Before joining Phillips ADR, Mr. Helm was a nationally-recognized trial lawyer and appellate advocate at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP in Los Angeles.  He specialized in complex disputes involving asset management firms and their portfolio companies; entertainment and intellectual property; trade secrets and employee mobility; claims against law firms; and the duties of directors, officers, and shareholders.  His wide-ranging practice over the years also included antitrust, mass torts, environmental law, insurance, and investigations, and he once served as outside general counsel for a public company.  From 2005 to 2010, Mr. Helm was co-managing partner of the firm, and he was named in 2008 as one of Lawdragon’s “100 Managing Partners You Need to Know.”

Mr. Helm is a member of the Claremont Colleges board of directors and of the board of directors of the Ojai Playwrights Conference, where he served for three years as board president. He previously served for four years as chair of the board of directors of the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles. He is a former co-chair of the ABA Litigation Section’s Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service, a former chair of the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Professional Responsibility and Ethics Committee, and a former adjunct professor at Loyola Law School. Active for many years in efforts to diversify the legal profession, he was on the team of lawyers who developed the “Mansfield Rule” for the Stanford Law School Women in Law Hackathon in 2016. More recently, he served as an NGO observer of terrorism prosecutions before the Military Commission at Guantanamo Bay on behalf of the Pacific Council on International Policy.