The Judge behind million-dollar business battles | Judge Joanna Kishner

Justice doesn’t happen by accident; it’s built on preparation, clarity, and access. We sit with Judge Joanna Kishner, a lifelong Nevadan and veteran district court judge, to unpack how Las Vegas handles business court disputes, construction defect claims, and the everyday civil cases that shape our city’s growth. From the first filing to appeals, she explains how disciplined reading, careful analysis, and open hearings produce decisions people can trust.

We dig into the realities behind the robe: what a district judge actually does, how trials and motions differ, and why volunteer settlement conferences often save litigants years of time and money. Joanna breaks down Nevada’s evolving legal landscape—where precedent is still maturing—and how judges adapt by drawing smart analogies from other jurisdictions. She shares candid insights on jurisdiction battles, complex multi-party matters, and the sheer diligence it takes to manage thousands of pages without losing the thread of fairness.

Entrepreneurs get clear, actionable advice. Handshakes aren’t enough. Define ownership and roles, write operating agreements, track orders and changes, and know your timelines because statutes of limitations can make or break a case. “Good” lawyers are the ones who prepare and advocate clearly, regardless of seniority. We also talk about jury duty as a civic education, mentoring and community work at Boyd Law, and the importance of pro bono service to support neighbors across Clark County. This is a grounded, human look at how courts protect consumers and businesses while strengthening a fast-growing city.

If you value smart conversations about law, business, and community, hit follow, share this with a friend who’s building something, and leave a quick review with your biggest takeaway. Your feedback helps more listeners find the show and join the circle.

Transcript

Meet Judge Joanna Kishner

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to Vegas Circle Podcast with your hosts, Pakin Chris. We are people who are passionate about business, success, and culture. And this is our platform to showcase people in our city who are making it happen. And on today's podcast, we're welcoming a special guest who's a Las Vegas judge who's worked in business and construction law, who impacts uh our entire community. So let's welcome to the circle, the honorable judge Joanna Kishner.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

You said it perfectly. Chris was gonna kill me, man. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_03 0:27

Yeah, it's great. We met we met at Shane Jasmine and Charles's uh holiday party. I think that was about a month ago now, right? It was.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

So know a lot of the same folks in the in the city, and and you're actually from Las Vegas, born and raised.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

I was actually very fortunate to be born in Sunrise Hospital back in the 60s. Oh excellent.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Excellent, excellent. Long history in the city.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Yes, raising my family here, multi-generational, which is very important to me because for me it's really about our community.

SPEAKER_03 0:52

Yeah, that's awesome. So let's jump right in. What originally inspired you to pursue a career in law and then ultimately eventually obviously sit on the bench? What sparked that?

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Well, my father's a lawyer.

SPEAKER_03 1:04

Ah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

He's now deceased. But realistically, for me, it was something that you could learn every day, be challenged intellectually, and serve our community. And that's really so first I wanted to be an attorney and I wanted to have breadth and depth of experience. I did that for, well, from 1989 to 2010 when I first ran for judge. I've now been on the bench for 15 years.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Oh wow, congratulations.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Before doing that, thank you. I wanted to make sure I had over two decades of legal experience, right? And I also was an arbitrator, which are attorneys that get appointed to do basically temp judges. Okay. Also was a small claims judge and did justice of the peace pro tem work as well to make sure I had the breadth and depth of experience before I wanted to run for judge, because realistically, this is our community.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Yeah. Have the goal always been to be a judge? Like it's always kind of since the foundation?

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Actually, if you I could if I brought my Clark High School yearbook, because I went to Clark High School here in Las Vegas, you will see there's more than one person who pretty much said that down the road they kind of thought I would be a judge. And so that's nice that I already had that. And you know, it's for me, I don't know if I told you I'm Department 31.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

And there's a reason for being Department 31, is Nevada Day, October 31st, 1864.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

That's a tie in there.

