LTS Founder
Lawrence D. Hilton, Esq.
Mr. Hilton holds both Juris Doctorate and Masters of Business Administration degrees from Brigham Young University. Admitted to both the Utah and California bar associations, he has practiced in the areas of insurance coverage and defense, commercial litigation, business formation, estate planning, bankruptcy and Constitutional law for more than 35 years.
During his last year of law school in 1986 — a time when Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) was in its infancy — first in Utah and later in Northern California, Mr. Hilton founded ADR services, working to enhance awareness and appreciation among attorneys, insurance adjusters and others of the benefits of various methodologies in resolving even the most intractable cases. He recruited and trained mediators, administered ADR proceedings, and developed innovative case management protocols within this emerging field.
Mr. Hilton began his career as a licensed lawyer with a San Francisco based, boutique, law firm specializing in maritime law and insurance defense. Learning the ropes of Jones Act and Longshoremen disputes in that busy port city, honed his advocacy skills through active participation in litigation discovery and motion practice. Later as part of a large regional firm, he expanded his practice to include business formation, insurance coverage, commercial and bankruptcy litigation, as well as estate planning.
In 1998, Mr. Hilton founded Dominion Insurance Services and has since developed innovative insurance programs for professional Associations around the country. He has spoken and writtten widely on insurance and risk management topics, holds insurance licenses in all 50 states and is a tribunalized cover holder with Lloyd's of London.
Beginning in 2009, Mr. Hilton conceptualized, drafted and then shepherded through the Utah Legislature the Specie Legal Tender Act, which was passed into law in 2011, with important amendments adopted during the 2012 session. By that statute, Utah became the first state in more than one hundred years to formally recognize gold and silver coinage as legal tender. Since then he has actively championed monetary reform measures in Idaho, Nevada, Alaska, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, Wyoming and Arkansas—with the latter five states all having adopted meaningful specie legal tender legislation.
Mr. Hilton formed Citizens for Sound Money in 2010, and the Utah Monetary Summit in 2011, which in its first year was attended by participants from more than a dozen U.S. states and half a dozen countries. In 2013, he co-founded the United Precious Metals Association (UPMA) to promote the commercial framework necessary to implement Utah's new monetary system. He also serves on the Gold Standard Now advisory board of American Principles in Action, a Washington D.C. based public policy think tank, and as General Counsel for UPMA, Goldback, Inc., Quintric Business Trust, Goldtinum Holdings Inc., Havilah Homes Inc., and the Celtic Heritage Society, as well as also serving as Exchequer of the Royal Court of Breifne.