diff --git a/pkg/kv/kvclient/kvcoord/txn_coord_sender.go b/pkg/kv/kvclient/kvcoord/txn_coord_sender.go
index be30aa59d065..d08409085ba5 100644
--- a/pkg/kv/kvclient/kvcoord/txn_coord_sender.go
+++ b/pkg/kv/kvclient/kvcoord/txn_coord_sender.go
@@ -1082,6 +1082,13 @@ func (tc *TxnCoordSender) Epoch() enginepb.TxnEpoch {
 	return tc.mu.txn.Epoch
 }
 
+// IsLocking is part of the client.TxnSender interface.
+func (tc *TxnCoordSender) IsLocking() bool {
+	tc.mu.Lock()
+	defer tc.mu.Unlock()
+	return tc.mu.txn.IsLocking()
+}
+
 // IsTracking returns true if the heartbeat loop is running.
 func (tc *TxnCoordSender) IsTracking() bool {
 	tc.mu.Lock()
diff --git a/pkg/kv/mock_transactional_sender.go b/pkg/kv/mock_transactional_sender.go
index 1e0726204d6b..22117cfdc347 100644
--- a/pkg/kv/mock_transactional_sender.go
+++ b/pkg/kv/mock_transactional_sender.go
@@ -160,6 +160,9 @@ func (m *MockTransactionalSender) ReleaseSavepoint(context.Context, SavepointTok
 // Epoch is part of the TxnSender interface.
 func (m *MockTransactionalSender) Epoch() enginepb.TxnEpoch { panic("unimplemented") }
 
+// IsLocking is part of the TxnSender interface.
+func (m *MockTransactionalSender) IsLocking() bool { return false }
+
 // TestingCloneTxn is part of the TxnSender interface.
 func (m *MockTransactionalSender) TestingCloneTxn() *roachpb.Transaction {
 	return m.txn.Clone()
diff --git a/pkg/kv/sender.go b/pkg/kv/sender.go
index 9bf6cdf424a7..9ab8e2e1ce44 100644
--- a/pkg/kv/sender.go
+++ b/pkg/kv/sender.go
@@ -260,6 +260,9 @@ type TxnSender interface {
 	// Epoch returns the txn's epoch.
 	Epoch() enginepb.TxnEpoch
 
+	// IsLocking returns whether the transaction has begun acquiring locks.
+	IsLocking() bool
+
 	// PrepareRetryableError generates a
 	// TransactionRetryWithProtoRefreshError with a payload initialized
 	// from this txn.
diff --git a/pkg/kv/txn.go b/pkg/kv/txn.go
index 23031265a824..d453620ecfff 100644
--- a/pkg/kv/txn.go
+++ b/pkg/kv/txn.go
@@ -395,7 +395,7 @@ func (txn *Txn) DisablePipelining() error {
 
 // NewBatch creates and returns a new empty batch object for use with the Txn.
 func (txn *Txn) NewBatch() *Batch {
-	return &Batch{txn: txn, AdmissionHeader: txn.admissionHeader}
+	return &Batch{txn: txn, AdmissionHeader: txn.AdmissionHeader()}
 }
 
 // Get retrieves the value for a key, returning the retrieved key/value or an
@@ -982,9 +982,11 @@ func (txn *Txn) Send(
 
 	// Some callers have not initialized ba using a Batch constructed using
 	// Txn.NewBatch. So we fallback to partially overwriting here.
-	noMem := ba.AdmissionHeader.NoMemoryReservedAtSource
-	ba.AdmissionHeader = txn.admissionHeader
-	ba.AdmissionHeader.NoMemoryReservedAtSource = noMem
+	if ba.AdmissionHeader.CreateTime == 0 {
+		noMem := ba.AdmissionHeader.NoMemoryReservedAtSource
+		ba.AdmissionHeader = txn.AdmissionHeader()
+		ba.AdmissionHeader.NoMemoryReservedAtSource = noMem
+	}
 
 	txn.mu.Lock()
 	requestTxnID := txn.mu.ID
@@ -1507,5 +1509,20 @@ func (txn *Txn) DeferCommitWait(ctx context.Context) func(context.Context) error
 // AdmissionHeader returns the admission header for work done in the context
 // of this transaction.
 func (txn *Txn) AdmissionHeader() roachpb.AdmissionHeader {
-	return txn.admissionHeader
+	h := txn.admissionHeader
+	if txn.mu.sender.IsLocking() {
+		// Assign higher priority to requests by txns that are locking, so that
+		// they release locks earlier. Note that this is a crude approach, and is
+		// worse than priority inheritance used for locks in realtime systems. We
+		// do this because admission control does not have visibility into the
+		// exact locks held by waiters in the admission queue, and cannot compare
+		// that with priorities of waiting requests in the various lock table
+		// queues. This crude approach has shown some benefit in tpcc with 3000
+		// warehouses, where it halved the number of lock waiters, and increased
+		// the transaction throughput by 10+%. In that experiment 40% of the
+		// BatchRequests evaluated by KV had been assigned high priority due to
+		// locking.
+		h.Priority = int32(admission.HighPri)
+	}
+	return h
 }