Managing Discovery Disputes: Strategies from the Bench and the Referee’s Chair

Hon. Elizabeth D. Laporte (Ret.), Mediator, Arbitrator and Court-Appointed Neutral (Referee/Special Master) | JAMS

Judge Laporte joined JAMS in 2019 as a mediator, arbitrator and courtappointed neutral after more than two decades as a United States magistrate judge for the Northern District of California, where she also served as chief magistrate judge. On the bench she resolved hundreds of discovery disputes, conducted hundreds of settlement conferences, and presided by consent of the parties over one of the nation’s largest civil caseloads, spanning patent, trademark, copyright, business, class action, employment, insurance, environmental, antitrust and civil rights litigation. Since joining JAMS she has handled complex, highstakes matters in technology, software and pharmaceuticals, and has served as discovery referee and special master in disputes involving pharmaceutical product liability, internet privacy and multi-patent cybersecurity technology.

• Education & Credentials

Judge Laporte earned her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1982, an M.A. from Oxford University in 1977 as a Marshall Scholar, and a B.A. from Princeton University in 1975.

• Recognition & Leadership

She received the Judicial Leadership Award from the Electronic Discovery Institute in 2015 and was named a California Lawyer of the Year by California Lawyer in 1996. She previously served as the alternative dispute resolution magistrate judge for the Northern District of California and founded the court’s Women Attorneys Advocacy Project in 2015.

• Professional Involvement

Judge Laporte is the 2026 president of the Board of Governors of the Northern California Chapter of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers, after serving as its vice president in 2025. Her long involvement in electronic discovery includes service on the Judicial Advisory Board of The Sedona Conference from 2013 to 2019, judicial observer to its Working Group 1 on electronic document retention and production from 2008 to 2019, judicial co-chair of the Federal Judicial Center and Electronic Discovery Institute training program from 2017 to 2019, and chair of the Northern District of California’s local rules subcommittee on e-discovery in 2012. She has also served on the Patent Local Rules Committee of the Northern District of California, the board of the Federal Magistrate Judges Association, and the editorial board of the Federal Courts Law Review, and is a member of ChIPs.

• Experience

Judge Laporte served as a United States magistrate judge for the Northern District of California from 1998 to 2019. Before taking the bench, she was chief of special litigation at the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office from 1996 to 1998, an administrative law judge at the California Department of Insurance from 1991 to 1996, and a partner and associate at Turner & Brorby from 1983 to 1991. She clerked for the Honorable Marilyn Hall Patel in the Northern District of California and earlier worked as a policy planner and economist at the Federal Trade Commission. At JAMS she has mediated and arbitrated matters across antitrust, business, class action, employment, insurance, intellectual property, international, life sciences, privacy and civil rights disputes.

Hon. Lynn O’Malley Taylor (Ret.), Mediator, Arbitrator, Court-Appointed Neutral (Referee/Special Master) and Hearing Officer | JAMS

Judge Taylor is a full-time JAMS neutral with over 35 years of experience as a trial court judge. In 1982 she became the first woman elected to the court in Marin County, and she served three times as presiding judge. She has also sat in Contra Costa, Sonoma, Monterey, Napa, Sacramento and Orange counties, and for seven years in the San Francisco Superior Court through the Judicial Council’s Assigned Judges Program. As supervising civil law judge in Marin County she eliminated the court’s civil backlog by settling old cases and managing the remaining docket on realistic schedules, and she has settled hundreds of cases in partnership with mediation-trained attorneys and experts.

• Education & Credentials

Judge Taylor earned her J.D. from San Francisco Law School in 1972 and a B.A., cum laude, from the University of Arizona in 1964. Her mediation training includes Harvard Law School’s 40-hour mediation and 40-hour advanced mediation courses and an additional 40-hour mediation and conflict resolution program.

• Recognition & Leadership

She was inducted into the Marin Women’s Hall of Fame by YWCA San Francisco and Marin in 2019 and named Distinguished Citizen of the Year by the Marin Council of the Boy Scouts of America in 2010, which also awarded her its Silver Wolf Award in 2019. She served as presiding judge of the Marin County Superior Court from 2002 to 2003 and of the Marin County Municipal Court in 1986 and 1990.

