Following graduation from the Creighton University School of Law, Hon. James P. O'Hara served a two-year judicial clerkship with U.S. District Judges Robert V. Denney and C. Arlen Beam in the District of Nebraska. From 1982 to 2000, Judge O'Hara was in private practice where he served on his firm's executive committee and as managing partner of their Overland Park, Kansas office. In 2000 he was appointed as a U.S. Magistrate Judge in the District of Kansas where he later became the Chief Magistrate Judge in 2013. Judge O’Hara handles the pretrial aspects of civil and criminal cases and, upon consent of the parties, frequently presides over civil jury trials. He has significant experience managing MDL and class action litigation, and also serves as his court’s ADR coordinator. Since joining the bench, Judge O’Hara has remained active in several bar and community organizations where he frequently speaks on eDiscovery. Currently, Judge O’Hara serves as the only Magistrate Judge representative on the Budget and Finance Advisory Council for the U.S. Courts. Judge O'Hara is perhaps most known for recently authoring two of the most controversial decisions to come out of the District of Kansas wherein he stated that all objections to discovery requests are waived if a party asserts objections and then answers "subject to" or "without waiving" their objections.