James Gary Hastings

I graduated from Southwestern Law School in 1972, passed the bar and worked for 13 years as a trial lawyer with Belcher, Henzie & Biegenzahn in Los Angeles.  I handled primarily product liability defense, insurance coverage and bad faith, medical malpractice and legal malpractice matters.  In 1985 I was appointed to the Los Angeles County Superior Court where I served for eight years, six years as a trial judge handling all types of civil and criminal cases and two years as the Supervising Judge in the Torrance Superior Court in 1989 and 1990.  In 1993 I was appointed to the California Court of Appeal, Second District, Fourth Division, where I served for thirteen years handling every type of case we received.  I retired from the Court in 2006 and became an Adjunct Professor at Southwestern Law School, a position I still hold.  I also joined ARC and I have handled arbitrations and mediations over the last few years.