Andrew J. Guilford

The Honorable Andrew J. Guilford, Retired, now serves as a mediator, arbitrator, and private judge. On July 7, 2006, he was sworn in as a United States District judge. On request, he has sat with appellate courts for the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington D.C. and the Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals.

Before becoming a district judge, Andrew Guilford was a business trial lawyer with Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton for over 30 years, handling cases involving a wide variety of issues, particularly relating to intellectual property, finance, and professional liability.

As a Regent Scholar at UCLA, Mr. Guilford received his AB degree in economics summa cum laude in 1972, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He received his JD degree from UCLA in 1975, and was an associate editor of the UCLA Law Review.

In 1992, Guilford was elected as a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers. He was recognized five times by the Daily Journal as one of California’s Top 100 Attorneys, and honored by the following groups with different awards: the American Inns of Court with its Professionalism award; the University of California, Irvine as a “True Founder” of its law school; the Orange County Bar Association with its Franklin G. West Award; the Anti-Defamation League with its Jurisprudence Award; the J. Reuben Clark Society with its J. Reuben Clark Award; the Orange County Asian American Bar Association with its Judicial Excellence Award; the Hispanic Bar Association as Judge of the Year; the Orange County Federal Bar Association with its Alicemarie Stotler Award; the Orange County Intellectual Property Law Association with its Distinguished Judge Award; and the Markey Intellectual Property Inn of Court by naming its annual award after him.

Among Guilford’s professional activities include serving as the President of the State Bar of California and President of the Orange County Bar Association. At the request of the Chief Justice of the United States in 2011, he served on the Committee on Codes of Conduct of the U.S. Judicial Council.

With his strong commitment to community service, Guilford served as President of the Public Law Center, and on the State Bar Commission on Access to Justice, and the Judicial Council’s Task Force on Self-Represented Litigants. He was awarded his firm’s Pro Bono Attorney of the Year Award, the State Bar President’s Pro Bono Service Award, and the Poverty Law Center Outstanding Service Award.

Guilford has written many articles on various topics concerning the justice system. His most recent articles include Andrew J. Guilford & Joel Mallord, A Step Aside: Time to Drop the Infield Fly Rule and End a Common Law Anomaly, 164 U. Pa. L. Rev. 281 (2015). He served as an Adjunct Professor at the UC Irvine School of Law. He is a Contributing Editor of The Rutter Group’s Federal Civil Procedure Before Trial.

Andy welcomes conversation about politics, history, arts, and sports. For fun, Andy takes photos, travels, reads history, follows sports, plays with his grandkids, and plays at tennis and basketball. His hero is Winston Churchill, and he hopes someday to see Maury Wills elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame.