James T. Giles was appointed to The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in 1979. He served the Court for almost 29 years and was the Chief Judge of the Court for a full seven-year term, from 1999 through 2006. Judge Giles (Ret.) focuses on mediation and arbitration matters, local, national and international in scope.

During his lengthy tenure, he handled a docket spanning all types of civil litigation including commercial litigation, product liability, insurance issues, employment, personal injury, shareholder disputes and other types of civil claims. Prior to joining the bench in January 1980, Judge Giles practiced law at Pepper Hamilton for 11 years in areas of medical malpractice, libel and slander, vehicle insurance coverage, employment discrimination cases and labor relations. In 1975, he became the firm’s first partner of color. On the bench, notable civil cases involved the national air controller strike, Delaware River environmental disaster and cleanup, nationwide school asbestos claims, air crash disaster in international waters, lead paint in Philadelphia public housing units, antitrust and labor and employment. After leaving the bench in October 2008, he returned to the Pepper office as of counsel, where he assisted for ten years in litigation and settlement strategies in the areas of anti-trust, pharmaceuticals, libel and slander, and complex international arbitrations, while engaging periodically as a neutral in ad hoc arbitrations and mediations. In 2018, he joined Blank Rome LLP as of counsel where he has concentrated on arbitrator/mediator practice.

• B.A. from Amherst College in 1964
• LLB from Yale Law School in 1967

Judge Giles (Ret.) is a Fellow of the College of Commercial Arbitrators and a former Executive Committee member of the American Arbitration Association and is a member of the AAA’s commercial and consumer arbitrator panels. He serves on a special panel of neutrals from which the City of Philadelphia and the Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 5, select for arbitration of officer discharge cases under their collective bargaining agreement. He is an Executive Committee member of Beyond Literacy, Inc., a leading non-profit provider of adult literacy programs and services in the Philadelphia region, Secretary of Board of Wardens of the Independence Seaport Museum, Inc., which marries the nation building histories of the Philadelphia Port with the currency of the Delaware River as the principle potable water source for the City, Vice-President of the Civil War Museum of Philadelphia, Inc., which, in cooperation with the Gettysburg Foundation, the National Constitution Center and the Heritage Center at the Union League, shepherds the largest private collection of American Civil War artifacts and memorabilia, a Master in the Temple American Inn of Court since its inception in 1990, and a member of the Historical Society of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

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