February 15, 2017 | Jeanne Leblanc - School of Law

Shira A. Scheindlin Named 2017 Day Pitney Visiting Scholar

Shira A. Scheindlin, a retired judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York known for high-profile cases involving civil rights and public policy, is the 2017 Day Pitney Visiting Scholar at UConn School of Law. She will visit the law school on April 4, 2017, to speak on the […]

Retired U.S. District Court Judge Shira A. Scheindlin (Photo by Matt Furman)

Shira A. Scheindlin, a retired judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York known for high-profile cases involving civil rights and public policy, is the 2017 Day Pitney Visiting Scholar at UConn School of Law.

She will visit the law school on April 4, 2017, to speak on the topic of Race and policing in America: Past, Future and the Time in Between.

Scheindlin was appointed to the federal bench in 1994 by President Bill Clinton. She presided over numerous criminal and civil cases during her 22 years in the Southern District of New York, including Floyd v. City of New York, which challenged the New York City Police Department’s stop-and-frisk policy. Her other cases included Newton v. City of New York, Peoples v. Fischer, Casale v. Kelly, Brown v. Kelly and Finch v. New York State Office of Children and Family Services. Many of her cases advanced important new positions in the common law.

She has written extensively on a range of legal issues, particularly electronic discovery. She is the author of Electronic Discovery and Digital Evidence in a Nutshell and co-author of the casebook Electronic Discovery and Digital Evidence: Cases and Materials.

Before her appointment to the federal bench, Scheindlin served as an assistant United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, a magistrate judge in the Eastern District of New York and general counsel for the New York City Department of Investigation. She has been an adjunct professor for more than 30 years, teaching at Brooklyn and Cardozo law schools.

The Day Pitney Visiting Scholar program is presented by the Connecticut Law Review and underwritten by the Day Pitney Foundation, which promotes positive developments in law, legal scholarship, and legal and community education through contributions and volunteer efforts of the personnel of Day Pitney LLP. Other Day Pitney Visiting Scholars have included: Lawrence Lessig, Judge Michael Mukasey, Bob Woodward, and Supreme Court justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.