Hon. Kevin J. Murphy (Ret.)
Santa Clara County Superior Court, (Ret.)
Mediator • Arbitrator • Discovery Referee
After nearly three decades on the Santa Clara County bench, Hon. Kevin J. Murphy (Ret.) has handled thousands of mediations, arbitrations, and court appointments across a wide range of disputes. He began his career as a prosecutor, spending ten years as a Deputy District Attorney before his election to the Municipal Court in 1983 and his appointment to the Superior Court in 1989. Over the next 22 years, he presided over more than a thousand jury and court trials, supervised both the criminal and civil divisions, and taught Civil Remedies and Ethics at Santa Clara University School of Law. In 2011, he transitioned to full-time neutral work with ADR Services, Inc., bringing with him the discipline, fairness, and evaluative instincts of a trial judge.
Since making that transition, Judge Murphy has built an active dispute resolution practice. From 2023 to 2025 alone, he has mediated nearly 1,500 cases, arbitrated over 300 disputes, and been appointed more than 40 times by courts across 16 California counties and the Federal Court. His case composition spans the spectrum: employment and wage-and-hour matters, catastrophic personal injuries and wrongful deaths, class actions, real estate and construction disputes, professional negligence claims, probate fights, elder abuse, and complex commercial cases. In total, his career as a neutral encompasses 40+ class actions, 700+ employment disputes, 125+ personal injury matters (including more than 20 cases involving sexual abuse of minors), 240+ real estate disputes, 40+ legal malpractice actions, 50+ medical malpractice suits, and more than 250+ business and contract disputes.
Areas of Expertise
- Business
- Employment
- Banking
- Trade Secrets o Real Estate
- Personal Injury
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Case Summaries
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