Roy S. Payne

Roy Steven Payne is currently a U.S. magistrate judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. He previously served as a U.S. magistrate judge in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana from 1987 to 2005. Education Judge Payne was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, received his undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia (with distinction) in 1974 and obtained his Juris Doctor degree from Louisiana State University Law School in 1977, where he graduated Order of the Coif with Phi Kappa Phi honors and also served as an Associate Editor on the Louisiana Law Review from 1976 to 1977, and where he published the Note Due Process for Drivers under the Louisiana Revocation Statutes, 36 La. L. Rev. 852 (1976) and later the article The Coconspirators’ Exception to the Hearsay Rule: The Limits of Its Logic, 37 La. L. Rev. 1101 (1977). Judge Payne also obtained his Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree from Harvard Law School in 1980. Career Judge Payne previously served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Tom Stagg, U.S. District Judge for the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana from 1977 to 1979. He also was an instructor at the New England School of Law from 1979 to 1980. Payne practiced with the law firm of Blanchard, Walker, O’Quin & Roberts in Shreveport, Louisiana in the areas of insurance defense, products liability, tort law and commercial litigation from 1980 to 1987. In 1987, Judge Payne was appointed as a U.S. magistrate judge for the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana (based in Shreveport) and served in that position for 18 years, from 1987 to 2005.