Path To The Bench And Preparation

SPEAKER_00 2:21

You know, if you're gonna do something for the community, I just I really thought I kind of honored the fact when Nevada became part of the United States. And so I picked Department 31 and I think Almost sounds like great branding, too, Judge. That's how I was like, my juries love it because you know you come in and I say, you know, welcome to Department 31. If it's summertime, yes, I might throw in a Baskin Robbins quote. Yes, it's close to Halloween. I might throw in a little bit of Halloween so we know where they are, you know. Tell them it's trick-or-treat, and hopefully they find their jury services a treat. Um That's nice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:52

Can you talk a little bit about like just for people that maybe don't understand, like what does the judge what's the actual day-to-day look like?

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Well, I'm a district court judge. Okay. So we have different levels of judges. We have municipal court judges, justices of the peace, we have district court judges, and then we the covering the entire state is our court of appeals and our supreme court.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

So the eighth judicial district is everywhere that's Clark County. So our over 8,064 square miles, it is our community. So you're covering Mesquite, Laughlin, Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson, you name it, everything right in between, pretty much from the California border to Arizona, everything. That's that nice little tip of the. And those have numbers after them. If you look at some of our courts, you'll see some of the courts have letters after them. That's our family division down here in Clark County. But I'm not a family court judge, I'm in the civil criminal division. So some of us have split dockets that handle both criminal and civil cases. My docket is primarily civil, which includes, as you mentioned, business court, construction defect, and then everyday civil cases, things like car accidents, right? Slip and falls, business disputes, right? You've had some wonderful guests I was looking at throughout your seven years.

SPEAKER_03 4:12

You've probably had all of them on.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Well, I was actually going to mention more the fact that you know if they had issues with regards to their businesses, they might come into business court and do that. So on a daily basis, sometimes I'm in trial. In fact, start another trial on January 5th. If I'm not in trial, I'm doing motions, which are basically people come to court to get a matter resolved on a kind of more isolated basis, right? They might have a particular issue they need addressed, or they might have some relief that they need on a more narrow basis. And I'm also doing trials. And on those trials, we try and resolve the issues ultimately. I also do settlement conferences. One thing that's really nice about our courts is we volunteer to do other people's settlement conferences on their cases. Because sometimes, right, it might be less expensive for a client, right, to try and get resolution through a settlement conference rather than spending three or four up to five or maybe longer years in court and then have the appellate process. And so I focus a lot of my time volunteering to do settlement conferences to try and get people to resolution, right? You know, both walk away a little bit, maybe not a hundred percent happy, but you've been able to move forward.

SPEAKER_03 5:21

It seems like a lot of those happen. Go ahead, Chris. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

It seems like this, like this type of judge, I guess, judgments, or how I don't know how they term that, but they seem a little more complex in a lot of these scenarios. You navigating business ex you know experiences or issues like that. I feel like there's a lot of layers that go to like how does preparation look for one of these cases from your standpoint? It seems very dynamic.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Well, it depends. I mean, I'm fortunate some of my cases are multi-billion dollar cases. Yeah, I can imagine. Um I have some of the largest cases currently in the eighth judicial district. Um I've been randomly assigned them. So sometimes I might need to read thousands of pages for a particular case on a discrete issue. Sometimes people decide whether or not they think they should be here in Nevada in court or should they be in another state, right? Okay, so it starts at the very, very beginning. Should they be in these courts?

SPEAKER_03 6:09

That's a strategy thing, though, isn't it? A lot of times, it could be.

What A District Judge Does

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Yeah, of course. But um so yes, I'm very known to be well prepared. Yeah, okay. I believe in reading everything more than once, read the footnotes, right? Because honestly, that's the way that I feel that I can make a well-reasoned decision. Attorneys sometimes comment that I might be know more about their cases than they do. But but I think that's the oath of office I swore to do was read. Well, the law fairness. Yeah, it's fairness, right? But in order to be fair, you've got to know what the issues are. You've got to know what the law is. And not Oz, okay? It doesn't just magically come to me. I do the hard work each and every day to read everything so I am prepared, and then make the various decisions after I listen to oral argument of each of the parties and give them a chance to kind of either summarize or explain what their positions are.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

Is the judge office like a team of one? Like are you having to navigate like all this like like most of them by yourself, or how does that work?

