Nevada lawyers can pay to have civil cases sent to a different judge. Here’s how

Attorneys in Nevada can pay to remove a judge from a civil case through peremptory challenges, and data shows that a small group of Las Vegas judges has faced a large number of those challenges.

“There are all sorts of reasons for a peremptory challenge,” said longtime appellate attorney Dan Polsenberg. “That’s why it’s only one metric. It could be a personality conflict. It could be the judge is capable but mean. It could be an actual personal thing, maybe a business relationship or a family relationship where people just do a peremptory challenge instead of a disclosure.”

The Las Vegas Review-Journal requested data on peremptory challenges for Clark County District Court, including its family division, and found that District Judge Joanna Kishner had the most for the period between Jan. 1, 2023, and Nov. 26, 2025.

She had 208, according to the data provided by District Court.

District Judge Anna Albertson followed with 159, then District Judges Erika Ballou, Jacob Reynolds and Veronica Barisich with 131, 128 and 126 respectively, the statistics show. Judge Mary Perry had 115, the highest in Family Court.

Some of those judges also received failing scores from attorneys who participated in the Review-Journal’s 2025 Judicial Performance Evaluation. Results of the survey were released online Dec. 7.

Ballou, Perry and Kishner had the three lowest retention scores out of all 101 judges included in the evaluation, which allowed attorneys to provide anonymous feedback on judges in a variety of courts. The retention score is the percentage of attorneys who thought a judge should stay on the bench.

Only 32.8 percent of attorneys wanted to keep Ballou on the bench, while 35.1 percent said Perry should stay in office and 46.6 percent thought Kishner should be retained.

Albertson, Reynolds and Barisich each received a retention score of 73 percent.

District Court provided the total number of challenges for each judge but did not supply additional data in response to follow-up requests for the total number of cases in which each judge could have faced challenges. Peremptory challenges are not allowed in criminal cases.

How peremptory challenges work

The Nevada Legislature enacted a statute permitting judges to be removed via peremptory challenge in 1977, according to related court records. The statute was declared unconstitutional in a 1978 case, but the Supreme Court created the current rule governing peremptory challenges in 1979.

Challenges may be filed only in District Court civil cases.

A peremptory challenge costs $450, and in fiscal 2025, attorneys paid a total of $396,000 to challenge judges across the state. Those funds are collected by the trial court and forwarded to the Nevada Supreme Court clerk’s office.

The money has covered such expenses as a server room HVAC system, mileage for multicounty rural judges and training for court staff, according to State Court Administrator Katherine Stocks.

Judges with the most

The judges with the highest numbers of peremptory challenges hear only civil cases, meaning they have more cases in which attorneys can file peremptory challenges against them compared with judges who divide their time between civil and criminal matters.

Kishner has only had civil cases during the time covered by the statistics, according to her department. Albertson and Reynolds also hear only civil cases. Ballou was removed from criminal cases in May and given additional civil cases. Barisich has had only civil assignments since 2023, court spokesperson Mary Ann Price said.

In an email, Kishner said it would not be accurate to compare judges based on the sheer number of peremptory challenges, since many judges have fewer cases eligible for the challenges. She noted that she hears business court cases, and peremptory challenges are common in business court.

“Departments, such as the one I oversee, have a full civil docket,” she said. “Thus, in almost all of the cases in our department a litigant can timely pay the nominal peremptory fee and have the case reassigned without any merit based determination.”

Kishner added: “I take my role as a Judge very seriously and am honored to be serving our community for about 15 years. I am well prepared, treat everyone fairly, and apply the law and rules equally.”

In anonymous comments on the judicial performance survey, lawyers attacked Kishner for what they perceived as meanness to attorneys and an obsession with court rules.

Albertson, like Kishner, emphasized the makeup of her caseload to explain her high peremptory challenge numbers.

“Between January 2023 and November 2025, I believe my department handled more cases eligible for peremptory challenges than any of the other 32 civil/criminal departments — often two or more times the number of civil matters assigned to other departments,” she said in a statement. “Given that volume, it would not be surprising for my department to receive more peremptory challenges than others. Even so, my appeal and reversal rates remain among the lowest, demonstrating consistent adherence to the law and procedural standards.”

Ballou, who did not respond to requests for comment, was suspended from the bench in September after she was accused of defying the Nevada Supreme Court by releasing a prisoner and not ordering the prisoner to be taken back into custody when her decision was reversed.

In Ballou’s case, Polsenberg said, her controversy has clearly contributed to the number of times she has been challenged.

“She’s in a situation where I think everybody has second thoughts about whether to chance being in front of her,” the attorney said.

Reynolds, who became a judge in March 2023, said some people use peremptory challenges to buy time. He said many firms challenged him early on because they didn’t know him and were not sure how he would rule on certain issues.

Barisich said in a statement that she manages a high-volume, all-civil docket, including medical malpractice and probate cases.

Importance of case makeup?

The trend of high numbers for judges who only hear civil cases was not universal.

District Judge Mark Denton, who presides over an all-civil caseload, had only 34 peremptory challenges between the start of 2023 and late November, according to the court’s data.

Denton said in an interview that he tries to be unbiased. He said he hopes his peremptory challenge numbers are an indication that he’s “perceived to be fair and impartial.”

District Judge Timothy Williams, who also hears only civil cases and has had 63 peremptory challenges since the start of 2023, said lawyers know him and can anticipate how he will rule.

He’s also proud of his temperament.

“It’s so important just to have the appropriate demeanor as a trial judge,” Williams said. “Treat everybody with respect. It doesn’t matter whether they’re representing themselves or it’s the largest law firm in the state of Nevada. They should all be treated the same.”

Perry was more willing than some of her colleagues to attribute her peremptory challenge numbers to factors other than her caseload.

The judge hears divorce, child custody and child support cases, and said she’s “predictable” in her preference to give parents shared custody, which could cause mothers and fathers seeking primary physical custody to opt for a peremptory challenge when their cases are assigned to her.

Perry, who was publicly censured last year, has said she took medication related to a breast cancer diagnosis that affected her hormones. The medication made her “a little harsh, probably a lot harsh in some cases,” but she is doing better now, she said.

She also said there is likely an association between her judicial discipline case and peremptory challenge rate. She thinks there is probably also a correlation between her low retention score and high number of peremptory challenges.

Veteran attorney Will Kemp said most of the time a peremptory challenge stems from a difference of philosophy.

“When I see that a judge has more peremptory challenges than maybe the other judges, that really doesn’t mean that much to me,” he said.

Polsenberg shared similar sentiments.

“You can do a peremptory challenge for a personal, petty reason, and that’s a lot of times what those numbers reflect, in my experience, because you don’t have to state a reason,” he said.

But Polsenberg said he thinks the ability to use peremptory challenges is “very important.”

“I’ve been doing this 40 years, and a lot of judges don’t like it, and they don’t like the reports coming out,” he said. “But I think it’s an important safeguard for a fair judicial system.”