Incumbent Judge Charles Hoskin is vying to retain his seat against challenger Timothy Treffinger in the race for Clark County Family Court Department E.

Hoskin, the Department E judge since 2009, touted his experience over Treffinger, who mounted an unsuccessful district attorney campaign in 2022 as a Republican against Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson.

Hoskin, 62, said he earned his law degree from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, in 1991, completed his undergraduate education at the University of Utah and graduated from Bonanza High School in 1981. Before becoming a judge, Hoskin said he practiced civil litigation, estate planning and family law as a private attorney.

Hoskin said he enters cases by being considerate and prepared so he can get people through their cases “as expeditiously and efficiently as possible.”

“It’s probably the worst time of somebody’s life if they have to appear in front of a family court judge,” Hoskin said. “I understand how important it is to get people through the process and allow them to get on with their lives and hopefully rebuild whatever was hurt through the process of going through the court system.”

Asked what he could do as a judge to make family court more effective, Hoskin said the court needs more judges to avoid case delays. He added that the court has worked to provide more resources for people without lawyers during his time on the bench.

Hoskin scored rating of 82.9 percent on the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s 2025 Judicial Performance Evaluation, meaning nearly 83 percent of lawyers who responded to the survey said he should remain on the bench.

However, Hoskin had one of the higher error rates among Clark County judges. The error rate measures how frequently a higher court decides that a judge made an erroneous ruling.

Hoskin took issue with how the statistic is categorized and said appellate judges do not watch cases play out live, leaving them with a transcript that lacks context.

“It’s also a sign that I’m doing my job and hearing a lot of cases,” Hoskin said. “You can’t go up on appeal unless you resolve the case in one manner or another.”

Hoskin was also one of more than a half-dozen Clark County judges who failed to report trips sponsored by George Mason University’s Law and Economics Center, a Review-Journal investigation found. Hoskin said he took about three or four trips sponsored by the Virginia university and amended his financial disclosure statements after he learned that disclosure was necessary.

“I’ll just plead ignorance,” Hoskin said, adding, “It was just one of those things that I didn’t understand had to be disclosed, and once I learned of it, I corrected it as soon as possible.”

Treffinger did not respond to several email and phone requests for an interview. The Nevada secretary of state’s website shows Treffinger has not filed his July 15 contributions and expenses report.

Treffinger is listed by the State Bar of Nevada as working at American Freedom Group Law, which advertises itself online as a local firm specializing in personal injury, criminal, family and civil litigation.

Treffinger was previously on the ballot in 2022 as the Republican candidate for Clark County District Attorney. He collected roughly 43 percent of the vote that year in a loss to Wolfson.

Treffinger in 2015 pleaded guilty to a felony charge of possession of a controlled substance, according to a public reprimand issued by the State Bar of Nevada’s disciplinary board in 2017.

The State Bar said the criminal complaint against Treffinger alleged that, between January and May 2015, Treffinger maintained a residence in Pahrump with the knowledge that the residence was being used to keep or sell controlled substances and was frequented by people who used heroin and/or methamphetamine.

Treffinger was ordered to three years of probation and required to complete a treatment and rehabilitation program, the State Bar said, but the disciplinary panel “expressed concern” about Treffinger’s “continued successful participation in your probation.”

Contact Spencer Levering at slevering@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0253.