The Hon. Curtis E.A. Karnow

Judge Curtis E.A. Karnow serves on the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco. He has served in the complex litigation department, and is past Presiding Judge of his court’s Appellate Division. He was a member of California’s Judicial Council task forces and working groups on appellate division rules, temporary judges, electronic discovery, e-filing, and electronic access. Judge Karnow is a member of the California Supreme Court Committee on Judicial Ethics Opinions.  He was a member of the Council’s Committee on Civil & Small Claims, chairing the subcommittee on discovery and rules reform, assisting in drafting rules on e.g., case management, electronic discovery, sealing records, and summary judgment.  Judge Karnow is a graduate of Harvard College and his J.D. is from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was an editor of the Law Review.  He clerked for U.S. District Judge Louis Pollak (E.D.PA.), was an assistant U.S. Attorney, and is author of or contributor to 16 books in the legal field, including his Litigation In Practice and is co-author of the California’s leading treatise on civil procedure, Rutter Guide-Civil Procedure Before Trial, as well as other books and articles including on the legal process, discovery, experts, settlement, class actions, summary judgment, statistics, implicit bias, bail, and artificial intelligence.  Judge Karnow has lectured at law schools including Yale, University of San Francisco, Stanford, Hastings, and New York University, and teaches civil litigation to new and experienced California judges. In 2018 he received the California Judges Association’s Bernard Jefferson Award for Distinguished Service in Judicial Education.