After a long and distinguished career as a federal judge, Judge Christopher C. Conner joins NAM as a Hearing Officer. He served more than 22 years on the federal bench for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, including 7 years as Chief Judge and an additional 3 years on the United States Judicial Conference, the chief policy making body of the federal judiciary. Further, Judge Conner was appointed by the Chief Justice to two Judicial Conference Committees, the Committee on Codes of Conduct and the Committee on Judicial Resources. He has presided over numerous complex matters, including mass torts and class actions.

In his role as an arbitrator and mediator, Judge Conner hears a wide range of cases including business, commercial, and personal injury matters. He also has experience with consumer matters, breach of contract, and employment law. Judge Conner considers each matter carefully in his role as a Hearing Officer, using his decades of experience as a federal judge to help parties achieve an amicable resolution prior to trial.

As an Article III judge, Judge Conner presided over 120 bench and jury trials and thousands of cases, including two multidistrict litigations. One involved allegations of price-fixing in a large consumer product industry, and the other involved a defective medical device used in hospitals. Judge Conner oversaw a number of large and complex matters, including product liability disputes, First Amendment claims, tax liability issues flowing from dozens of related entities, and constitutional claims arising from state and federal statutes. He handled numerous class actions and collective actions, Covid pandemic damages claims, medical malpractice jury trials, intellectual property disputes involving the Lanham Act, trade secret and unfair competition violations, as well as patent infringement and licensing issues. With diversity jurisdiction, Judge Conner also handled a wide variety of state law claims including personal injury inclusive of aviation and motor vehicle cases, employment, and contract disputes. Among the most notable was the “Kids for Cash” case, where two federal judges in northeast Pennsylvania were charged and convicted of receiving money from the developers of juvenile detention centers in exchange for declaring juveniles delinquent and assigning them to the detention centers, the vast majority of whom were declared delinquent for infractions that typically would result in minor penalties. Judge Conner presided over multiple hearings and a lengthy trial to determine damages for the individuals impacted by the scheme. The case drew national headlines for months as it played out in Judge Conner’s courtroom and was later depicted in a book entitled Shackled: A Tale of Wronged Kids, Rogue Judges, and a Town that Looked Away by Candy J. Cooper.

Judge Conner’s judicial experience has made him a coveted speaker on continuing legal education (CLE) panels and lectures in Pennsylvania. He is also an author who has presented and written on a broad spectrum of litigation-related topics and ethical issues. Judge Conner is the editor and co-author of the Ethics Deskbook for United States Judges (First Ed. 2020), which is distributed to every judicial officer in the federal judiciary as a comprehensive resource for judges navigating thorny ethical issues.

Prior to his appointment as a federal judge, Judge Conner worked in private practice in his native Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a time when he was very involved in leadership positions at the Pennsylvania Bar Association (PBA), including President-elect (at the time of his nomination to the federal bench) and Vice President. He contributed two additional terms to the PBA Board of Governors, and he is a Life Fellow of the Pennsylvania Bar Foundation.

Judge Conner served as an adjunct professor at Penn State Dickinson School of Law, where he taught federal criminal practice, and at Widener University Commonwealth Law School, where he taught trial advocacy. He is a graduate of the Penn State Dickinson School of Law, and he earned his undergraduate degree at Cornell University. He was recently named a “Distinguished Alumni” of Cornell’s Class of 1979.

Judge Conner is available to arbitrate and mediate cases throughout the United States.