Meet Kelly
Kelly grew up in Carson City and was proud to return to the area after finishing her law degree. Kelly has worked in the Carson City District Attorney’s Office for over seven years. She currently serves as a Chief Deputy District Attorney. As a Chief Deputy District Attorney, she is responsible for maintaining a caseload as a prosecutor and administrative responsibilities. Her administrative responsibilities include supervising attorneys, legal assistants, and victim services personnel. Additionally, she serves on-call taking law enforcement calls at all hours and works with stakeholders to create and improve policies to better serve the public.
Kelly graduated from Silver State Charter High School in Carson City at age 15. Following her graduation, she attended the University of Oregon, where she received her Bachelor’s of Science degree while double majoring in Political Science and Philosophy and graduating with departmental honors. Additionally, she was inducted as an undergraduate scholar by the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics. During her undergraduate education, she interned with the First Judicial District Juvenile Court, which was presided over by then Juvenile Master, Kristin Luis, who now serves as a District Judge. During her internship, she fell in love with the law and saw the opportunity that public service in the court system had to impact the whole community.
She attended the University of Richmond School of Law in Virginia. While there, she focused her course work on criminal, juvenile, and constitutional law. She graduated from Law School Magna Cum Laude and was inducted into the McNeil Law Society. Following law school, she returned to Carson City.
Kelly believes that the job of a leader is to leave last and she always seeks to be the hardest worker in the room. When the office has been short staffed, Kelly has taken on multiple caseloads, often working late into the night to make sure that cases do not slip through the cracks. Her commitment to the office means she has filled in for whatever needed to get done. She has managed a caseload as a victim coordinator in addition to the cases she was prosecuting, answered phones at the front desk, served as an administrator for the office’s case management system, and even fixed printers. As the DA, Kelly intends to keep this same commitment to the office and the people of Carson City.
Kelly has worked with School District to improve outcomes on school attendance and create safer schools by working together to form creative solutions. She has served on the Student Attendance Review Board and Chronic Absenteeism Task Force to help get children re-engaged in their education. She worked with stakeholders to create the Saturday Solutions program where youth who have engaged in fights at school attend 4 hours of community service and 4 hours of anger management on the Saturday after the fight occurred. As a result of this program, fights at school have been cut by more than 50%.
Additionally, she serves on the Statewide Court Improvement Program for Child Welfare. In that program, she chairs the Legislative Subcommittee that seeks to improve statutes in cases where children have been abused or neglected. She completed the Carson City Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Class of 2024 and was named a Women of Distinction by the Carson City Chamber of Commerce in 2024.
Outside of her long hours at the office, she has volunteered at her church leading a middle school class and serving on the Women’s Ministry Committee. Kelly enjoys taking advantage of Carson City’s outdoor adventures with her dog. One of her favorite activities is walking in fresh snow. She loves a good book and usually has a few she is reading at a time.