Shira Scheindlin
Shira A. Scheindlin (born 1946) is an American jurist and retired United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York, where she served from 1994 until her retirement in 2016.[1][2] Appointed by President Bill Clinton to a seat vacated by Louis J. Freeh, Scheindlin previously worked as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, in private practice, and as a U.S. Magistrate Judge.[2][3] She holds a B.A. from the University of Michigan (1967), an M.A. from Columbia University (1970), and a J.D. from Cornell Law School (1975).[2][3] Scheindlin presided over a range of complex civil and criminal matters, including securities fraud, antitrust, and civil rights litigation, authoring influential opinions such as the Zubulake series on the preservation and production of electronically stored information, which set standards for e-discovery practices nationwide.[4][5] Her 2013 ruling in Floyd v. City of New York held that the New York Police Department's stop-and-frisk policy violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments through discriminatory application, ordering reforms; however, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the injunctive relief, removed Scheindlin from the case for creating an appearance of impartiality via media engagements and extrajudicial comparisons to other judges' statistics, and noted no finding of actual bias.[6][7][4] Since retiring, she has served as an arbitrator, mediator, special master in securities cases, and of counsel at firms including Boies Schiller Flexner LLP.[8][3]