Judge Layn R. Phillips (Fmr)

Layn R. Phillips, age 55, is a partner with the Los Angeles law firm of Irell & Manella. He is a former United States District Judge and United States Attorney, and founder of the Irell and Manella Alternative Dispute Resolution Center.

Judge Phillips was born and raised in Oklahoma. He attended undergraduate school and law school at the University of Tulsa in Tulsa, Oklahoma and Georgetown University Law Center in Washington D.C. In 1977 he joined the Federal Trade Commission's Honors Program and was assigned to the Bureau of Competition in Washington, D.C., where for the next three years he investigated and litigated civil antitrust cases involving mergers and monopolization claims. In 1980, he joined the United States Attorney's office in Los Angeles as an Assistant United States Attorney, serving as a federal prosecutor in the Central District of California until 1984. During the Reagan Administration, he returned to Oklahoma where he was appointed by the President to serve as the United States Attorney in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

In 1986, he was nominated by the President to serve as a United States District Judge for the Western District of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City. During his four years on the bench he presided over approximately 150 federal civil and criminal trials in various districts within the Tenth Circuit. In 1990, Judge Phillips was also designated by the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court to preside over cases in the Fifth Circuit in the Northern District of Texas based upon the needs of that district. While serving as a federal judge, he also gained extensive experience in the realm of settlement negotiations and mediation, presiding over dozens of settlement conferences in complex business disputes and class actions.

Judge Phillips also sat by designation on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Denver, Colorado, where he participated in numerous panel decisions and published several opinions in the field of civil rights, business litigation, environmental law and summary judgment practice. In July 1991, he resigned from the federal bench and joined Irell & Manella as a litigation partner.

As an advocate, Judge Phillips has more than 50 trials to his credit. These trials span several substantive areas of the law, including allegations of unfair competition, environmental contamination, securities fraud, public corruption, money laundering, bank fraud, mail fraud, merger violations, professional malpractice, tax evasion, narcotics trafficking prosecutions, and transgressions of the RICO and Continuing Criminal Enterprise statutes. As a result of his trial work, he has been elected into, and now serves, as a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers.

Judge Phillips has mediated hundreds of disputes referred by private parties and courts, and has been appointed a Special Master by various federal courts in complex civil proceedings. He has also been designated as special counsel to various boards and corporations, conducting internal investigations on sensitive issues. He has been nationally recognized as a mediator by the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution, serving on its National Panel of Distinguished Neutrals, as well as its Franchise, Insurance and Energy Panels. Beginning in 2007, Judge Phillips will also serve on the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution's Advisory Council at Pepperdine University School of Law.

Judge Phillips has also been active in a variety of bar association activities, as well as continuing legal education presentations. During 2001, he served as the President of the Federal Bar Association in Orange County, California, and served on the Orange County Bar Association Board of Directors and Judiciary Committee. Judge Phillips has also served as the President of two American Inns of Court, and maintains the status of Master Emeritus in three separate Inns. He is a member of the California, Oklahoma, Texas and District of Columbia bar associations.

Judge Phillips is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. In 2004-2005 he served as the Co-Chair of the Central District of California Lawyer Representatives to the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference. In 2005 Judge Phillips was selected by the Central District of California federal judiciary to serve as the Chairman of the Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel, a position he still holds. He was also a 2006 Co-Chair for the ABA's Litigation Section's Annual Meeting in Los Angeles.

As an undergraduate student, Judge Phillips graduated with highest honors as an economics major, receiving his college's Wall Street Journal Award for the Outstanding Economics graduate. He attended the University of Tulsa on a NCAA tennis scholarship, serving as the team's captain, winning the Missouri Valley Conference Championship at #1 singles. He also received an NCAA post-graduate scholarship, and was inducted into the University of Tulsa Athletic Hall of Fame. Judge Phillips also graduated from law school with highest honors, finishing second in his class at the University of Tulsa. He then pursued an additional two years of graduate law studies at Georgetown University to complement his work in the field of economic regulation of industry.

For his years of commitment to public service, in 1989 he was named as one of the 10 Outstanding Young Americans by the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce. In 2005-2006, he was given the dual honor of being named to Lawdragon Magazine's Leading Judges in America and Leading Litigators in America. In 2006 he was also named as one of Orange County's top 50 Super Lawyers and top 100 California Neutrals by Super Lawyer Magazine, and one of Orange County's top 50 Lawyers by Orange Coast Magazine.

Judge Phillips lives in Orange County, California with his wife Kathryn, and their three children Amanda, age 30, Parker, age 19, and Graham, age 14.