Hon. Kenneth L. Fields

Judge (ret) Kenneth L. Fields (Ken) is a retired Judge of the Superior Court of Arizona, Maricopa County, Phoenix, Arizona. He presided over civil, juvenile, criminal, probate, special assignment and family court calendars. From February 1993 through June 1995, he served as the Presiding Judge of the Domestic Relations Department (family court).

From late November 2002 to June 2007, Judge (ret) Fields was one of three judges state-wide assigned to the Complex Litigation Court, which was the first paperless (electronic filing) Court in the State Courts of Arizona. He participated in establishing and organizing the Complex Litigation Court as a part of this assignment. The Complex Litigation Court handled complex business and commercial litigation as well as other types of complex cases such as fraud/white collar crime, dissolution of marriages involving business assets and election/voter fraud. He was a founding member of the National College of Business Court Judges.

Since his retirement, Judge (ret) Fields has worked as a re-call judge doing both civil and criminal cases in various courts in the State of Arizona in addition to having an active mediation and arbitration private practice. He is the presiding commissioner for a five-person arbitration commission deciding disputes between the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Tribe (Native American tribes). In addition to civilian courts, Judge Fields, a retired Army officer, acted as a Military Trial Judge for the Arizona National Guard presiding over Court-martials from 2010 until 2015. He also taught Judicial Remedies as an adjunct faculty member at the Law School at Arizona State University in 2013.

Judge (ret) Fields has also taught internationally. In 2004, prior to his retirement, he presented a class on U.S. Civil Procedure to European judges in Madrid, Spain as part of a comparative law conference. In 2007-2008, he taught Mexican judges, prosecutors and public defenders as a member of a U.S.-Canadian team. In 2013, Judge (ret) Fields taught Alternative Dispute Resolution at the Faculty of Law, Belgrade, Serbia. In April and September 2014, he served as a guest lecturer on Alternative Dispute Resolution at the University of South Wales, Cardiff, United Kingdom. That year, he also taught U.S. Business Law in Pristina, Kosovo and had a paper presented at the Azov Legal Conference in Berdyansk, Ukraine on Business Courts in the U.S. In 2015, he was a guest lecturer on Common Law legal traditions at the Law School at Udmurt State University, Izhevsk, Russia. He returned to Pristina, Kosovo in 2018 to teach Alternative Dispute Resolution.

Judge Fields was the program chair/co-chair at the symposium on international mediation and alternative dispute resolution at the Center for International Legal Studies (CILS) in Salzburg, Austria in 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2023. In 2015 he was inducted into the Congress of Fellows for the Center for International Legal Studies.

In 2020 Judge (ret) Fields began conducting both mediations and arbitrations via video conferencing. During the COVID-19 crisis, video conferencing with Judge (ret) Fields will allow continued representation of clients and the ability to resolve disputes without having to have a face-to-face meeting in a mediation or arbitration. In February 2020 he began training judges, attorneys, mediators and arbitrators in the use of online platforms for mediation and arbitration for the Superior Court of Arizona (Maricopa County), NADN and BRDGES Academy.

• University of Kentucky, B.A., Major in Political Science 1968
• University of Kentucky, J.D., Member of the Law Journal 1974
• Economic Institute for Judges, Kansas State University
• Brookings Institute/American Enterprise, Washington DC
• Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution, Pepperdine University School of Law

Judge (ret) Fields was a member of the Judicial Advisory Board of the Joint Education Program for State Court Judges sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institute, Washington, DC. While assigned to the Arizona Complex Litigation Court, he participated in the founding and organization of the American College of Business Court Judges, an organization of state courts specializing in business and complex litigation. In addition to the National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals, Judge (ret) Fields belongs to the Association of Attorney-Mediators and is a member of the London Court of International Arbitration. He is also an member of the Congress of Fellows for the Center for International Legal Studies.

Online: $2,400 for half day appointments and $4,500 for full days, with 1 hour cancellation fee
In-person mediations and arbitrations by special request