SPEAKER_00 7:08

At the district court level, it's a little bit different depending on what level. At the appellate courts, like in the Court of Appeals, we have three judges that are Court of Appeals judges. Okay. So they oftentimes work as a team. At the Supreme Court level, which is our highest state court level, they have panels. Um they have a and so they might handle some cases on a panel or they might handle it in bank with the whole entire group. But at the district court level, at the justice court level, and at the municipal court level, we as a single judge make the decisions. And so, yes, it's myself, I do have one law clerk that helps with some research, but we have the opportunity to learn about a lot of things.

SPEAKER_03 7:48

Yeah, broad range. Are you ever like nervous? Like because human human must come in, right? Like, do you ever nervous for you like, damn, I made the wrong decision?

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Well, do you think I'm gonna say this? Yeah, of course. Get you caught up. Get you caught up, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:00

Um I do my best.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Yeah, of course. You're human, yeah. Try and by being well prepared, right? Researching the law, re-house it applies to the facts, giving everyone a full and fair opportunity to be heard. I try and make well-reasoned decisions.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Do the appellate courts always agree? No, but that's part of the learning experience. And the nice thing with some of the cases that I have are cutting edge, okay? Nevada does not have the same body of law. You mentioned you've got some history in like Chicago and Bizarre. Yes, exactly, yes. Yep. So some other place states have a lot more case law, right? Um either they've been around longer or they've just done a lot more cases. In Nevada, we're getting there. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 8:39

So new is still new, yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

A lot of things are new, but that's part of what makes it very interesting is you know, to evaluate and try and analyze things and make analogies from other cases, just try and make a well-reasoned decision.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

Yeah, that's gonna be my one question. Like since you've been kind of in the city and you've seen the development of the law and the legal practices over the the course of the years, you know, have you started to see your impacting that culture shift in some of these law decisions? And you're how are you seeing like the legislative environment shifting and changing from maybe when you started, you know, in as a law in law practice versus now the judgments that you're seeing actually shaping kind of the future of the city?

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Well, that's kind of a multi-prong question. Um, they're breaking it down. Well, let's take, for example, one of the things I mentioned, I uh have a docket involving construction defect. Our construction defect is unique to the only two of the districts in the state. The smaller districts don't have it.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Okay.

Trials, Motions, And Settlements

SPEAKER_00 9:30

And that's residential construction defect. So it's not the business construction defect. But what you've seen in the legislature is you've seen a lot of changes, right? The different legislatures have changed the actual law. So sometimes you might be applying in a particular case three different versions of the same law, right? Oh wow to some of the different parties. And so that kind of answers part of your question. Yes, you get to see how it evolves. Other times, um well, there's some cases currently have which well the Supreme Court, of course, I'm gonna say, you know, just recently affirmed me on a potential decision on a decision, right, where it involves how Nevada's gonna handle some things on personal jurisdiction. So you get to see that, and then yes, sometimes attorneys, if I have been overturned, might cite one of those cases in a future thing, you know, just to kind of have a little function. Reasonable doubt, yeah. It's fine, you know what I mean. It it's all good. But you get to see it, you get to really see the law in action. And if I tell people who haven't been on jury duty, right, when you get that jury juror summons, do not have that breath of kind of like, I don't really want to do it, because you really get to see how the court system works if you become a juror. And you get to see the insights, you get to see how the lawyers argue their cases, you get to see how a judge rules on things, and you actually get to meet some amazing people in our community that you might not come across.

SPEAKER_03 10:49

I I have to agree with you. I always hated going honestly to jury duty, and there was one case I got selected as a juror, and you're 100% right, is you the the panel that you got because you're if you especially if you get a crazy case, you're with them in hours at a time, you know, then you can build great relationships, specifically in this city. So I agree with you.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

Yeah. That's one of the things really nice about our community. Yeah. As we keep getting larger and larger, we're still very much, I think, a small community. And I think that plays very nicely into, you know, the congenial relationships that you can develop when you're on jury duty or also in a courtroom.

SPEAKER_03 11:22

For sure. Yeah. Well, why do you think we have so many construction defects here? Is it just such a growing city and we just got too much construction going on? Like what what is it?

