THE HONORABLE JOHN L. CARROLL
Judge Carroll is Dean and Ethel P. Malugen Professor of Law at the Cumberland School of Law, Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama where he teaches Federal Courts, Complex Litigation, Evidence and an on-line course in E-Discovery and Evidence. He received his undergraduate degree from Tufts University and holds law degrees from the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University (J.D.)(Magna Cum Laude) and Harvard University (LL.M.).
Judge Carroll served as a United States Magistrate Judge in the Middle District of Alabama for over 14 years. He is a former member of the United States Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and is former chair of its Discovery Subcommittee. He was also the chair of the Magistrate Judges’ Education Committee of the Federal Judicial Center.
Prior to becoming a judge, Judge Carroll was a Professor of Law at Mercer University School of Law in Macon, Georgia. Prior to entering academia, he was the Legal Director of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama. His trial experience includes major civil rights class action litigation and complex criminal defense including a substantial number of death penalty cases. He has twice argued before the United States Supreme Court.
Judge Carroll is a frequent lecturer and panel member at national seminars on the subject of the discovery of information in electronic form and other topics relating to federal courts. He is also the reporter to the Electronic Discovery Project of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws which is seeking to draft model electronic discovery rules for use by state courts.
His most recent publications are “Developments in the Law of Electronic Discovery”, 27 Am. J. Trial Advoc. 357 (2003) and “Preservation of Documents in the Electronic Age - What Should Courts Do?” which appears in the 2005 Federal Courts Law Review (www.fclr.org) at page 5.
