Judge Nadia Wood

Nadia Wood
Department Sixteen
Las Vegas Township Justice Court

Term of Office 2023 - Present

Jennifer Georges , Judicial Executive Assistant
Office:   (702) 671-0599
Fax:      (702) 380-8030
Email:  LVJCDepartment16@ClarkCountyNV.gov

Judge Nadia Wood attended the University of California at Berkeley, where she was an Alumni Leadership Scholar. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and then moved to Washington DC to attend law school at Georgetown University Law Center.

While at Georgetown Law, she earned a Cali Award and was a Pro Bono Pledge Honoree. She was Vice President of the Student Bar Association and Lieutenant Governor for the 11th Circuit of the Law Student Division of the American Bar Association. While in law school, she also interned at the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, where she represented victims of violent crime fleeing persecution.  

After graduating from law school, Judge Wood moved to Las Vegas, where she worked at the Office of the Clark County Public Defender for 11 years prior to being elected. Judge Wood represented over 2,000 individuals and tried approximately 20 felony jury trials. As an attorney, she conducted over 150 evidentiary hearings in the Las Vegas Justice Court.

As an attorney, Judge Wood had a long history of litigating to protect individual rights in Nevada’s District and Appellate Courts. She was the first attorney in Nevada to argue it was unconstitutional to remove jurors based upon their sexual orientation. Her case eventually won equal protection rights to jury service for LGBTQ+ individuals in Nevada. She also became the first attorney in Nevada to win a challenge to the jury selection process after she spent years litigating the systematic underrepresentation of minorities on the juror pool list. Immediately before taking the bench, Judge Wood challenged the constitutionality of judges restricting free speech rights in criminal cases.

Judge Wood was elected as the first judge in the newly created Department 16 of the Las Vegas Justice Court in June 2022, when she won over 50% of the vote in a four way primary.

In her first year on the bench, Judge Wood successfully wrote a grant to launch a mental health court to obtain greater mental health treatment and services for members of the Las Vegas community. In addition to presiding over a full criminal docket, she now runs the Las Vegas Justice Court Mental Health Court, where she works to connect individuals with treatment, services, and housing in order to reduce crime through rehabilitation.

When she is not working, Judge Wood enjoys reading, traveling with her husband, and hanging out with her very spoiled cat.