Magistrate Judge Lisa J. Cisneros joined the Court in September 2022, following fifteen years of practice as a litigator and attorney in government and public service. Since her appointment she has presided as a trial, discovery and settlement judge in cases involving areas of law such as employment, copyright, trade secret, trademark, civil rights and insurance. Judge Cisneros currently serves on the Local Rules and Community Education committees of the Court. In addition, she has participated in a variety of panels and presented at the Sedona Conference Working Group on eDiscovery and Electronic Document Management.
Judge Willie J. Epps, Jr. serves as the Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Western District of Missouri and sits in Jefferson City. He began his legal career in service to our country as an Air Force Judge Advocate, Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, and Assistant Special Counsel for the Waco Investigation. Later, he was named partner at two law firms and head of litigation at a financial services firm. Judge Epps is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, member of the Judicial Council of the National Bar Association, and former chair of the ABA National Conference of Federal Trial Judges. He is a graduate of Amherst College, Harvard Law School, and Duke University School of Law.
Judge Young B. Kim is a U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Northern District of Illinois. He was born in South Korea and his family emigrated to the United States when he was 11 years old. He began his legal career as an Assistant Cook County Public Defender in 1991. From 1993 to 1995, he clerked for District Judge Charles R. Norgle of the Northern District of Illinois. From 1995 to 2001, Judge Kim served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney with the Chicago office, prosecuting and litigating both civil and criminal cases. In 2001, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission appointed him to serve as an Administrative Judge. Then in 2010, the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois appointed Judge Kim to a magistrate judge position. As a federal judge he particularly enjoys presiding over citizenship naturalization ceremonies in the ceremonial courtroom where he himself was naturalized as a United States citizen in 1986.
Angel D. Mitchell was appointed in 2019 to serve as a U.S. Magistrate Judge in the District of Kansas. Before joining the bench, she was a partner at Shook Hardy & Bacon, LLP, where she practiced in intellectual property litigation. While there, she represented primarily Fortune 100 clients in patent, trademark, and copyright cases in federal district courts throughout the country. She also handled appellate litigation before the Federal Circuit and coordinated litigation efforts with parallel proceedings before the United States Patent & Trademark Office. Earlier in her career, she practiced as an associate at then-Blackwell Sanders Peper Martin, LLP’s commercial litigation practice, and served as a law clerk to U.S. Magistrate Judge James P. O’Hara and U.S. District Judge John W. Lungstrum.
The Honorable Andrew J. Peck served for 23 years (from February 1995 until his retirement in February 2018) as a United States Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of New York, including a term as Chief Magistrate Judge from 2004 to 2005. Before his appointment to the bench, Judge Peck was in private practice for 17 years, focusing on commercial and entertainment litigation, including copyright and trademark matters, with extensive trial experience.
Born in San Antonio, Texas, he received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, a master’s degree from the University of Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs, a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from the University of Texas Law School, and a Master of Laws in Judicial Studies from Duke University, Bloch Judicial Institute. Prior to assuming the bench, he was a partner in the international law firm of Fulbright & Jaworski (now known as Norton Rose Fulbright). He was board certified in labor and employment law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. He served in the U.S. Army Reserve Judge Advocate General’s Corps and has served on the board of directors of several charitable organizations across Texas.
Robin Perkins is the founder and Chair of Kutak Rock's eDiscovery Practice Group and she maintains an active litigation practice where she regularly appears in state and federal courts across the country. The National eDiscovery Leadership Institute was the brainchild of Ms. Perkins, who sought to create a forum for the scholarly discussion and debate of electronic discovery issues and to foster cooperation among the bench and bar. Ms. Perkins is also an active member of the Sedona Conference Working Group 1, which is the leading "think-tank" on eDiscovery and she serves on the ESI Rules Committee for the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri. Ms. Perkins regularly counsels clients in all aspects of eDiscovery ranging from data retention to collection, review and production, including outsourcing options, early case assessment and vendor selection. In her capacity as eDiscovery counsel, Ms. Perkins manages projects for clients involving terabytes of data and she has a wealth of experience managing document review projects through the utilization of both onshore and offshore contract attorneys and through the use of cutting edge technologies, such as predictive coding. Ms. Perkins is widely known and respected in the national eDiscovery community as a thought leader through her numerous articles, alerts and speaking engagements on the all aspects of eDiscovery. Ms. Perkins’s greatest asset to clients, however, is her common sense approach to eDiscovery matters, which is derived from her thriving commercial litigation practice encompassing the financial services, life sciences and technology industries, including defense of product liability matters, ADA and TCPA litigation. In her own practice, Ms. Perkins "walks the walk" by implementing the very eDiscovery approaches about which she speaks and writes.
