Eastern District chief US magistrate judge to join Judicate West

Kendall J. Newman, chief U.S. magistrate judge for the Eastern District of California, will retire from the bench on Feb. 7, and join the panel of neutrals at Judicate West.

“After talking with the folks who work with Judicate West, I felt it was the best fit,” Newman said. “It seems like the best place for me to continue helping parties through mediation.”

Newman has presided over several major matters, including settlement negotiations between the city of Sacramento and the family of Stephon Clark, an unarmed Black man shot and killed by police in 2018. Clark et al. v. City of Sacramento et al., 2:19-CV-00171, (E.D. Calif., filed Jan. 28, 2019)

The city settled a lawsuit with Clark’s parents for $1.7 million in August 2022. Clark’s two sons will receive $900,000 when they reach the age of 22.

Criminal justice was a part of Newman’s upbringing. His father, Donald J. Newman, a professor at University of Wisconsin, wrote two early and seminal books on criminal justice. Then he became a professor and dean of the School of Criminal Justice at the State University of New York at Albany.

“I’ve always been around the legal system — my father helped create the field of criminal justice and was the dean of a criminal justice school program, and my older brother is a lawyer,” Newman said.

After law school at William & Mary, Judge Newman joined Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in San Diego and then became an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of California. He transferred to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District in 1995. He was appointed a U.S. magistrate judge in 2010.

Newman said he loved his time on the bench helping people resolve their issues and will miss his daily interactions with his colleagues at the federal courthouse. But he said he has found everyone at Judicate West to be supportive, similar to the courthouse environment.

“It’s exciting to have that continuity despite the change in venue, and ADR provides a new avenue for meeting different challenges in the law,” he said. “Additionally, Judicate West’s remote mediation capabilities open up expanded opportunities for me to see family across the country while remaining professionally active and engaged.”