Kerri Maxey is challenging Judge Paul Gaudet in Clark County Family Court Dept. N
“The public can trust that families and preservation of relationship between parents and children will always come first in my Courtroom,” says the website of Family Court Judge Paul Gaudet, who was appointed to the bench in March 2023 by Gov. Joe Lombardo.
Family Court judges handle cases of divorce, child custody and support, termination of parental rights, division of property, adoption, guardianship and more.
Gaudet’s challenger, longtime public defender Kerri Maxey, says she chose to run against Gaudet because “he’s the weakest” of the three Family Court judges up for election.
Maxey points to a child custody case in which Gaudet engaged in “a manifest abuse of discretion,” according to the Court of Appeals, when he failed to hold an evidentiary hearing regarding allegations of domestic violence and issued temporary custody orders “without considering the children’s best interest.” The Court wrote in its order, “Although joint legal and physical custody are generally preferred, substantiated allegations of domestic violence must be considered in making any custody determination.”
“That emergency writ to remand the case gave me heartburn,” Maxey said during an interview. “You have to hold a hearing on allegations of domestic violence. You can’t just ignore it.”
Gaudet counters that Maxey lacks the breadth of his experience in domestic and family law matters.
“She has never done a domestic case in her life,” he said during an interview. “She has no experience in doing what my docket entails.”
Gaudet prides himself on the number of cases he’s been able to resolve while on the bench.
“I think I’ve been on the bench 17 months, and I’ve closed like 2,100 cases,” he estimates. “I was averaging like 135 cases a month.”
As an attorney, Gaudet says he made it a habit to educate his clients on the law as well as represent them, a practice he says he’s carried over to the bench.
“I give them the opportunity to tell me their story. Once they’ve told me their story, it’s off their chest,” he says. “I try not only to tell them what I’m deciding, I try to tell them why I’m deciding that way. It makes it a lot more powerful. They can live with the decision when they feel like they’ve been given the opportunity to tell their story, and they’ve been given the reasons for the judge’s ruling.”
Gaudet says he appreciates the convenience and economy of remote hearings, especially for the large percentage of Family Court litigants who represent themselves, but says he’s troubled by those “acting inappropriately because they’re appearing by video. I remind them, ‘Hey, look, I just want you to know, even though you’re not here, this is a courtroom, okay? You’re not going to be disrespectful to anybody.”
Gaudet is endorsed by a number of public officials, according to his website, including Lombardo and District Attorney Steve Wolfson, as well as a variety of public safety organizations. He raised just over $66,000 as of July, and had $24,510 on hand.
Maxey represents minors in guardianship cases – sometimes involving the child and sometimes involving the estate.
“A lot of times where there’s a death in the family and there’s life insurance left to the child, the estate has to be put into a blocked account until the child becomes 18,” she says, adding that guardians “will steal that money and spend it on themselves. I safeguard the estates.”
While working for the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada, Maxey helped establish Family First, a specialty court designed to provide judicial oversight in cases in which she says grandparents and other relatives are pressured by Child Protective Services to take guardianship of minors.
“A lot of grandparents are living on fixed incomes. CPS wants them to take guardianship because it diverts the case. But then the grandparents don’t receive government assistance. They are on their own,” Maxey explains. “If the case goes through the dependency process, they can do a guardianship process through CPS, and the grandparents receive assistance through Foster Kinship.”
The Family First court ensures the parties are informed and understand they are foregoing assistance by establishing guardianship outside the dependency process.
“The District Attorney’s Office didn’t even know this was happening until we notified them in 2020,” Maxey says. “The CPS caseworker would go inside the home and then not even open a case. After we showed the DA’s office the statistics, including caseworkers who repeatedly pressured relatives into guardianship, they realized the need for oversight.”
Maxey says she has few concerns with remote hearings, which can ease the burden for litigants. “It saves money and time. The only hearings that have to be in person are evidentiary hearings and trials, because if they’re testifying remotely, you don’t know if their testimony is actually from them, or if somebody is spoon feeding them. Otherwise, you can’t make sure the testimony is credible.”
Maxey raised about $58,000 in contributions as of July and had just under $9,000 remaining.
She is endorsed by the National Organization for Women (NOW), Hispanics in Politics, a variety of veterans organizations, and a number of unions, including Culinary Local 226, SEIU, and the Southern Nevada Central Labor Council, according to her website.
In 2023, Maxey applied for appointment to Family Court and was nominated by the Judicial Selection Commission as one of three finalists.
“Lombardo did not choose me, which is okay, but I think he’s wrong.”