Appellate Law

Federal Judge: Appellate Judges Know Nothing About Tech

By Greg May

Those words after the colon come straight from the headline at Bloomberg News, where you can treat yourself to a 40-minute interview with federal district judge Shira A. Scheindlin of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, conducted at the 2015 Big Law Business Summit.

The Bloomberg headline may exaggerate Judge Sheindlin’s position somewhat. Her comments on technology are directed mostly to the technology involved in discovery of electronically stored information (“ESI”).

Given that she is referring to ESI discovery, her view on appellate judges’ knowledge is neither shocking nor insulting. As in California sate courts, most discovery rulings are not immediately appealable. They may be reviewed on appeal from a final judgment (which I suspect is a somewhat are occurrence) or by mandamus, which is discretionary. Thus, federal appellate courts are unlikely to see many discovery cases at all, let alone cases involving disputes over ESI discovery. If federal appellate judges are unfamiliar with the technology, it is probably because it rarely comes into play before them.

Full post as published by The California Blog of Appeal on July 21, 2015 (boomark / email).