The November contest for Clark County District Court’s Department 5 pits incumbent Veronica Barisich, who was elected in November 2020 and took the bench in January 2021, against Tracy Hibbetts, a prosecutor who previously spent more than a decade in the public defender’s office. The department’s current assignment is civil and probate, according to the Eighth Judicial District Court. That makes the candidates’ experience with civil work—and the limits of what is publicly known about this department’s caseload—central context for the race.
Courtwide totals do not reveal Department 5’s workload
The court handles criminal, civil, family and juvenile filings. A fiscal year 2021 caseload report lists 24,000 civil filings for Clark County District Court, a courtwide figure.
The candidates bring different routes—and some overlapping experience
Hibbetts’s legal career spans both criminal defense and prosecution. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that she worked for more than a decade at the Clark County Public Defender’s Office before joining the District Attorney’s Office in 2023, where she is now an assistant team chief. Before law school, she also worked in insurance defense and premises liability. The Silver State Report says she led the Clark County Law Foundation in 2023 and was a finalist for a separate district court vacancy in 2024.
Barisich’s pre-bench practice was more directly focused on civil law: the Review-Journal reports she had 16 years of experience in civil litigation, probate, guardianship and family law before taking the bench. She now handles medical-malpractice and probate specialty dockets; the newspaper reports she is one of nine medical-malpractice judges and one of three probate judges countywide. Those assignments provide relevant civil and probate experience, but the published court materials do not quantify her department’s filings or outcomes.
A public evaluation offers one signal
The Review-Journal’s editorial board endorsed Barisich for reelection, citing a 73 percent retention rating among local attorneys in the newspaper’s 2025 judicial performance survey. That is the outlet’s reported survey result and endorsement, not a vote count or a Department 5 caseload measure.
A November vote in a large judicial-election year
Because only two candidates filed for Department 5, the June primary was canceled and the contest proceeds to the November general election, according to The Nevada Independent. The outlet reports that this election cycle will determine 31 percent of Nevada’s district court judgeships. The candidates also have different labor endorsements: campaign-filing information summarized by Ballotpedia lists Ironworkers Local 433 and the Laborers International Union as backing Barisich, and Culinary Workers Union Local 226 and the Clark County District Attorney Investigators Association as backing Hibbetts.
Barisich’s years of civil and probate practice and current specialty assignments contrast with Hibbetts’s experience in both criminal defense and prosecution, alongside earlier civil-related work.
