Judge Shira A. Scheindlin, 62 years old, is a United States District Court judge for the Southern District of New York. She was nominated by President Bill Clinton on July 28, 1994 to a seat vacated by Louis J. Freeh, had her appointment confirmed by the United States Senate on September 28, 1994 and was commissioned on September 29, 1994. She is an alumnus of Cornell Law School, the University of Michigan and of Columbia University.

Judge Scheindlin has developed a reputation for her intellectual acumen, demanding courtroom demeanour, aggressive interpretations of the law, and expertise in mass torts, electronic discovery and complex litigation.

Her publications include:

• Electronic Discovery Sanctions in the Twenty-First Century, 11 Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review 71 (Fall 2004) (with Kanchana Wangkeo, Esq.);
• Revisions in Federal Rule 53 Provide New Options for Using Special Masters in Litigation, 76 Journal of the N.Y. State Bar Association 18 (Jan. 2004) (with Jonathan M. Redgrave, Esq.) and
• Electronic Discovery in Federal Civil Litigation: Is Rule 34 Up to the Task?, 41 B.C.L. Rev. 327 (2000) (with Jeffrey Rabkin, Esq.).

Judge Scheindlin was a panellist in 2003 on a panel entitled Judge Jack V. Weinstein, Tort Litigation, and the Public Good: A Roundtable Discussion to Honor One of America's Great Trial Judges on the Occasion of his 80th Birthday, 12 J.L. & Pol'y 149.

Before taking her current seat on the Southern District, Scheindlin worked as a prosecutor, commercial lawyer and judge. Between 1982 and 1984, she served as special master in the Agent Orange mass tort litigation and between 1992 and 1994 as special master for the mass torts case involving property damaged by asbestos.

Significantly, in April 2004, in the case Zubulake v. UBS Warburg, Scheindlin sanctioned UBS for not being able to complete their E-Discovery of potentially informative documents and not complying with their litigation hold on the destruction of documents. This case was seen as revolutionary in the legal realms of human resources and computer forensics, as the burden of proof was effectively shifted to the defendant for their inability to produce documents in a timely manner, and the presentation to the jury of an adverse inference.

Judge Scheindlin has received the following awards:

• the Distinguished Jurist Award from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (2008);
• the William Nelson Cromwell Award for unselfish service to the profession and the community from the New York County Lawyers Association (2007);
• the Edward Weinfeld Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Administration of Justice, New York County Lawyers (2005);
• the William J. Brennan Award, Criminal Law Section, New York State Bar Association (2003);
• the Robert L. Haig Award for distinguished public service, Commercial & Federal Litigation Section, New York State Bar Association (2001); and
• the Special Achievement Award in appreciation and recognition of Sustained Superior Performance of Duty, U.S. Department of Justice (1980).