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Well, there's actually right now the number of cases has reduced. It's just reduced.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

That's good.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

It it's tied to the amount of construction going on. And remember, just because people file claims doesn't mean, right, you have to go through either the trial process or a resolution process to determine whether or not there's merit. Okay. But it's not unusual as communities develop, right, that you get an increase in litigation. As we have more people here, you have more people on the streets, you're gonna have more car accident cases, right? You have more people going about in buildings and things like that, you're gonna have some more slip and fall cases. As we have grown, I mean the I guess we were about for a decade approximately. Las Vegas community was one of the largest communities in the nation, right, for expansion.

SPEAKER_03 12:16

Yeah, growth, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

So if you go to that growth, I mean wonderful growth, right? Great opportunities for jobs. Think of how many people were able to become employed in that. But at the same time, you're gonna end up with more litigation.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

And do you think like is there like a statute of limitations on construction defects? Like is there so is there a certain amount of time it's like you can't really go back and fight that any longer? Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

What I mentioned about the fact that sometimes applying three different sets of laws, yes, some of those issues were changing the statute of limitations and statutory prose, which is how long a case, you know, you have to raise issues on different type of cases. And that's the same in all kinds of civil cases, is there's statute of limitations and so because you want to make sure, right, that you have a case brought forth but in an appropriate amount of time so that you have some conclusions, right? You don't want to think that twenty years later someone's gonna come after you on an issue.

SPEAKER_03 13:04

What role does the court system play in as far as protecting you know the business owners and the consumers?

High-Stakes Cases And Diligence

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Huge. Um because we're there, right? It's access to the courts. We're we're the people's courts. You can come in and you you can come in and you can get your matters resolved, whether they're smaller matters, right, that might get handled on a municipal court level or a justice court level, right? We have a small claims court, like I said, which mostly people represent themselves, but they have smaller disputes. If you have larger disputes, you can come into district court. And even in the district court system, without getting too much into the weeds, we have an arbitration program for some of those lower cases. So they're less expensive, they get resolved quicker. It really gives any of your business people like, you know, unfortunately, sometimes we're doing business divorces, right? Things may not work out if people are in business together. Other times we're working to ensure that people are following their operating agreements. And so realistically, it gives everyone a chance to f have a place to try and get their matters resolved if they want to go through settlement or to get tried and have a determination on the merits if they want to go to trial or they want to go through motion practice. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 14:09

Makes sense. You know, as far as like advice for entrepreneurs to to just avoid ending up in litigation. I'm just curious for because we have so many entrepreneurs on. You know what I mean? What what would you suggest, just maybe from a personal perspective?

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Well, a couple of things. First off, make sure I mean there is a lot of tools that are available, even free tools, right, to help create operating agreements, right? And the various documents is actually do-do them. Part of what we end up finding out is people think that the handshake deal, right, that they thought they had, maybe somewhere down the road that handshake might have different interpretations from each person who were parties to that handshake. And then without the documentation to support what should be done and what everyone's rights are, it really puts people in a bind because then you have to have a neutral judge come and make those determinations. So entrepreneurs, why it might seem like, gosh, oh golly, we've got a great idea, let's jump forward and get into business, is I hate to say it, dot your I's, cross your T's, do some paperwork and to ensure that it's done. And also, you know, create if you wanted a limited liability company, right? But make sure that you're doing what you really want to do and check out. All those boxes, yeah. Yeah, and I understand for some people it's like, wow, I've got these, you know, fantastic ideas. I want to just get out there, I want to do what I want to do. Who wants to really do the paperwork?

