Apr 6, 2026
Retired Federal Judge Hon. Roger T. Benitez Joins ADR Services, Inc.
Hon. Roger T. Benitez (Ret.) joins ADR Services, Inc. after more than four decades at the center of complex civil litigation as a federal district judge, magistrate judge, state court judge, and trial lawyer. Over the course of his career, Judge Benitez has presided over some of the most complex disputes in federal court, including multidistrict litigation (MDL), high-stakes class actions, patent and intellectual property cases, securities disputes, antitrust matters, and large commercial controversies.
From 2004 to 2026, Judge Benitez served as a United States District Judge for the Southern District of California, where he managed a docket that routinely included complex commercial and institutional litigation. During that time, he presided over patent and intellectual property disputes, securities and antitrust actions, employment and wage-and-hour cases, civil rights litigation, product liability matters, and large class actions, including the largest class action settlement in the history of the Southern District of California. His experience spans both jury and bench trials as well as the management of highly technical, document-intensive litigation.
Judge Benitez was appointed by the Chief Justice of the United States to serve on the United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, where he helped oversee the coordination of complex federal litigation nationwide. He also served as a transferee judge in four multidistrict litigation (MDL) cases, involving securities claims, wage-and-hour disputes, consumer privacy and data breach litigation, and sales practices allegations.
Before his appointment as a United States District Judge, Judge Benitez served as a United States Magistrate Judge and previously as a Judge of the Superior Court of California, where he was elected Presiding Judge of the Appellate Division. Earlier in his career, he spent nearly twenty years as a litigation attorney and shareholder at Heim Benitez & Driskill, representing both plaintiffs and defendants in commercial litigation, real estate disputes, probate litigation, and personal injury matters.