Judge A. Joel Richlin

Judge Richlin was appointed as a U.S. Magistrate Judge in 2023 and sits in Los Angeles.  Judge Richlin welcomes consent cases and offers flexible scheduling as well as hands-on case management tailored to meet the needs of the case.

Before his appointment, Judge Richlin served as General Counsel and Chief Litigation Officer for one of the nation’s largest hospital systems.  In that role, he led a national legal department 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.

Prior to his in-house service, 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 hospital 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.

At the beginning of his career, Judge Richlin served as a law clerk to 3 federal judges for nearly 5 years.  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. 

For more than 15 years, Judge Richlin has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles where he has taught various classes involving appellate brief writing and oral advocacy, as well as mentored law students interested in pursuing judicial clerkships. 

Judge Richlin is active in several bar associations, including the Los Angeles Chapter of the Federal Bar Association, the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Litigation Section, the Sedona Conference, the American Health Law Association, and the California Society for Healthcare Attorneys.

Judge Richlin received his Bachelor of Arts degree, with honors, from Northwestern University, and his Juris Doctor degree, cum laude, from Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, where he was an editor of the Law Review.