SPEAKER_03 15:30

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

But successful businesses would rather be earning money, right? Spending it on your families and hiring more employees, right? And being innovative than, you know, being in court having somebody say, guess what, that's not really what you own or don't own, or where you are in that particular business.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

So you know, kind of a sidebar question, just out of curiosity. Like, as you're a judge, can you still practice like law as a lawyer? No. You're hundred percent yeah you have to be committed to that during that term.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

We are very, very limited in what we can do. Got it. Like, for example, speaking here with you all today, I can easily give general concept. Of course. I can't provide anyone legal advice. In fact, there's judicial ethics rules that preclude me from opining on a lot of different things. Interesting. Sure. Even so much for the kind of humor of it is you mentioned you have kids. I don't know if you have three daughters. Well, I'm usually cleanup crew because when there's various when my kids were younger and the various activities they participated in, I couldn't be the one selling the tickets, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Or out there promoting the auction items. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Everyone loved me because I would always volunteer to head up cleanup crew. And there's a reason for that, right? Is because you don't want a judge to be putting his or her or their name on something that promotes it. There's an exception about encouraging people to do pro bono, which is something very, very important to me, trying to get attorneys to do pro bono work for those less fortunate in the community. But otherwise, there's a lot of restrictions that need to be enforced for the very good reason for to ensure that we're fair and impartial.

SPEAKER_03 17:02

What's the misconceptions do you think people have about judges and and the court system?

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 17:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Well I think what finds out is that people kind of are somewhat intimidated to come into court. I agree. I think that's a misperception that somehow the courthouse is you know something unique and strained, which is one of the reasons why I say jury duty is so great, because it gives someone a comfort level, right? They get to see what it is. Also, by the way, all the hearings, pretty much most all hearings, I should say, some family court matters are not. You can just any member of the public can view them anytime they want. Okay. They you can get a Zoom link and you can log in, and so if you have nothing else to do and want to listen to a court hearing. So I think one misconception is that somehow we're intimidating, okay? And I think it's scary sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 17:54

Especially when you get ruled against.

Teams, Appeals, And Independence

SPEAKER_00 17:58

No, I I get that. And that's part of the reason why I say to people, like sometimes people saying, guess what, I'm going to have my first court case, right? Or whether it's a new attorney or whether it's a member of the public that for the first time is going to have to get something taken care of in court, regardless if it's like I said, something that they were driving, a car, a slip and fall, whatever the case may be, is to come by or watch for a little bit because you know what? You get a comfort level when you kind of get to see how things really work.

SPEAKER_03 18:24

I know I've done jury duty, and I'll be honest with you, doing a deposition is the worst thing in the world. Yeah, deposition is the first one. Deposition is the worst thing in the world I've ever done in my life. But if I could get out and do it a deposition, how do you get out of deposition? What I love too is kind of what we were talking about, what you do with Boyd.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

Boyd Law School School, I'm sorry. I do a lot in the community. Like you said, somebody who was born and raised here and grew up here. I the reason why I became a judge, as I mentioned, I want to serve the community, so I spend my quote free time volunteering for a lot of different things. So going to Boyd or different places to speak on different topics, right? To do educational programs, to give continuing legal education programs, volunteering to judge moot court competitions. So that's part of, I think, the nice thing really about our judges here in Clark County, and actually throughout the state as well in Nevada, is we're very community-oriented, which you don't see in some of the larger states as much.

SPEAKER_03 19:26

So they always say you need judges and you always need finance people, right? What would you say? I mean, we've we've got kids and people are looking for I mean, they're kind of scared about the economy, right? It's like what do you do to go to school? And obviously we talk about Shane and Jasmine's kids that, you know, they're about to finish up. What would you say to them that maybe somebody that might be looking to get into law school?

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Economics of law school, just like any postgraduate education, are a consideration for sure in today's day and age. But well, for instance, I went to UCLA law school in California. I was grew up here, I went to college in law school out of state. And one of the really nice things about some of my colleagues is having the legal background, but actually deciding not to become lawyers, right? Business people. Just to have a knowledge of the law really gives you.

SPEAKER_03 20:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

I mean, some of these your entrepreneurs and your business owners probably have a law degree or went to law school because guess what? It kind of teaches you how to do a contradiction.

SPEAKER_03 20:18

A lot of them with the law school. You're 100% right.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

It teaches you interpersonal skills, right? To work with people of all different abilities and all different backgrounds. And so I think law school is a wonderful opportunity. Once again, balancing the costs. I mean, we're so fortunate here in Nevada. I mean, Boyd Law School, we've got one law school, and that is so fully supported by our legal profession and our judges, and they do a lot of programming to allow those students to get out in the community and do some legal work, not just sit and read books. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 20:52

And how what's the difference between because you know I always thought like the law is the law, right? Like I think the law is pretty subjective in a lot of scenarios, but usually there is a right or a wrong in most uh this so how important is it to have a good lawyer? Like as you're kind of seeing the two people battle it out, like is there really that much of a difference between like having a good lawyer or maybe somebody who's just fresh out of college?

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Well, it depends on how you define good. It doesn't need to be a little bit it's having somebody who is well prepared and wants to follow the law does make a difference because realistically, if they're not advocating your position, okay, we as judges, although humorously enough, I do have a crystal ball on my bench that was a gift for my own. That's hilarious. It doesn't work.

SPEAKER_03 21:33

That's hilarious, yeah.

Nevada’s Evolving Case Law

SPEAKER_00 21:34

But but I tell people it's like, look, I can't use a crystal ball to understand and figure out what you're not telling me. That makes sense. So having somebody who is well prepared, right, and knows what they're doing is very important because that's the path you lead the judge down to make a well reasoned decision, right? And if the attorney is not prepared or not advocating on behalf, then And it's kind of a judge can't advocate for one side or another, right? We've got the scales of process for fair and equal, fair and impartial, right? So it's not necessarily how many years the person's been out, but realistically the effort the time and effort that he, she or they want to put in to actually doing the case. That's great. That's very insightful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:20

That's a very good answer. How important is just documentation and just communication just in business disputes? I know that's probably what you see all the time is this documentation.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

Um very important in business, particularly in business disputes. What I said you asked me about from the start, right?

SPEAKER_01 22:35

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

To get all your documents in order to build your business, right, and to create the business and to know who's doing what and how you're going to do it, and what are going to be the rules that's going to govern that. That's really important. Also, the ongoing documentation, right? Sometimes we see people who thought that they had ordered X, right? Large quantities of some product, but realistically they got something different, but there's nothing to document what they did, right? Or people want to come into a company, right? You have this friend that wants to buy into part of your company, right? Yeah. And you haven't really clearly said what the person's role is going to be. Are they an owner? Are they an employee? Are they an independent contractor? Are they a consultant?

SPEAKER_03 23:15

I was going to say a lot of consultants, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

Right. So that's why as much as and I do appreciate paperwork for some people is really just a challenge, and they want to, like I said, go forward with their ideas, but it really is important. You know, we all hope that things will not go amiss.

SPEAKER_03 23:32

But it does.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

We wouldn't have increased our number of judges. We now have we have 32 civil criminal judges, 58 judges in Clark County, including the family division at the district court level, if everything was rainbows and unicorns. Yeah. I didn't realize there was that many judges.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

Yeah, that's a lot of how many cases I'm sure you see on a daily basis. That's wild.

SPEAKER_00 23:53

I can see a lot. Yeah, like I said, in those.

SPEAKER_03 23:56

How many cases do you look at?

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Well, we have dockets of several, several hundred, okay, in any given day. I mean, I can be doing forty matters or fifty matters in a given day.

SPEAKER_03 24:06

Or am I forty to fifty one day?

SPEAKER_00 24:08

Yeah. Yes. Sorry, I probably should have said yes, not yeah. That's huge. It's huge. Well, we oftentimes pretrial people want to have a lot of discrete issues resolved, right? And so they file a lot of motions. Sure. Okay. And also we're there to I'm there to take care of everybody's issues, right? And sometimes there's just a lot, sometimes it might slow down a little bit, right? Okay. But sometimes even having one matter might take several days, like having an evidentiary hearing where the people who haven't documented things, right, were trying to figure out what actually is the nature of their business and who owns what or who doesn't know what. And so that can take several days, even though it might be one discrete issue.

SPEAKER_03 24:53

Yeah. I'm just curious personally, how do you decompress the case? Oh, that's a lot of this. Yeah, like all this noise. I mean, because you're human too. You know what I mean? You're dealing with people's problems like a fire hose, you know, every day. How do you decompress just to keep yourself sane?