Lea Malani Bays is a partner at Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd in San Diego. Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd specializes in complex securities litigation on behalf of investors. Lea currently focuses on the firm’s electronic discovery issues from preservation through production and provides counsel to the firm’s multi-disciplinary e-discovery team. She is familiar with the various stages of electronic discovery, including identification of relevant electronically stored information, data culling, predictive coding protocols, privilege and responsiveness reviews. Lea also has also has experience in post-production discovery through trial preparation for a wide range of litigation.
Tom is a prominent eDiscovery lawyer and one of the nation's leading authorities on the use of technology-assisted review (TAR) in litigation. Tom advises corporations and law firms on best practices for applying technology to reduce the time and cost of discovery. He has more than 30 years’ experience as a trial lawyer and in-house counsel, most recently with the law firm Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis, where he was a partner and chair of the eDiscovery Practice Group.
Lawyer and experienced e-discovery consultant and a former litigator and trial attorney, specializing in commercial litigation, products liability and warranty litigation, construction litigation, insurance casualty and coverage litigation, and all aspects of e-discovery including data collection, processing, and advanced search and analytics.
After eighteen years in the practice of law, John advises clients on e-discovery strategies, admissibility of electronic evidence, along with best-practices for understanding and reducing data volumes to ultimately lower discovery costs.
John is a member of the EDRM Global Advisory Council, a co-chair on the Seventh Circuit eDiscovery Pilot Program, a member of WG 1 of the Sedona Conference, and President of the ACEDS Chicago Chapter. He has presented at continuing legal education seminars across the Midwest on e-discovery and technology-assisted review topics.
John received a J.D. from the John Marshall Law School and a B.A. from Michigan State University. He is admitted to practice in Illinois.
Tessa has practiced law at Husch Blackwell for 29 years where she is a partner and founder/co-chair of the firm’s eDiscovery Solutions group. Tessa has a strong understanding of the legal, technical, and strategic aspects of eDiscovery. She has served as lead eDiscovery counsel in numerous class actions and has led eDiscovery efforts for numerous companies that were the target of investigations by the Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Her practice focuses on discovery and related motion practice. She has vast experience with large volume litigation and works in the trenches handling preservation, collection, and managing review teams. Tessa also has tremendous expertise in using data mining tools and technology assisted review. A part of Tessa’s practice also includes working with clients to evaluate and create efficient, repeatable, scalable legal hold processes. Tessa frequently speaks on issues related to eDiscovery and is on the advisory boards for National eDiscovery Leadership Institute and the University of Florida eDiscovery Conference. She was recently appointed to the Sedona Conference Working Group 1 Steering Committee for a three year term. Prior to that, Tessa was the co-Editor-in-Chief of the Sedona Conference, Commentary on Rule 45 Subpoenas to Non-Parties, Second Edition, 22 SEDONA CONF. J. 1 (2020). Tessa is also rated by Chambers and Partners under E-Discovery & Information Governance, USA Guide 2022 and 2023. She is an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Missouri at Kansas City School of Law where she teaches a semester long upper level eDiscovery course. Tessa also serves on Husch Blackwell’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee. She founded and runs the Firm’s unique Diversity Liaison Program, a one-on-one mentoring, coaching, and sponsorship program for over 100 plus racially diverse and LGBTQ+ attorneys. Tessa is the inaugural recipient of Relativity’s Innovation Award, Attorney Evangelist Award in 2018. She was also named to Lawyers of Color’s inaugural list of Wonderful Women, 2023.
