Biography
Layn R. Phillips, founder of Phillips ADR Enterprises (PADRE), is both a former United States Attorney and a former United States District Judge.
Judge Phillips joined the United States Attorney’s office in Los Angeles in 1980 as an Assistant United States Attorney, serving as a federal prosecutor in the Central District of California for four years. During the Reagan administration, he returned to his home state of Oklahoma, where, at age 31, he was nominated to serve as a United States Attorney.
At age 34, he again was nominated by President Reagan to serve as a United States District Judge in Oklahoma City. During his four years on the bench, he presided over more than 140 federal trials in Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas. He 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 multiple opinions.
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 1991, he resigned from the federal bench and joined Irell & Manella, where for 23 years he specialized in complex civil litigation, internal investigations, and alternative dispute resolution. As a result of his trial work, in 1997 Judge Phillips was elected into the American College of Trial Lawyers. He has the dual honor of being named by LawDragon in 2006 as one of the “Leading Judges in America” and as one of the “Leading Litigation Attorneys in America.”
Judge Phillips received both his B.S. and J.D. from the University of Tulsa. He also completed two years of an LLM program at Georgetown University Law Center in the field of antitrust and economic regulation of industry.
Judge Phillips has also been inducted into the University of Tulsa Athletic Hall of Fame. He was a four-year letter winner in tennis, serving as the captain of the men’s varsity team and winning the NCAA Missouri Valley Conference Championship at #1 singles. Judge Phillips has a passion for travel and has visited every continent. He currently resides in Laguna Beach, California, with his wife Kathryn. He has three grown children Amanda, Parker and Graham and a granddaughter, Stella.