Hon. Wayne D. Brazil (Ret.) is fully engaged as a neutral at JAMS, after earning a national and international reputation as one of the most significant innovators and leaders in the field of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). He is an expert in crafting procedures to meet the needs of individual cases – and in finding new directions when movement toward settlement seems to stall.
Judge Brazil spent 25 years as a magistrate judge in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. He exercised the full range of judicial responsibilities, presiding over civil and criminal trials, managing the pretrial development of civil cases, hearing substantive and procedural motions, and ruling on fee disputes. His extensive work as a settlement judge and on complex discovery matters earned him national recognition and was rewarded when the Chief Justice of the United States appointed him to the committees that write the federal rules of civil procedure and evidence. He also led the teams that designed and implemented the Court’s multi-faceted ADR program, then he served as the Court’s first ADR Magistrate Judge, a position he occupied for more than 15 years.
