Philip M. Pro
Philip M. Pro retired in January 2015, after nearly 35 years service with the federal judiciary. He was appointed United States District Judge for the District of Nevada by President Ronald Reagan and confirmed by the United States Senate on July 23, 1987. He served as Chief Judge for the District of Nevada from 2002 to 2007. On January 1, 2012, Judge Pro commenced service as a Senior United States District Judge. Prior to his appointment as District Judge, Judge Pro served as United States Magistrate Judge from 1980 to 1987.
Since his retirement from the federal bench, Judge Pro has provided arbitration, mediation, and other alternative dispute resolution services through JAMS, the largest provider of ADR services in the United States. Additionally, in November 2015, Governor Brian Sandoval appointed Judge Pro as a Member of the Nevada Gaming Commission on which he served throught April 2019.
Judge Pro received his J.D. degree from Golden Gate University School of Law in 1972. He received an LL.M. in Judicial Studies at Duke University School of Law in 2014.
Judge Pro has dedicated his legal career to public service. He commenced service in Nevada in 1972 as a law clerk for the Honorable William P. Compton, Eighth Judicial District Court in Las Vegas, Nevada. From 1973 to 1975 he served as a Deputy Public Defender for Clark County, Nevada; as an Assistant United States Attorney both in Las Vegas from 1975 to 1977 and in Reno from January – September 1980; as a partner in the law firm of Semenza, Murphy and Pro in Reno from 1977 to 1979; and as Deputy Attorney General for the State of Nevada assigned to the Gaming Division from 1979 to 1980.
In October 1993, Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Judge Pro as Chair of the Committee on the Administration of the Magistrate Judges System of the Judicial Conference of the United States, a position he held through October 1998. Chief Justice Roberts appointed Judge Pro to a four year term on the Board of the Federal Judicial Center in July 2007.
Judge Pro served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Federal Judges Association from 1992 to 2001, and served as vice president from 1997 to 2001. He also served as a member of the Ninth Circuit Wellness Committee from 2001 to 2010, and as Chair of the Committee from 2005-2010. He was a member of the Ninth Circuit Jury Instructions Committee from 1987 to 2002. He is a founding member of the Howard D. McKibben Nevada American Inn of Court, serving as its President from 1988 to 1990.
Judge Pro served on the Advisory Board for the founding of the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, and has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Boyd teaching Trial Advocacy. Pro also serves also as a member of the Board of the Saltman Center for Conflict Resolution at the Boyd School of Law.
In March 2004, the William S. Boyd School of Law established the Philip Pro Lectureship in Legal History with the inaugural lecture presented by Pulitzer prize-winning historian Gordon Wood. Subsequent lecturers have included Geoffrey Stone, Jack Rakove, Sara Barringer Gordon, and Larry Kramer.
Since 1998, Judge Pro has participated in a variety of international “Rule of Law” programs with judiciaries from over 20 countries including Hungary, Georgia, Bosnia, Netherlands, Spain, Malawi, Kyrgyzstan, Jordan, Pakistan, South Africa, Norway, Iraq, Afghanistan, Mexico, Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia, Armenia, Columbia, Latvia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and China. In March 2003, he was a co-moderator for the U.S. Department of Justice Colloquium for Iraqi Jurists in Washington, D.C.
Judge Pro is active locally and nationally in the We, the People…the Citizen and the Constitution program sponsored by the Center for Civic Education. Additionally, he currently serves as Chair of the State Bar of Nevada Law Related Education Consortium, and has participated in a wide variety of continuing legal education programs sponsored by local, state and national bar associations, including the Department of Justice Attorney General Advocacy Institute, and the National Institute for Trial Advocacy.
Judge Pro has authored a variety of articles in local and state bar publications. He is co-author of Measured Progress, the Evolution and Administration of the Federal Magistrate Judges System, The American University Law Review, Vol. 44, 1995, No. 5, and author of Mis(understanding) Judging, Nevada Law Journal, Vol. 7, 2007, No. 2, and United States Magistrate Judges: Present But Unaccounted For, Nevada Law Journal, Vol. 16, 2016.
As a Magistrate Judge, Judge Pro presided over pre-trial proceedings in the MGM Grand Hotel Fire Litigation. He has presided over countless civil and criminal cases during his more than 34 years on the federal bench, and has conducted hundreds of trials including the assault claims brought by Navy Lt. Paula Coughlin against the Tailhook Association and Las Vegas Hilton, Coughlin v. Tailhook Assoc.; the injury and environmental claims brought by workers at the Area 51 location near Groom Lake, Nevada, Frost v. Perry and Kaza v. Browner; the radiation exposure injury claims brought by workers at the Nevada Test Site, Prescott v. United States; the Trademark Infringement suit brought by the family and heirs of Bob Marley, Fifty-Six Hope Road Music Ltd v. A.V.E.L.A.; and the patent infringement claims brought in Symbol Technologies v. Lemelson.