SPEAKER_00 25:05

Well, I am very fortunate while my kids are now a little bit older. They're 24 and 26. But when they were growing up, part of my huge, you know, way to decompress was I go and volunteer at all their different school activities and do all their, you know, different things that they were involved in because you know there's nothing better than right, you know, helping support your kids.

SPEAKER_03 25:24

I get it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Also being out in the community is another way for me to do it because helping other people is something.

SPEAKER_03 25:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Yeah, it it does. And if not, then sometimes I might be playing a little bit of pickleball or okay. There you go. There you go. There's some stress relief.

SPEAKER_03 25:40

I'm not that good, but that's pickleball, I gotta pick up. I don't mean to. It's not my judge.

Construction Defect And Legislation

SPEAKER_02 25:44

We're talking about doing that pocket. Yeah, we got to.

SPEAKER_03 25:46

I got to know. You said you're pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

No, I'm I'm I'm on I'm still on the learning curve. I don't have enough time to be able to do that. Okay, I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. But it's a nice way to get together with a group of people. It is, yeah. It's just fun, friendly enjoyment. It doesn't matter whatever your sporting activity is. I'm also a huge sports fan, so I enjoy watching and going and supporting our teams at all different levels. I agree. Here in the state and elsewhere.

SPEAKER_03 26:07

So Yeah, we just keep getting better. Legion Stadium, everything we got. We got everything everything we've got.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

We are so fortunate. We are.

SPEAKER_03 26:13

We're spoiled. So what's one lesson that's has made an impact on you, or maybe one gem of business advice that you'd highly recommend for somebody before they launch their own business?

SPEAKER_00 26:20

Well, I hate to use the Boy Scout phrase, right? Be prepared. It is a theme because remember, I'm in the business of I see when things don't go according to plan.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

And so really telling people that they should plan and prepare, okay, gives them the opportunity to follow their dream, right? Okay. A great idea is a great idea, but if you're spending all your time in court trying to defend that it's your idea, and right, or who has parts of that idea, then you're not having the opportunity to fully pursue that. Um so my piece of advice really would be is prepare the background information and then pursue whatever your dream may be, and it may change. But you know, I love you saying that.

SPEAKER_03 27:03

I I keep hearing Magic Johnson talk about that a lot, is preparation is like everything. Sports, business, just everything.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

It is it's well he epitomizes it. I mean, think of what he did when he was with the Lakers. I think if you took what he did. Yeah. I mean, he was always on the court early. Yeah. Okay. He was not one of those people who just showed up, right? Okay. So maybe he doesn't have the cream of you know, preparation. He was ready. But I mean, yeah, there was there's some athletes that really you'll see, right? You always go out and be prepared.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

I agree.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

They don't just rely on natural talent. And that's the same thing if you're an entrepreneur, if you've got a great idea, if you're in any kind of business. And sorry it sounds a little bit boring, but at the same time, it really saves you a lot of grief down the road.

SPEAKER_03 27:47

We always ask everybody about, I mean, Vegas is becoming the best food in the world, it seems like now. But what's your favorite restaurant? Specifically being from here, I would love to hear what's your favorite restaurant in Vegas.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

It's an interesting I cannot name any cases that are currently before me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, I can't eat at certain restaurants because they have cases before me. Oh, okay, got it, got it. That's interesting. Yeah, that's very interesting. Well, I just don't want to have an issue. Yeah, I mean, it's ethics are very, very important.

SPEAKER_03 28:10

I get it.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

I'd go well, old school Golden Steer.

SPEAKER_03 28:14

I mean, we had we had Amanda on from Golden Steer. Yes, she's great. Yes, she's great.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

Because, you know, if you take that restaurant, right, or the Italian American Club, right? Italian American Club is an East Sahara. It does a different amount of events, but it also has an Italian restaurant that's gone through different ownership. I don't think I've heard of that. That's our first front. Giving us a gem. Okay. It's got some unique Vegas, okay? It's it's it's old Vegas type of things. Those I really enjoy. Uh newer restaurant, I mean, anime, eat it, you know.

