My only interaction with the family court has been the handful of LACSN cases I have done there, but my experiences with her have all been good. I can't say that about all the district judges I have appeared before in family court.

That being said, I don't know anything about the either two, so one of them may be more qualified. I just thought Bailey was competent.

A Family Court Judge is a District Court Judge. It is only in the 2nd JD (Washoe) and the 8th JD that a family court division even exists. It is simply a specialized division of the District Court, the same as the civil and criminal divisions are; not a separate court like Justice Court.

Other than in the 2nd and 8th JD, family law cases are handled by general jurisdiction District Judges. In those districts, there is nothing that prevents the judges of the district from voluntarily assigning the cases in a division type structure, other than a lack of adequate number of cases and judges to have full dockets and random assignments.

Perhaps if some of the judges in the family division actually learned or cared about the rules of civil procedure and evidence the cases would have more predictability with more consistent outcomes.

I suspect the burnout factor is higher handling family division cases. The family division receives approximately 60% of the new case filings, has a much larger percentage of pro se litigants and unlike the civil and criminal divisions have cases that can best be described as zombie cases. Despite the best efforts of the judges, the cases continue to reopen long after final judgment (if dealing with minors it can be decades or re-openings).

Granted the civil and criminal division cases, if they go to trial have longer lasting trials, as well as matters that family division judges do not have to contend with (msj, motions in limine, jury instructions, motion for judgment not on verdict, etc.) They have the assistance of the Discovery Commissioner to handle things like JCCR issue whereas the family judges are required to conduct early case conferences in nearly all of their cases. The family judges have to deal with objections to DA paternity and child support orders (including enforcement actions) and guardianship cases.

Despite the systemic issues contributing to the workload and burnout issues, the civil and criminal divisions collectively have more judges to handle fewer cases than are assigned to the family division with an average caseload of around 25000 cases per judge (active, child support and those subject to reopening).

Perhaps if the District Court followed the lead of other jurisdictions wherein the judges assigned to family law cases are in dedicated departments (unlike the general jurisdiction model) but the assigned judges rotate between divisions every few years, you wouldn't have the need for judges running for seats in the civil/criminal divisions as currently occurs. Rotation currently works for judges currently in the civil and criminal divisions. A model could be created to allow for voluntary rotations including the family division.

I could suggest a workable model, but this has already become too long so I'll save the model unless others would be interested in exploring it.