Andrew Peck

Career

The Honorable Andrew J. Peck served for 23 years (from February 1995 until his retirement in February 2018) as a United States Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of New York, including a term as Chief Magistrate Judge from 2004 to 2005. Before his appointment to the bench, Judge Peck was in private practice for 17 years, focusing on commercial and entertainment litigation, including copyright and trademark matters, with extensive trial experience.

At DLA Piper, Judge Peck advises on copyright and trademark matters, and also serves as a resource for the firm and its clients on litigation strategy and discovery (including cross-border discovery) issues, from a Judge's perspective. He frequently speaks at conferences concerning ediscovery issues. Since joining DLA Piper, Judge Peck has been retained to serve as special discovery counsel to clients and law firms, and to submit expert reports on ediscovery issues.

Judge Peck serves as an arbitrator, mediator, Special Master, and ediscovery expert witness. In addition to serving directly through DLA Piper, Judge Peck is on the arbitration and mediation rosters of the American Arbitration Association (AAA), Federal Arbitration, Inc., and National Arbitration & Mediation (NAM).

Judge Peck is ranked in Band 1 by Chambers and Partners in their 2024 Chambers USA and Chambers Global 2024 guide in Nationwide E-Discovery & Information Governance. Chambers commented that "He is very knowledgeable on litigation tactics, ESI and much more. He is not only a complete subject matter expert, but he can anticipate what the opposing side will say." The Legal 500 United States 2024 ranked DLA Piper's eDiscovery team in Tier 2 and ranked Judge Peck as a "Leading Lawyer," with client testimonials noting that Judge Peck is "very experienced in handling a variety of e-discovery matters," is "very innovative when it comes to dispute resolution," and "is highly respected in the practice area." Who’s Who Legal 2024-25 ranked Judge Peck as a “Global Elite Thought Leader” in Commercial Litigation – Ediscovery.

Judge Peck serves as a permanent member on the Steering Committee of the prestigious Sedona Conference Working Group 1 (discovery) as Judicial member emeritus.

Judge Peck is recognized internationally for bringing electronic discovery competency to the attention of both the judiciary and bar. His landmark decision in the 2012 employment class action Monique Da Silva Moore, et. al. v. Publicis Groupe & MSL Group, was the first judicial decision approving the use of technology-assisted review (TAR). By 2015, Judge Peck declared in Rio Tinto v. Valle that it was black-letter law that if the responding party wished to use TAR, courts would allow it. In the third of his trilogy of TAR cases, Hyles v. City of New York, he stated that while he preferred the use of TAR, neither the requesting party nor the court could require a reluctant responding party to use TAR.

On his retirement from the bench, the New York Law Journal in March 2018 called Judge Peck "one of e-discovery's most influential figures." Among the honors he has received, the American Lawyer named him to its list of the Top 50 Innovators of the Last 50 Years as its Judicial E-Discovery Innovator. In February 2022, he was awarded the Honorable Shira Scheindlin Lifetime Achievement in eDiscovery Hero Award, presented by Zapproved (now part of Exterro).