Janet J. Berry (Ret.) was a judge for the Second Judicial District Court in Washoe County, Nevada. She was appointed to the bench in 1996 and was retained in subsequent elections. Berry retired from her seat in 2017.
She received a B.A. in criminal justice from California State University at Sacramento in 1977. She went on to earn a J.D. from Tulane University Law School in 1980. Then, after being awarded a Hawkins Foundation Scholarship, Berry also obtained a master’s of judicial studies from the University of Nevada, Reno in 1997.
She served as a law clerk with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana as well as with the Nevada Supreme Court.
After her clerkships, Berry joined Davenport & Perry, where she practiced trial, appellate, and administrative law. Later, she received an appointment in 1992 to serve as a municipal court judge with the Reno Municipal Court, where she served until her appointment to the District Court bench.
While on the Municipal Court bench, Berry co-hosted “The Law of Language”, a weekly television show designed to educate the public about the judicial system. In addition, she was also involved with the television program “Law Day Live”, which provided local citizens with free legal information, as well as “Coming of Age in Nevada”, a program that helped educate high school students on their legal rights and responsibilities as they reached adulthood.
She is credited with the creation of the Kids’ Court/Ask an Inmate program in 1994. The purpose of the program, which included an interactive discussion with inmates from the Washoe County Jail, was to educate students about the consequences of their decisions as well as outside influences. In conjunction, Berry also sponsored a mock trial in her courtroom, allowing students to experience how jury trials are conducted.
While on the District Court, she served as its chief judge from 2000 to 2002.
Berry served as a past-president of the Nevada District Judges Association and was a member of the State Domestic Violence Task Force, the Nevada State Bar Committee on Lawyer Advertising, the Urban Workload Assessment Commission, the Washoe County Criminal Advisory Committee, the Washoe County Drug Court Advisory Committee, the Nevada Supreme Court Jury Improvement Commission, and the Nevada Judicial Council.
Her other memberships included the American Bar Association, the American Judges Association, the American Judiciary Society, the National Association of Women Judges, the Nevada Distinct Judges Association, the Northern Nevada Women Lawyers, and the Washoe County Bar Association.
She was a faculty member of the National Judicial College and the National Council for Juvenile and Family Court Judges and was a member of the board of trustees of the National Judicial College.
Berry received the Truckee Meadows Human Service Award as Politician of the Year (1993), the Woman of the Year Award from Reno Business and Professional Women (1995), the Distinguished Jurist Education Award from the Nevada District Judges Association (2000), and in 2017, an endowment fund was created in her honor at the National Judicial College.