When the System Falters: What Nevada’s Family Court Survey Reveals About the Stakes for Parents and Children

By Michael Phillips | Father & Co.

Most parents walk into family court believing the system will protect them and their children. They expect fairness. They expect safety. They expect the truth to matter.

But in Clark County, Nevada, the latest “Judging the Judges” survey tells a story parents across the country — especially in California — know too well: when judicial performance goes unmonitored and unchallenged, families pay the price.

This isn’t theory. These are lived realities.

A judge who has been reversed in 73% of her appealed cases is still presiding over custody battles.
A judge who was publicly reprimanded for interfering in a colleague’s case and mishandling child support calculations is still issuing orders that change the course of children’s lives.
A judge who oversaw a custody conflict that spiraled into a murder–suicide remains on the bench, trying to rebuild the trust of a shaken legal community.

And yet all 26 Family Court judges in Clark County will stand for retention in 2026 — with no mechanism for parents, survivors, or self-represented families to offer feedback about what actually happens in their courtroom.

Nevada may feel far away, but for many parents, particularly those navigating California’s overwhelmed and under-scrutinized family courts, this is the same story wearing a different badge.

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Behind the Numbers: Families Who Don’t Get a Voice

The survey at the center of Nevada’s conversation is built entirely on attorney feedback. Roughly 300 lawyers were asked whether judges should be retained, and how they perform on issues like integrity, legal knowledge, and temperament.

Lawyer feedback is helpful — but it’s not enough.

Across Nevada and California, 70–80% of family-court litigants appear without legal representation.
These are parents:

• navigating trauma,
• trying to protect their children,
• fighting for stability while living paycheck to paycheck,
• or facing an abusive former partner in court for the first time.

And yet those parents are never surveyed.

They are never asked whether they understood what happened, whether they felt safe, whether their trauma was acknowledged, or whether they believe the judge applied the law fairly.

Their experiences never make it into judicial scorecards.

Instead, their stories surface in affidavits, online support groups, and quiet conversations in courthouse hallways — places where their pain is visible, but invisible to the institutions that could change the system.

One domestic-violence survivor in Nevada told a watchdog group:

“I was the one asking for protection, but the judge yelled at me for crying and threatened to give my ex full custody. I left shaking.”

No parent should leave court feeling more unsafe than when they walked in.

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The Judges Parents Worry About Most

Judge Mary Perry — Where Error Rates Meet Lived Harm

In 15 appeals reviewed by higher courts, 11 of Perry’s rulings contained reversible errors — a staggering figure for a court entrusted with children’s lives.

Attorneys gave her a 35% retention score. Parents have been even more vocal.

Error rates are not abstractions. They represent real decisions overturned because they violated procedure, misapplied the law, or failed to protect the rights of the people involved.

And each error has a human cost — time lost, money spent, children caught in limbo.

Judge Michele Mercer — Compassion Without Consistency

Parents describe Mercer as kind and gentle — qualities that matter deeply.
But kindness cannot replace clarity, and in 2024 she was publicly reprimanded for stepping into another judge’s case and miscalculating child support.

Her retention score: 48%.

In the family-court context, “unsure of herself” doesn’t just describe a judge. It describes a parent’s fear that the person deciding their future is working it out on the fly.

Judge Bill Henderson — Decisions That Haunt

Henderson’s score fell to 50.5% after a custody case he oversaw descended into fatal violence.

He has said the case “keeps [him] up at night.”
It keeps the community up at night, too — knowing how quickly an unstable situation can turn catastrophic when early warnings are missed.

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The Judges Who Show What’s Possible

Not all of Clark County’s bench is struggling.

• Judge Adriana Rincon White (98%) is praised for dignity, respect, and problem-solving.
• Judge Bryce Duckworth (97%) is known for calming high-conflict hearings rather than inflaming them.

These examples matter. They prove that family court doesn’t have to be a trauma multiplier.

A judge grounded in empathy, boundaries, and evidence can steady even the most volatile case.

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The Crisis We Don’t Measure: Trauma Inside the Legal Process

There is a reason family court is one of the most emotionally dangerous environments for parents:

• Domestic-violence survivors are often retraumatized through cross-examination.
• Neurodivergent parents are penalized for communication differences.
• Low-income parents lose time with their children due to procedural mistakes they don’t understand.
• Fathers and mothers alike report feeling unheard, misjudged, or dismissed.
• Protective parents are sometimes painted as “alienators” when they try to raise safety issues.

When the system doesn’t track these patterns — or ask the people inside them — nothing changes.

Nevada’s survey didn’t touch these areas.
California has no statewide process to measure them at all.

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Secrecy Is Rising at the Worst Possible Time

As Nevada releases more judicial performance data, it is also moving toward greater courtroom discretion and more closures.

Under SB 432, judges can now restrict access to proceedings or seal records with broad latitude.
Supporters call it protection. Critics call it a shield.

Closed hearings can help protect a child’s identity.
But they can also hide:

• judicial misconduct,
• bias against survivors,
• inconsistent rulings,
• or patterns of dismissing evidence.

California’s family courts already operate under significant confidentiality. Many parents describe the experience as stepping into a “black box” where decisions come down without transparency or clear explanation.

Family court should not require secrecy to function.
Families should not need anonymity to survive it.

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A Parent-Centered Reform Agenda

Father & Co. supports reforms that strengthen families, reduce trauma, and ensure fairness for every parent — regardless of gender, income, disability, or legal representation.

Here are three changes Nevada and California could implement right now:

1. Publish judicial reversal rates every year

Make the data simple:

• How often did a judge’s custody, support, or DV ruling violate the law?
• How often was it reversed?
• Does any judge repeatedly mishandle the same issues?

Parents deserve to know whether the judge deciding their case follows the law.

2. Implement mandatory parent exit surveys

Five questions — available in multiple languages, online and at the clerk’s desk:

• Did you feel respected?
• Did you feel safe?
• Did you understand the outcome?
• Did the judge allow you to be heard?
• Do you need help appealing or modifying the order?

This one step would transform how courts understand their own impact.

3. Keep courtrooms open unless a child’s identity is truly at risk

Transparency is not the enemy of child safety.
Inconsistent judging is.

Open courtrooms protect families by:

• exposing patterns of bias,
• reducing unchecked judicial power,
• and giving journalists and advocates the tools to report systemic problems.

Secrecy protects systems — not children.

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What Nevada’s Story Means for California Parents

California’s family courts face the same pressures:

• massive self-represented populations,
• uneven training in trauma-informed practice,
• wide gaps between counties,
• enormous judicial discretion,
• and little public data on whether judges are following the law.

Nevada’s survey is a mirror — one we should look into carefully.

Family court doesn’t break all at once.
It breaks slowly, through thousands of moments where a parent isn’t heard, a DV survivor isn’t believed, a child’s needs are overshadowed by procedure, and a judge’s unchecked errors become the norm.

Repair starts with honesty.
Repair starts with measurement.
Repair starts with listening to the families who live with the consequences.

California shouldn’t wait for a crisis to admit the system needs reform.
We can learn from Nevada — and do better.