A. Joel Richlin was sworn in on July 31, 2023 as a United States Magistrate Judge for the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Judge Richlin will preside over matters in Los Angeles in the Court’s Western Division. Judge Richlin succeeds former Magistrate Judge Alexander F. MacKinnon.
Before his appointment as a magistrate judge, Judge Richlin served as General Counsel and Chief Litigation Officer of Prime Healthcare, one of the nation’s largest hospital systems. In that role, he led a national legal department of more than 30 attorneys and 19 support staff and was responsible for all litigation on behalf of the company’s hospitals and other business units, which included a real estate development firm and medical school. Judge Richlin personally led and supervised litigation in 14 states before federal courts, state courts, administrative agencies, and arbitral forums on a wide range of subject matters including labor, employment, professional and general liability, as well as all manner of business disputes. Judge Richlin represented the company’s business units as both plaintiff and defendant in single plaintiff, multi-party, and collective actions across the country, with a particular focus on complex healthcare regulatory and business disputes. Judge Richlin is a recognized expert on healthcare regulatory matters and regularly speaks across the country on matters such as the False Claims Act, the Affordable Care Act, ERISA, Medicare, Medicaid, and managed care reimbursement.
From 2012 to 2017, Judge Richlin worked in the Los Angeles Office of international law firm, Foley & Lardner LLP, where he was a Senior Counsel in the Business Litigation Group. There, Judge Richlin represented a wide variety of clients in business litigation, government investigations, and healthcare litigation matters, which included representation of both major health plans and hospitals systems across the country. While at the firm, Judge Richlin maintained a robust pro bono practice and completed a secondment at the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office to gain first-chair jury trial experience.
From 2007 to 2012, Judge Richlin served as a law clerk to multiple federal judges. He first clerked for the Honorable Alan M. Ahart of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California, next for the Honorable Fernando M. Olguin who was then a magistrate judge for the Court, and finally for the Honorable Suzanne H. Segal who was then the Court’s chief magistrate judge. Following law school, from 2006 to 2007, Judge Richlin was an associate at an international law firm, Heller Ehrman LLP, in the Complex Commercial Litigation Group.
