Trio of lawyers seeking District Court Department 17 seat

A civil litigation attorney, prosecutor and public defender are all vying for a seat in District Court Department 17 in the upcoming general election.

Attorney Adam Ganz, Chief Deputy District Attorney Lindsey Moors and Deputy Public Defender Jennifer Schwartz will all appear on November’s ballot for the open seat, which was left vacant when District Judge Michael Villani retired in July. There was no primary for the seat because Villani announced his retirement after the June election.

Villani handled a calendar comprised of civil and criminal cases, although judges’ assignments are determined by the chief judge.

Adam Ganz

Ganz, who grew up in Las Vegas, graduated from University of San Diego Law School in 1998 and has spent more than 20 years practicing civil litigation, he said. Ganz said he is running because the District Court needs more judges with experience practicing civil law, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic delayed civil proceedings.

“Civil cases have always been backlogged — they are even more backlogged now because of COVID,” Ganz said. “And we need judges who can get through their calendars, make decisions on motions that need to be made in order to get cases to move along.”

Ganz, 51, received his master of laws degree in conflict and dispute resolution this year from Pepperdine University’s Caruso School of Law. He has also served as a justice of the peace pro tem, which included overseeing criminal cases, and a short term trial judge pro tem in District Court civil cases, he said.

“I’m the only person in this case who’s actually been a judge,” he said.

Ganz previously ran for judge in Department 3 in 2020, but lost to current District Court Judge Monica Trujillo, who received 60 percent of the vote.

Lindsey Moors

Moors, 39, graduated from the University of Oregon School of Law in 2009. She worked as an insurance defense attorney in Las Vegas before she was hired by the Clark County district attorney’s office in 2011. Moors said she has spent a cumulative ten years working for the district attorney’s office, with an 18-month period working as a prosecutor in Riverside County, California, due to her husband’s job in the military.

She is currently a prosecutor in the Clark County district attorney’s office’s special victims unit.

Moors said her trial experience makes her stand out from other candidates for Department 17.

“I think when you’re a prosecutor or in criminal defense, the trial experience you get is just unparalleled, because our cases go to trial a lot more often than civil cases,” she said.

If elected, Moors said she’s confident in her ability to make decisions from the bench.

“At the end of the day, the reason why I want to be a judge is I think that we need more judges that will be independent, impartial and conduct themselves with integrity,” she said.

Jennifer Schwartz

Schwartz, 45, graduated from Boyd Law School in 2002 and briefly worked for a civil law firm before joining the Clark County public defender’s office in 2004. She’s also worked as a truancy court judge with the Clark County School District’s truancy diversion program.

Schwartz said she’s not running for the bench because of political aspirations, but because she was “tired of complaining about our judiciary.”

“We do have some judges that do perform hard work and do rule with compassion and integrity, but unfortunately that’s the exception and not the rule,” she said. “Judges don’t seem to understand the impact that their decisions have. Not just on on people, but on communities.”

Schwartz said the judicial system should be improved through policies such as overhauling the monetary bail system and increasing access to speciality courts and diversion programs

“There’s issues where people are waiting ungodly amounts of time in custody in order to get into a program, and that needs to be remedied,” she said.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.