks their work, and they walk away confident, keeping the money they would have spent on a middleman.
An established plumbing company wants to launch a flat-rate brand called "Same-Day Drains." Recording an additional DBA means another in-person errand for an office manager who already has a full plate.
The office manager records the new DBA in minutes between calls, downloads the certificate, and the marketing team launches the new brand on schedule.
After leaving the service, David wants to consult as "Summit Line Advisors." Between VA appointments and a job search, finding a weekday window to file downtown keeps slipping, and the business stays on hold.
David files from his laptop on a Saturday, checks his name, e-signs, and downloads his certificate. The checklist even flags the small-business resources he qualifies for as a veteran.
This is not a theory written by someone who has never filed the paperwork. Dr. Shaw has started businesses, met the deadlines, and built his career turning painful experiences into ones that feel effortless.
Read Dr. Shaw's story →Dr. Shaw founded and led envision ID, an award-winning design firm, and has built other ventures of his own. He has personally filed the paperwork, met the deadlines, and felt the friction that founders feel.
As a Stanford-trained product designer and a former Design Director at frogdesign, his entire career has been about turning confusing, painful experiences into ones that feel obvious and effortless.
A DBA filing is a product with users, a job to be done, and friction to remove. Dr. Shaw will bring the same rigor, research, prototyping, testing with real founders, that he brought to clients in the private sector.
From the first name-check to the final checklist, the standard is the same one he held in the studio: respect the user's time, remove every needless step, and make the right thing the easy thing.
Designing a better filing tool is not a slide deck, it is a delivery problem. Dr. Shaw has led cross-functional teams that turned ideas into products people actually use, and he will bring that delivery discipline to county government.
Good product design starts with the front-line staff who run the process today. Dr. Shaw will map the current workflow with the Clerk's own team, honoring their expertise and building the tool around what really happens at the counter.
A product is only as good as the principles behind it. These are the rules Dr. Shaw will bring from the design studio to the Clerk's office.
Every step that can be removed, is removed. Every minute saved is a minute the founder spends building their business instead of fighting a form.
Validation, guidance, and a guided flow mean the path of least resistance is also the correct one, fewer rejected packets, fewer do-overs.
Mobile-first, multilingual, and written in plain language, so the front door of business ownership is open to the whole county.
Clear fees, clear distinctions between a DBA and SOS registration, and published metrics on how fast filings actually go.
Multi-owner partnerships, name conflicts, and renewals are not afterthoughts. The flow is built to handle the messy real-world cases as gracefully as the simple ones.
Automation handles the routine; people handle the exceptions. There is always a clear, human path for the founder whose situation does not fit the wizard.
What gets measured gets better. Filing times, drop-off points, and founder feedback feed a continuous loop of refinement, in the open.
Accessibility, language, and cost are checked before launch, not after complaints. The standard is a front door that opens for every Clark County resident.
Big change in a government office should be deliberate. Each phase delivers something real while building toward the full vision.
A filing system is a system of record. Speed is the goal; integrity is the requirement. Every step is built with both in mind.
Identity verification on every e-signature, plus fraud-detection patterns, protect against someone filing a business name in another person's name.
Digital certificates are designed to meet Nevada's requirements for a recorded fictitious firm name, with verification features banks and vendors can trust.
Owner information and payments are encrypted in transit and at rest, handled under modern security standards befitting a government system of record.
Validation and a structured wizard reduce the errors that today cause rejected packets, protecting both the filer and the integrity of the public record.
The tool states plainly that a county DBA is distinct from registering a business entity with the Secretary of State through SilverFlume, so no one mistakes one for the other.
Every step honors Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 602 and county process. These are goals for the office, pursued within the law, not promises to bend it.
Any move to e-signatures and digital certificates would be developed with county counsel and the Secretary of State's office, so the validity of every filing stands up where it matters, at the bank, the courthouse, and beyond.
Digital filings are backed up and preserved as a permanent system of record, with audit trails, protecting both the public's right to know who is behind a business and the founder's proof of filing.
These are targets for the office, pursued within Nevada law. They describe the bar Dr. Shaw believes Clark County's entrepreneurs deserve.
I have filed this paperwork myself. The idea was ready on day one, the process made it wait. A founder should be able to name a business, sign for it, and walk away with a certificate the same afternoon. As Clerk, I will design it exactly that way.
Business filing is full of half-truths. Here is the accurate picture, the same clarity the wizard will give every founder.
A DBA and an LLC are the same thing.
They are not. A DBA (fictitious firm name) is a name you operate under, recorded with the County Clerk under NRS 602. An LLC or corporation is a legal entity registered with the Secretary of State through SilverFlume. Many founders need to think about both, the wizard makes the distinction clear.
Filing a DBA protects my business name everywhere.
A county fictitious firm name filing is a public record of who is behind a name; it is not a statewide trademark. For broader name and brand protection, the Secretary of State and trademark processes apply, and the checklist points you there.
