Hon. Charles "Tim" W. McCoy, Jr. (Ret.) is a distinguished former Presiding Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court. As a founder and Supervising Judge of the Complex Litigation Courts in Los Angeles, he has been a steady champion of hands-on case management, early identification of pivotal issues, focused discovery, and rational, informed settlements. Judge McCoy brings many years of diverse litigation experience in complex cases, first as a lawyer and then for 20 years as a judge.

Judge McCoy has led hundreds of successful settlement conferences in cases across a broad span of practice areas from the most complex, with hundreds of millions at stake, to less complicated, yet still important matters. While serving as the Supervising Judge of the civil trial courts in Los Angeles, and even in his role as Assistant Presiding Judge, he continued to serve as settlement judge in major, high profile civil cases. During this time, Judge McCoy also taught courses to judges on settlement techniques and processes.

Judge McCoy’s recognized leadership skills, coupled with his personal civility and proven mediation expertise, greatly enhance the likelihood of settlement in even the most difficult cases.

ADR Experience and Qualifications

• Skilled settlement judge and mediator with many years of experience managing and resolving complex, multi-party matters, mass torts, insurance, high-stakes business and commercial litigation, construction defect, environmental, class actions, and employment matters, including wage and hour actions
• Highest settlement to date over $700 million in a coordinated and consolidated action involving over 750 claimants
• Responsible for leading the successful settlement of hundreds of clergy abuse cases (in both individual and coordinated proceedings) in Los Angeles, Orange County, and Northern and Central California
• Taught multiple courses on effective settlement techniques to judges of the Los Angeles Superior Court, and honored as the 2010 recipient of the Emil Gumpert Award as the Outstanding Jurist in the Field of Alternative Dispute Resolution
• Completed his judicial career serving in 2013 as a full-time settlement judge. Successfully resolved numerous cases, many of which had previously not settled through mediation in other venues

Representative Matters

• Antitrust & Competition
• Vertical price fixing, unfair competition, and dealership termination in connection with the distribution and sale of consumer products
• Bundling of “choice of service provider” rights with eligibility for rebates in connection with the purchase of cellular phones
• Business Commercial
• Nationwide cases against major retailers and a credit card company involving misapplication of payments made for goods and services purchased on credit
• Dispute involving extended holdback periods for new products sold through independent dealers of a major telecommunications provider
• Cases against entities whose conduct led, in part, to the adoption of Proposition 64 which substantially revised the ways in which unfair business practice claims may be pursued in California
• Nationwide class action against major computer manufacturers for alleged false advertising relating to computer hard drives
• Actions involving the dissolution of business organizations, including law firms
• Civil Rights
• Series of class actions alleging discriminatory practices in the treatment of customers by a major Southern California theme park
• Construction Defect
• Numerous construction defect disputes, both commercial and residential, involving developments, large and small, and high-value individual properties and residences
• One of the few judges who has actually tried a complex construction defect case to a jury and who understands, from firsthand experience, the risks confronting all sides in such proceedings
• Employment Law
• Numerous wage and hour class action cases, including actions that were among the first such precedent-setting cases litigated in the California state courts
• Numerous employment cases involving a wide range of issues, from wrongful termination, to discrimination, sexual harassment, and disability discrimination, among others
• Action arising out of the termination of the Superintendent of a major Southern California school district
• Entertainment & Sports
• An action claiming the publication of false movie reviews published by major movie producers/distributors
• Litigation asserting age discrimination brought by TV writers against major networks, production studios, and talent agents
• Alleged endorsement misrepresentation by a national celebrity
• Introduction of major motion picture exhibitor into the United States
• Purchasing, distribution, exhibition of first-run films throughout United States
• Environmental Law
• Complicated disputes involving groundwater contamination and clean-up issues, including a full panoply of insurance disputes that typically arise in such cases
• Governmental & Public Agency
• Cases alleging the use of long-term, but temporary, workers to avoid incurring certain costly statutory public employment benefit obligations
• Case involving alleged misallocation of revenues collected by a large metropolitan city in Southern California
• Health Care
• Litigation relating to claims of overcharging patients for prescription drugs, medical procedures, and medical products by a major healthcare provider operating in California and elsewhere
• Insurance
• Over 1000 individual earthquake-related damage and insurance coverage cases involving both commercial and residential properties
• Cases involving reinsurance and excess insurance for property and bodily injury claims
• Breach of contract, bad faith policy cancellation and unfair business practices involving thousands of business interruption and property claims, including subsidence, arising out of a major public transit rail construction project
• Intellectual Property
• Cases involving alleged misappropriation of trade secrets
• Mass Torts
• Refinery fire giving rise to hundreds of individual personal injury claims
• Tort and damage claims arising out of the construction of a major underground rapid transit system in Los Angeles
• Personal Injury
• Managed and led ultimate settlement of major clergy abuse litigations (involving many hundreds of individual lawsuits) in California and nationally
• Numerous asbestos exposure cases, including both personal injury actions and/or wrongful death actions
• As Supervising Judge of the Civil Departments in Los Angeles, Judge McCoy led the discussions involving lawyers representing both the plaintiffs’ and defense bars, that produced many of the procedures presently followed by the Los Angeles Superior Court for the resolution of complex asbestos cases (procedures that have subsequently been adopted by courts in other jurisdictions as well)
• Professional Liability
• A variety of legal and medical malpractice cases
• Real Property
• Eminent domain cases
• Actions involving title disputes, boundary controversies, easements, drainage issues, incursion, inverse condemnation and/or nuisance, among others issues
• Securities
• Securities litigation seeking the ultimate dissolution and distribution of the assets of a high-profile intellectual property development company
• Handled the California state court litigation portion of dispute regarding artificial price inflation and violation of Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and Rule 10b-5
• Special Master Discovery Referee
• Extensive experience in managing and negotiating discovery, including e-discovery
• While serving as a Complex Litigation Judge and as Supervising Judge of the Complex Litigation Program in Los Angeles, Judge McCoy and his colleagues developed and implemented many innovative cost and time-saving techniques for the management and resolution of discovery disputes in complex cases

Honors, Memberships, and Professional Activities

• Honors
  • Outstanding Jurist Award, Los Angeles County Bar Association, 2011
  • Emil Gumpert Award for Outstanding Jurist in the Field of Alternative Dispute Resolution, Center for Civic Mediation, Los Angeles, 2010
  • Golden Mike Freedom of Information Award, Radio and Television News Association of Los Angeles, 2011
  • Hon. Tom C. Clark Award, National Conference of Metropolitan Courts, 2010
  • Pearl F. Vogel President’s Award, Valley Community Legal Foundation, 2010
  • Person of the Year Award, Los Angeles Metropolitan News, 2009
  • Trial Judge of the Year Award, Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles, 2008

Background and Education

• Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court, 1993-2013
  • Presiding Judge, Los Angeles Superior Court, 2009 and 2010
  • Assistant Presiding Judge, Los Angeles Superior Court, 2007 and 2008
  • Supervising Judge of all Civil Trial Courts, Los Angeles Superior Court, 2005 and 2006
  • Supervising Judge of the Complex Litigation Courts of Los Angeles, 2004 and 2005 (Founding Bench Officer and Trial Judge of the Complex Courts, 2000-2005)
  • Mandatory Settlement Conference Judge, 2013
  • Supervising Judge, Juvenile Delinquency Courts, East District, 2011 and 2012