14 Facts About Kandis Westmore

Kandis Arianne Westmore was born on January 5,1966 and is a United States magistrate judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

In 1997, Kandis Westmore obtained her Juris Doctor degree from the University of San Francisco School of Law.

Kandis Westmore then worked at an Oakland-based boutique law firm specializing in Plaintiff's civil rights litigation.

In 1999, Kandis Westmore joined the Oakland City Attorney's Office as a Deputy City Attorney, where she worked for thirteen years.

At the Oakland City Attorney's Office, Kandis Westmore served as a trial attorney and a law-and-motion attorney in the Litigation Division, where she led both offensive and defensive litigation on behalf of the City of Oakland, California and its employees in various federal and state cases involving labor and employment law, civil rights, inverse condemnation, and personal injury law.

On February 21,2012, Westmore was appointed as US magistrate judge for the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, serving in the Oakland, California division and taking the place of prior US Magistrate Judge James L Larson.

Kandis Westmore has served as President-Elect of the Alameda County Bar Association and volunteered for the ACBA Volunteer Legal Service Corporation's Pro Bono program, where she represented low-income individuals in family lawsuits.

Kandis Westmore serves on the Northern District of California's Conviction Alternatives Program and its Community Outreach Committee.

Kandis Westmore currently teaches Honors Evidence as an adjunct professor at Golden Gate University School of Law.

Kandis Westmore has given a commencement speech for the 2018 graduating class of Saint Mary's College of California.

Kandis Westmore is currently the only sitting African American US magistrate judge on the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

In December 2019, Kandis Westmore denied a motion for summary judgment and ordered the US Department of Labor as well as various Silicon Valley companies such as Oracle, Fitbit, Applied Materials, Gilead Sciences, Synopsys, DocuSign, Agilent Technologies, and Xilinx to disclose staff diversity reports in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting.

In 2019, Kandis Westmore ruled that the federal government, via law enforcement, cannot force suspects to unlock their smartphones with their fingers or with other biometric authorization features such as facial or iris recognition.

In 2018, Kandis Westmore denied the release of Cole White, the alleged Charlottesville rioter with connections to white supremacist groups.