The Clerk runs elections, so this is about voting.
No. The Clark County Clerk's duties include recording fictitious firm names, marriage licenses, and more. This initiative is squarely about a real Clerk responsibility, making DBA filings faster and fairer.
A digital certificate is just a screenshot, banks won't accept it.
The proposed digital certificate is designed to be a legally valid, verifiable record with built-in verification features, so a bank or vendor can confirm it is genuine. It is meant to be accepted exactly where the paper version is today.
Going faster means cutting corners on fraud.
Speed and integrity are designed together. Identity verification on every e-signature and fraud-detection patterns make a digital filing harder to abuse than a paper form left on a counter, not easier.
Only big companies benefit from this.
The opposite. The people who feel today's friction most are first-time founders, gig workers, and immigrant-owned businesses, exactly the entrepreneurs a faster, multilingual filing helps the most.
Modernizing the office means cutting staff or service.
It means the opposite. Automating the routine, error-prone parts of filing frees the Clerk's experienced team to spend their time on the cases that genuinely need a person, better service, not less of it.
If I file a DBA, I am done with all my paperwork.
A DBA is often the first step, not the last. Depending on your business you may also need state entity registration, a business license, or special permits. The built-in checklist spells out what else applies to you so nothing falls through the cracks.
DBA stands for "doing business as." In Nevada it is a fictitious firm name, a name you operate under that is different from your own legal name. Under NRS Chapter 602 you record it with the County Clerk so the public knows who is behind the business.
Yes, that is the whole point. The proposed digital certificate is designed to be a legally valid record of your fictitious firm name filing, with verification features so a bank or vendor can confirm it is genuine. It is meant to carry the same weight as today's stamped paper certificate.
You pay the same standard county recording fee set by law, the goal is to remove friction and waiting, not to add cost. The exact fee is set by Clark County and applicable Nevada statute, and would be shown clearly before you pay.
Possibly, and the tool will tell you. A county DBA is separate from registering a business entity (like an LLC or corporation) with the Nevada Secretary of State through SilverFlume. Many founders need one, the other, or both. The built-in checklist explains which applies to your situation.
The goal is to offer the wizard, help text, and checklist in the languages Clark County entrepreneurs actually speak, so a founder never needs a translator to register a business in their own community.
The target is that the moment your filing is complete and the fee is paid, your verifiable digital certificate is ready to download, minutes, not days. No waiting for a stamped copy to arrive before you can open a bank account.
Because your filing lives in a secure digital record, a lost certificate is simply a re-download, not a new filing and not another wait. Renewals and replacements are handled in the same place.
The proposal replaces the separate in-person notary step with an identity-verified electronic signature that satisfies the filing requirement. The legal weight stays; the extra errand goes away.
No. This initiative is about the Clerk's actual duties, and registering fictitious firm names (DBAs) under NRS 602 is one of them. Dr. Shaw's plan focuses squarely on modernizing the services the Clerk's office is responsible for.
These are Dr. Shaw's goals for the office, pursued within Nevada law and county process. Numbers are approximate and provided for context. The commitment is to bring a designer's discipline to making business filings faster and fairer.
Going digital is about adding a fast, easy option, not removing help. The goal is to keep in-person and assisted paths available for anyone who wants them, while the online wizard handles the routine cases in minutes for everyone else.
Your data is encrypted in transit and at rest and handled under modern security standards. Note that a fictitious firm name filing is, by design, a public record of who is behind a business, that transparency is the point of the law, but your payment details and account credentials are protected.
Yes. The guided wizard branches for sole proprietors and partnerships, walking each owner through their own identity-verified e-signature so a multi-owner DBA is just as smooth as a one-person filing.
This is a campaign promise that needs a campaign behind it. You can donate, volunteer, or simply share the plan with the founders in your life. Every bit of support helps bring a modern, faster Clerk's office to Clark County.
Clark County Clerk, Business Services
Nevada Revised Statutes, Chapter 602, Fictitious Names
Nevada Secretary of State, SilverFlume Business Portal
Source: www.nvsilverflume.gov/home →
Clark County Clerk, Official Site
Source: www.clarkcountynv.gov/government/elected_officials/county_clerk →
Los Angeles County Clerk: fully online DBA (fictitious business name) filing
Source: www.lavote.gov/home/county-clerk/fictitious-business-names/filing/who-should-file →
Florida Division of Corporations: online fictitious-name registration & renewal
Source: dos.fl.gov/sunbiz/start-business/efile/fl-fictitious-name-registration →
Figures are drawn from public Clark County, Nevada Secretary of State, and Las Vegas tourism sources and are presented for context. Proposals describe Dr. Shaw's goals for the office and are subject to applicable Nevada law and county processes. Paid for by Friends of Howell Shaw.
A guided wizard, an instant name check, an e-signature, and a same-day digital certificate. Help Dr. Shaw bring a designer's discipline to the Clerk's office.
