In the law, a motion for reconsideration is the longest of shots, the least hale of Hail Marys, the 60-yard field-goal attempt with less than a minute on the clock, the full-court jump shot at the buzzer, the … well, you get the idea. It almost never works.

But there are those extremely rare cases where it’s successful, where a court will cop to having made a mistake, overlooked a material fact, or misapplied past precedents. And that’s precisely what former Reno Councilwoman Jessica Sferrazza is counting on with her latest legal effort.

Last week, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that a person’s service on a local government body — such as the Reno City Council — is limited to 12 years under the state’s term-limits law, regardless of whether one is serving as a council member or the mayor. Thus, having served 12 years on the council, Sferrazza and all similarly situated officials throughout the state, are now banned for life from running for mayor. (Sferrazza and Reno Councilman Dwight Dortch contended — quite correctly, in my view — that mayor was a separate office, and thus a person could run and serve another 12 years, just as a person can serve 12 years in the Assembly and then run for and serve another 12 in the state Senate.)

Today, Sferrazza’s attorney — Bradley Schrager of Wolf, Rifkin, Shapiro, Schulman & Rabkin — filed a motion for reconsideration with the Nevada Supreme Court, contended that justices had overlooked relevant precedents in their ruling.

And now the Court wants a response.