Wayne Johnson
Bio
Wayne Johnson has served the Lord his entire life as a husband, father, lawyer, professor, and federal judge.
He graduated summa cum laude with distinction in all subjects from Cornell University in 1989 with a degree in government. Three years later, he earned his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992. While attending law school, he served as an intern at the Center for Law and Religious Freedom at the Christian Legal Society.
Upon graduation, he clerked for a federal judge, the Honorable David N. Naugle (retired), for two years (1992–1994), and then worked in several national law firms—Lewis, D’Amato, Brisbois & Bisgaard, and Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison LLP—until 2003. Thereafter, he practiced law as a sole practitioner until 2011, when the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals appointed him to a 14-year term as a bankruptcy judge in the Central District of California. He retired upon the conclusion of that term in February 2025 and looks forward to teaching full time at Regent University as a law professor next fall.
Over the last 30 years, he has taught thousands of attorneys at nearly a hundred legal seminars on various topics, including creditor rights, secured transactions, federal civil procedure, civil litigation, evidence, insolvency, family law, property rights, torts, and contract law.
As a litigator and then a judge, he spent decades handling litigation in countless cases in federal courts. He has tried cases and made oral arguments to judges in courtrooms thousands of times and, as a judge, extensively observed and conducted oral arguments. He presided over numerous federal trials and evidentiary hearings and rendered many verdicts. He has drafted and issued hundreds of written decisions.
He and his wife have seven children and have homeschooled all of them. Judge Johnson has taught and coached hundreds of junior high and high school students in the national Christian homeschool speech and debate league, Stoa. He has led his local homeschool forensics club, EPIC2, for more than a dozen years, including teaching apologetics and debate on hundreds of occasions. He serves as a board member for Stoa and also serves on its national debate committee and tabulation committee.
Personal Anecdote: Judge Johnson is passionate about a Christian worldview and loves to teach apologetics to eager minds.
What Drew Me To Regent: The discipleship ministry of the law school.