SPEAKER_03 28:45

We had we had the owner of Adam Hell too, Joe. Shout out to you. That's you have the same palette. That's great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Well, and you mentioned Palette. There's actually two great restaurants with the name Pallet in there, right? Yeah. Dim Sun Pallet Tea House, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:59

One on Main Street.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

There's one in the arts district. Yes, yeah. And then there's a dim sun restaurant called Pallet Tea House that's in Spring Mountain. Now I cannot outsource anything. I'm not sure. No, no, you're good. We just like showing love.

SPEAKER_03 29:11

Yeah, we like showing love.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

We we really have. I mean, there's so many great restaurants.

SPEAKER_03 29:16

It is, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Yeah, it's just it's nice to be able to do that. You want to do it? So many of them.

SPEAKER_03 29:20

You have so many new ones every time. Yeah, shout out to Chef Sterling. That's who's at Pallet Downtown in the Arts District. Love him. Great, great guy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

Like the Alice in Wonderland chairs?

SPEAKER_03 29:28

Yeah, exactly. And the food is is amazing. So uh but it's something about breaking bread with people at dinner. That's what I always love to do. So I'm a big foodie. That's why I always ask that question.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

I'm a foodie as well. I've just got to I cannot give any, you know. I gotta be careful. I can say where I personally like, but I can't. Well you gave some good ones.

SPEAKER_03 29:47

What's something maybe we left out on that we maybe forgot to ask you that you want to leave us out on? Or what what else is up for you that maybe focused for you down the road?

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Well, I think you've been incredibly comprehensive. Thank you. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 29:58

Thank you, thank you.

Courts’ Role For Business And Consumers

SPEAKER_00 29:59

Any place I go, I always do a shout out to Pro Bono because there are so many people, as I mentioned a few moments ago, in our need, you know, in our community, they're in need. Okay. So whether or not people are donating their time to give out food at like to be family services or three square, or utilizing their talents to try and help those less fortunate with with kind of their legal skills. That's just something particularly now right around the holidays. I think if you saw the lines at all the different places where people are we have a community that's indeed. And so whether you call it pro bono from a legal standpoint or helping those from a community service standpoint, yeah. That's something that I think is great about Las Vegas and all of Clark County, and hopefully people will spend more of their times and efforts. Um, I agree.

SPEAKER_03 30:48

I agree. That's a great way to end a great way to end a year too. No, I agree. I agree with what you're saying. I just had breakfast with Rob Banghart from Shine a Light, and we're just trying to figure out a way Chris and I and my wife is how do we get back better. So I agree with you 100%.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

I went to high school with some of the people who are on Project 150. Oh, yes, excellent.

SPEAKER_03 31:03

Yeah, we've uh done some stuff at Project 150. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

There's just so many. I mean we have organizations tailored to so many groups in this community, which is absolutely fantastic. And yeah, I guess that's the one thing.

SPEAKER_03 31:15

I love that you ended out on that. Yeah, you're a big community person. Yeah, shout out to the feeling. We appreciate it. Well, we honestly we appreciate your time, man. We wanted to keep it as professional, not get you in any trouble at all. But uh we we applaud you and appreciate you educating us. So I appreciate your time. And then any social handles that people can reach out to you on or anything like that?

SPEAKER_00 31:34

That uh well, gonna have a website up soon, judge Joanna Kishner.com. I cannot answer any legal questions. And sorry, I always give that caveat because I'm ethically not able to. But yeah, have a website, I have a general Facebook page just to kind of do that.

SPEAKER_03 31:51

Keep your stuff going.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Yeah. Just just to kind of give informational aspects. Um, but I can't really, like I said, give specific legal advice or tell people what to do. And, you know, sorry, I can't fix traffic tickets yet.

SPEAKER_03 32:03

Chris wanted you to fix one right after this, man. That's why we hit off this joke. No, but we really appreciate your time, man. Seriously. And thank you so very much, particularly now, you know, during the holidays, taking the time and you understand you know you just flew back and you Yeah, literally, there's like we went to bed like three this morning, so yeah, we're good. Yeah, it's all worth it. That's what we love to do. So that's a great sign. Very informative, and thank you so much for all your all that you do. So definitely check us out and uh subscribe with us said and check us out at the biggest circuit.com. So appreciate your time, Judge. Thanks a lot. Thank you.