• Professional Involvement

Judge Taylor was a member of the California Judges Association from 1983 to 2019, where she chaired the Retired Judges Committee and the Judicial Elections Committee. She served on the Judicial Council of California’s Advisory Committee on Civil Jury Instructions from 2004 to 2011, its Jury Instruction Task Force, and its Civil and Small Claims Advisory Committee, and on the CJER Civil Law Curriculum Committee from 2010 to 2019. She continues to teach in judicial and legal education programs, including Stanford Law School, the University of San Francisco School of Law and the California Judicial College, and most recently taught a course on advanced settlement conferences at the Center for Judicial Education and Research.

• Experience

Judge Taylor served on the Marin County Superior Court from 1991 to 2004 and the Marin County Municipal Court from 1983 to 1990, following a decade in general practice in San Rafael. She has been part of the Judicial Council’s Assigned Judges Program since 2004. Her docket has included some of the most complex multi-party construction, engineering and landslide cases, investment fraud, banking and civil rights matters, along with employment discrimination and wage and hour disputes, insurance coverage and bad faith cases, professional malpractice claims across medical, dental, legal, engineering and accounting fields, toxic torts, inverse condemnation, and real property disputes.

Janet Lee “Jayli” Miller, Esq., Arbitrator and Court-Appointed Neutral (Referee/Special Master) | JAMS

Ms. Miller joined JAMS after serving 15 years as the staff attorney for the Complex Litigation Department of the San Francisco Superior Court, where she worked on all phases of civil litigation, including court mediations, across hundreds of matters. Before becoming a neutral, she collaborated with JAMS’ top arbitrators and mediators, writing awards, consulting on motion practice and case management issues, and assisting with settlement allocations and neutral evaluations. She is known for grasping complex and nuanced legal issues and for devising cost-effective, pragmatic case management solutions, with the goals of treating every party fairly, resolving disputes fully and finally, and avoiding unnecessary costs.

• Education & Credentials

Ms. Miller earned her J.D., cum laude, from UC Hastings College of the Law, where she was elected to the Order of the Coif and received the Queen’s Bench Award, and her B.A. from Scripps College, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and received a Distinguished Thesis Award.

• Recognition & Leadership

She has served as a court-appointed discovery facilitator for the Marin County Superior Court since 2021 and as a court-appointed mediator for that court. While at the San Francisco Superior Court she helped create court procedures for JCCP consolidated mass tort actions. She has also served as board president of Bay Area Theatre Sports and as a board member of the Golden Gate Electric Vehicle Association.

• Professional Involvement

Ms. Miller is a member of Queen’s Bench, California Women Lawyers, the Marin County Bar Association and the Bar Association of San Francisco, and is trained as a Title IX external adjudicator for colleges in sexual assault and harassment cases.

• Experience

Ms. Miller brings 25 years of experience in the legal field, including litigation, trial, mediation, arbitration and special master work. In the Complex Litigation Department she worked on drug and medical device mass torts, consumer and commercial financial services, antitrust, unfair business practices, insurance coverage, employment, water rights, environmental and business disputes, along with hundreds of state and nationwide class actions. Her discovery reference matters include a nationwide class action concerning cell phone purchasers and a privilege dispute between an audio encoding corporation and a multimedia software producer. Earlier in her career she practiced as a litigator at Stein & Lubin, served as an attorney developer at LAWGIC.com, and worked as an applications programmer at Xerox Corporation.

SESSION 1 – Managing Discovery Issues in Litigation | 12:00pm – 1:00pm

Discovery disputes can significantly impact the trajectory, cost, and outcome of litigation. Drawing on the perspectives of two retired judges and experienced arbitrators, this program will explore practical strategies for managing aggressive and burdensome discovery requests, responding effectively to written discovery, and minimizing costly disputes. Panelists will also discuss techniques for reducing the likelihood of motions to compel, while preserving your client’s rights and positioning the case for trial or resolution.

BREAK | 1:00pm – 1:10pm

SESSION 2 – Signs Your Case Needs a Discovery Referee | 1:10pm – 2:10pm

Courts often mandate the appointment of referees or special masters when their dockets cannot accommodate numerous discovery disputes. But under certain circumstances, lawyers should consider requesting the appointment of a discovery referee. This webinar will discuss four indications that you could save money, expedite the discovery process, and improve the results of your case by appointing a referee. The webinar will also describe the process of using discovery referees in either courts or arbitrations and will suggest best practices to ensure that your time with a referee is well spent.