When Clark County voters evaluate the judges on their ballot, it’s worth looking past courtroom experience alone. Community service by Judge Jasmin Lilly-Spells has shaped nearly every stage of her legal career, long before she ever wore a robe.
Right before her 16th Christmas, her favorite cousin died in an interaction with law enforcement, and that loss is part of what pushed her toward a career dedicated to helping other people.
Since then, she has built a record that includes over a decade as a public defender, volunteer mediation work, mentoring, and advocacy for abused and neglected children.
A Lifetime of Giving Back to Nevada
Long before she became a Department 23 judge in Las Vegas, NV, Lilly-Spells built her legal career around people who often had nowhere else to turn. She is the daughter of a lifelong union member and the wife of a Navy veteran, and she has described her own path into law as one shaped by watching how deeply a single legal outcome can affect a family. That perspective still guides how she approaches service today.
This is part of why her 2020 campaign leaned on three themes: her record as a public defender who tried thousands of cases, her volunteer mediation work at the Neighborhood Justice Center, and her board service with Nevada Attorneys for Criminal Justice. Those were not just talking points. They reflected years of unpaid work she was already doing before she ever considered running for judge.
A Former Public Defender in Clark County, NV
Before taking the bench, Lilly-Spells spent over a decade as a former public defender in Clark County, NV, eventually rising to chief deputy public defender. She specialized in criminal law and handled cases from the earliest stages of research and writing through oral argument in court. That work meant representing clients who, in many cases, could not afford an attorney of their own. It is a role that requires patience, since clients often arrive frightened, distrustful of the system, or simply overwhelmed.
Public defense work is often thankless. Clients rarely choose their attorney, cases move fast, and caseloads run high. Spending over ten years in that environment gave Lilly-Spells a firsthand education in how the system treats people who have the least power in the room.
Impact of Community Service by Judge Jasmin Lilly-Spells
The impact of community service by Judge Jasmin Lilly-Spells extends well past the courtroom. She has volunteered as a mediator at the Neighborhood Justice Center, helping neighbors resolve disputes without the cost or stress of formal litigation. She is also dual licensed and has taken on civil law cases on a pro bono basis, including through Nevada Legal Services.
Mediation work is easy to overlook because it rarely ends in a headline. A neighbor dispute settled at the Neighborhood Justice Center doesn’t make the news, but it keeps a small disagreement from escalating, and it saves both sides the time and expense of a courtroom battle.
Her Passion for Child Advocacy in Southern Nevada
Few parts of her record speak louder than her work in child advocacy in Southern Nevada. As a former Court Appointed Special Advocate, or CASA, Lilly-Spells has represented the interests of abused and neglected children in cases where a child’s own voice might otherwise go unheard. This work requires showing up consistently for kids who are often navigating the hardest chapter of their young lives, and it is not the kind of service that comes with public recognition. Lilly-Spells has continued it anyway.
CASA volunteers are assigned directly to a child’s case. This ensures that the relationship isn’t a one-time interaction. It can mean years of showing up to hearings and checking in, making sure a child’s needs don’t get lost in a busy court system.
Youth Community Service by Judge Jasmin Lilly-Spells
Youth-focused community service by Judge Jasmin Lilly-Spells includes giving children practical experience. She reads books to kids in Clark County classrooms and has partnered with the Nevada Judicial College to hand out signed copies of Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s book at middle schools and elementary schools around the valley. She also brings kids into the courthouse directly, including gun safety classes, mock trials, and moot court exercises designed to make the legal system feel less intimidating. Some of these kids even get to try on a judge’s robe and tour the courtroom facilities, a small gesture that can make a lasting impression on a child who’s never set foot in a courthouse before.
Judge Jasmin Lilly-Spells has also served as an ongoing mentor, spending time with young people who need a steady adult presence in their lives. Mentoring isn’t flashy and rarely makes headlines, but for a kid facing a difficult home life or an uncertain future, a consistent mentor can be vital for a child’s healthy development. Although a mentor doesn’t fix every problem a young person faces, they can make sure that at least one adult is paying attention to them and willing to keep showing up.
Legal Community Service by Judge Jasmin Lilly-Spells
Community service by Judge Jasmin Lilly-Spells includes her ongoing involvement in judicial community involvement in Nevada through professional and civic organizations. For example, her board service connects her with other legal professionals working to strengthen due process protections statewide. This kind of behind-the-scenes work rarely gets covered in the news, but it shapes policy and practice for years to come.
She also serves on the judicial education committee, which trains judges across the county, not just newer ones. Committee work like this doesn’t generate courtroom drama, but its reach outlasts any single ruling.
A Trusted Department 23 Judge in Las Vegas, NV
Since taking the bench in January 2021, Lilly-Spells has continued this legacy of service as a trial judge in Las Vegas, NV. She oversees a demanding docket that spans both civil and criminal matters in Department 23 of the Nevada Eighth Judicial District Court, and she has also presided over the district’s Veterans Treatment Court, a specialty docket built around rehabilitation rather than one-size-fits-all sentencing. Voters re-elected her once already in 2020, when she won her seat with 54.6% of the vote.
That specialty court work matters more than a line on a resume. Veterans facing legal trouble often need something standard sentencing was never built to provide. It’s the same instinct that shaped her earlier work as a public defender: cases involve people, not just charges.
Ongoing Community Service by Judge Jasmin Lilly-Spells
Ongoing community service by Judge Jasmin Lilly-Spells hasn’t stopped just because she’s on the bench. She continues to bring a listening ear and a commitment to equal access to justice into every case that comes before her, an approach she has described as treating every party as relevant, regardless of which side of a case they’re on. Her endorsements reflect that reputation, including support from:
- Culinary Workers Union Local 226
- Nevada AFL-CIO
- Professional Fire Fighters of Nevada
- SEIU Local 1107
- Nevada Veterans Association
- Hispanics In Politics
That range of support, spanning labor unions, veterans groups, and community organizations, says something about how widely her record has resonated across Clark County.
Re-Elect Judge Jasmin Lilly-Spells
Judge Jasmin Lilly-Spells is running for re-election in November 2026, and her record makes the case for itself. Few candidates on any Clark County ballot bring this combination: over a decade as a public defender, volunteer service to children and neighbors, and five years of steady work as a Department 23 judge in Las Vegas, NV. Voters looking for a judge who understands both sides of the courtroom, and who has spent a career giving back long before and after taking the bench, have reason to send her back for another term.
None of this happened by accident, and none of it required a courtroom to start. Community service by Judge Jasmin Lilly-Spells began well before she was ever a judge, and it’s continued every year since, whether or not anyone was watching.