Christine W.S. Byrd Irell & Manella LLP 1800 Avenue of the Stars, Suite 900 Los Angeles CA 90067 Tel: (310) 203-7039 Fax: (310) 203-7199 Email: cbyrd@irell.com www.irell.com

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Arbitration Referee

Serving the following Counties: Los Angeles, Orange, San Francisco, Ventura [ Click for Map of California's Counties ]

Banking & Finance Commercial/Business Construction

Contract Disputes Energy Sector (Oil, Gas) Entertainment

Environmental Partnerships Real Property

Biographical Notes:

Christine Byrd is a partner with Irell & Manella LLP in Los Angeles, California. Mrs. Byrd specializes in complex business litigation and divides her practice between service as a neutral arbitrator and the practice of law for clients. She has served as Panel Chairman for numerous AAA Large Complex Cases.

Since 1996, she has served as arbitrator in numerous large disputes, domestic and international, involving product development and distribution contracts (domestic and international) in the food, energy, and automotive industries; offshore oil spill clean-up; promotion of concerts in the entertainment industry; earthquake construction repairs; solid waste landfill development; health insurance (class action); lender liability; wind farm technology; oil field ownership interests and oil field development; oil and gas exploration and development costs; power purchase and exchange agreements; development and construction of a power plant; Direct Access energy agreement disputes; fraud and antitrust claims in the energy industry.

Mrs. Byrd is on the American Arbitration Association's Commercial Panel, its Large Complex Case Panel, its National Energy Panel, and its Class Action Panel. She has served as an instructor to train neutral arbitrators for the American Arbitration Association (National Energy Panel and "Arbitrator I Training") and at the 2004 ABA Section on Dispute Resolution Arbitrator Training Institute. She also is on the Panel of Distinguished Neutrals of the CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution. She was a speaker on alternative dispute resolution at the 2003 and the 2004 Mealey's Conferences on California's Section 17200 and at the 2002 Forbes Conference on "Developing, Constructing, Operating and Securing Energy Power Projects."

Mrs. Byrd served as law clerk to Judge William P. Gray, Central District of California (1975 Term). She served as a criminal prosecutor in the United States Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, California, for five years. Her assignments included one year in the Public Corruption and Government Fraud Unit and two years on the Presidential Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. She was a partner at Jones Day before joining Irell & Manella. Her civil trial experience ranges from commercial and contract disputes, to securities law, to patent infringement. Her most recent trials include a federal jury trial on patent infringement claims, resulting in an $82 million verdict in favor of the firm's client, and a federal court trial representing the State of California in one of the largest CERCLA cases in the country, involving DDT contamination off the Southern California coastline.

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