James PKleinberg
Judge
Santa Clara County Superior Court
Judge Kleinberg was appointed to the bench in 2002 by Governor Davis. Before coming to the bench, he had over thirty-two years of experience in commercial litigation with particular emphasis on antitrust and trade regulation, securities and intellectual property litigation. Following graduation from the University of Michigan Law School in 1967, he was a Trial Attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division working on civil and criminal cases. Judge Kleinberg has participated on numerous continuing education panels and CEB's federal practice institutes, was Chair of the California State Bar's Committee on Federal Courts, and chair of the Subcommittee on Public Offering Litigation of the Securities Committee of the ABA Litigation Section.
Richard E. Best
Commissioner
San Francisco County Superior Court
Richard E. Best is a Discovery Referee with ADR Services who served as Court Commissioner in San Francisco Superior Court from 1974 to 2003 where he adjudicated discovery disputes including e-discovery issues. Since 1998, he has published a website on civil discovery found at http://California-Discovery-Law.com. He has resolved issues, written and lectured extensively for judges, law students and lawyers, and drafted legislation and rules on discovery for over 30 years. When e-discovery emerged as an issue, he was invited to address the federal rules committee, state supreme court justices, the National Center for State Courts, and the Sedona Conference. In 2000, he formed a statewide committee of lawyers and experts to consider e-discovery rules in California.
BernardZimmerman
Magistrate Judge
U.S. District Court, Northern District of California
Magistrate Judge Bernard Zimmerman was appointed in 1995. With party consent, he has presided over a wide range of cases, including patent, trademark and copyright cases, class actions, contract and employment cases and civil rights, personal injury and admiralty cases. He has presided over more than 30 civil jury and bench trials and more than 1,000 settlement conferences. A 1970 graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, he clerked for the Honorable Frederick J.R. Heebe in the Eastern District of Louisiana and then taught law at the Louisiana State University Law Center. Returning to California, he was an associate and then partner at Pillsbury Madison & Sutro where he
had a general litigation practice focusing on media, banking, construction, insurance and business issues. In 1995, he served as Legal Consultant to the Third Constitutional Convention of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. He has taught Federal Pretrial Litigation at Hastings College of the Law. He is a member of the Intellectual Property Inn of Court and has participated in numerous panels addressing issues such as ADR, class actions and discovery.
Judge Curtis E. A. Karnow
Judge
San Francisco Superior Court
Judge Karnow serves int he Comp,led Litigation Department of the Superior Court of California, San Francisco County, and is Presiding Judge of the Appellate Division. He received his A.B. cum laude from Harvard University in 1974, and his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1977 where he was an editor of the Law Review. While in private practice, Judge Karnow specialized in antitrust, intellectual property, computer and internet law. He has served on many of California's Judicial Council committees and groups devoted to technology, electronic discovery, rules reform, temporary judges, civics and the law, appellate procedure, sealing records and summary judgement. Judge Karnow has lectured at schools including the University of Michigan Business School, Yale Law School, and the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, University of San Francisco School of Law, Hastings College of the Law, and he teaches a variety of civil litigation courses to new and experienced California judges.